Stan Walker recently tied the knot with the love of his life, Lou Tyson. But when announcing that the couple were headed for the aisle, the musician said that it took around 15 times for Lou to say yes.
Now, the Come Back Home singer has revealed to New Idea what exactly went down with those first 14 proposals.
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“We already knew that we were going to get married. It wasn’t a matter of if but when,” Stan tells New Idea about the engagement.
“So that was my joke, but I never was joking, I was like ‘Will you marry me?’ and she goes ‘Yes’, but when I actually asked her, I was like ‘No, really, I’m asking you properly now’.”
“And then I just said my little thing and got emotional and said: ‘Will you marry me?’ and she said ‘Yes’.”
And it’s not just Lou that Stan is smitten over, with the musician equally gushing over his stepson, Te Puuwairua, who the 31-year-old affectionately describes as a “big love heart”.
“He’s just the most loving little boy and when I say that, he really is. He just loves to be loved and he loves love. He loves hugs, he loves kisses. He’s just such a beautiful-natured boy and I’m not very biased, I’m very honest,” Stan says to New Idea, before also describing Te Puuwairua as “so intelligent.”
His favourite moments with his little one come with “waking up in the morning to him”.
“He comes dawdling in our bed and jumps in and traps us. He puts his arms and he traps your head in so you can’t move. I love that. It’s annoying because he keeps moving and he’s tapping on our head and hands on the face and you’re like ‘Stop son, stop doing that’. But I love it. I’ll never get sick of that.”
It’s clear that family is at the heart of what Stan does, with his wife Lou even featuring alongside him in his new music video for his latest single, Come Back Home. Stan explains that the footage will go down in their family’s history
“While we were shooting it, we (he and Lou) looked each other and we were like, this is more so for us than anyone else. We get to have that, our kids will have that, our kids’ kids will have that; it will go down with our family of where Lou’s from, so it was beautiful.”
He goes on to tell New Idea that he and Lou had a blast filming it, picking out their outfits and making sure they nailed their music video walks, which usually ended with the pair of them in hysterics.
“I was like ‘When you walk, it’s not how we walk normally, we’ve got to turn it on a little bit like we’re on a runway’. So we were cracking up through the whole thing, just laughing at each other.”
The song itself describes the ups and downs of a relationship in an immensely vulnerable way. For Stan, music is the place he can most let his guard down and share his personal journey, as well as the journeys of others.
“I think music is where I’m most pure and I feel like I get to not just tell my story but tell other peoples’ stories,” he says.
“Every song that I have, whether it be a song about riding a bicycle, or me having a heartbreak, or me falling in love… it’s all a part of who I am and a part of my journey and that is just as important to me because it’s part of my soul and it captures a moment in time for me.”
And his vulnerability certainly resonates with his fans, many of whom see themselves in the singer’s words and visuals, particularly when it comes to the representation of Māori culture.
“I don’t have to be back home or sing in my own language to represent my culture because I am, that is my makeup, that’s my DNA, so it’s always going to be in me, that’s how I operate,” Stan tells New Idea.
“But it is important to me to have representation out there in every way because, for me, everything that I do, and everything you see on screen or hear of me, it’s so normal for me and my people and my friends and family.
“My heart is for my people, and Indigenous people, you know, we’ve been kind of in the shadows for so many years, so my goal is always to encourage and uplift and empower our people and empower indigenous people.”
The singer then shows his tattoos to New Idea, saying that “every single groove, every single mark tells a story”.
“That’s our story there to be proud of, and that runs deep in our blood and in our genealogy. My goal is always to encourage our people to be proud of who they are, to be outrageous, to be incredible, to be unapologetic and to step up in all of who they are.”
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