I like pop music, and I like really weird, strange stuff. It just didn't feel like there was anyone doing both.
— Flume
What it is now is basically, I'll sit on my computer; I basically kind of play the computer as an instrument, I guess you could say. I guess I play the Mac. And how it works is, say - I have a program called 'Ableton Live.' And, you know, you'll open it up, and it's just blank. There's nothing there. And then you start.
I'm a really heavy sleeper. When I wake up I'm a terrible morning person.
Back in the day, I had this fluoro pink hoodie that I thought was the coolest thing ever. Left it at a party and never saw it again. Probably the best thing that could have happened.
For me, I would prefer to not have my face on the album cover. I don't mind being in the public, but it's just not really my personality, and it's not really why I'm into this. I like making art, and that's it. I don't really want to be a celebrity, seriously. I like my privacy.
I find that if I interact more, the crowd gets way more into the music. We also have a full live show happening, and I have lighting crew that travels around with me. We've got this Infinity Prism thing, which is lots of fun. It's an optical illusion device that we carry around.
I don't mind playing my music live. It's fun. But what my real passion is is writing music.
Music is a job, but I figured out ways to get my mind into a place where I could be creative. I actually discovered meditation. It enabled me to clear my mind of all the drama and focus on the music.
Combining sounds that are from another universe with the classic songwriting structures never gets old for me.
The minute I saw the front page of the 'Daily Telegraph' - me with my arm around the latest 'X-Factor' contestant - I realised I'd gone into a new realm.
I struggled with the pressure of having the successful record after the first record. Second album syndrome. I'm living proof; it's very real. It was like a psychological battle to be creative. I used to never feel pressure to be creative; it's always just been a fun thing. And then suddenly it's my job, and people are asking, 'Where's the record?'
I feel like I ask people who have been in the industry for a while a lot of questions.
I've never been a rap guy, I don't really know that much about rap music, to be honest. I like it, but I think what really happened was just my music seems to work so well with rap music.
It's quite fun to mess with the human voice. It's quite special in the sense that the voice is the #1 instrument that we can connect with; it doesn't sound too alien. I think that's the key is to find the line between sounding human and sounding robotic. That's an area that I like to explore a lot.
I wanna make weird stuff.
I love heavy music. I keep Flume nice and melodic, so I save the angry, testosterone-fueled heavy stuff for What So Not. I think it's a good defining thing for the two projects.
I'm not into the attention thing so much.
A lot of electronic music out there feels cold. I want to incorporate a human element.
On stage, I like to dress up a bit. I'm not scared to be like a character up there.
I think, in the early years, my biggest influences would have been... Daft Punk was a huge one for me, I bought their main record when I was nine; at a young age, I was into music. The Prodigy, Gorillaz were big ones.
I had this little Bon Iver phase a few years back; 'Flume' was one of my favourite songs.
Australia is so influenced by America. It's kind of in-between the U.K. and the States.
I want to be creative in as many different environments as possible, whether it's doing film scores, writing for TV ads or video games - all sorts of stuff, as long as it requires writing music.
Everyone can write their melodies and chords and pianos and guitars, but what hasn't been discovered yet are tones and textures, and that's very exciting. Probably the No. 1 most important thing in my music is not to sound like anyone else.
There's no person I aspire to be. I'm just doing my own thing and seeing what happens - not looking to something and trying to be that.
I was nine, and I was shopping in a supermarket with my dad. There was this cereal, and it had a special promotion with a CD inside the box that had a really simple music-making program on it. I got it, and that opened my mind to being able to make music on a computer and seeing all the different layers.
Great songwriting will never die - it's in the DNA of music - but what's new and exciting is pairing that with new sounds that technology is enabling us to make.
'Sleepless' was the first thing that came out and really gained a lot of traction online.
When I heard Flying Lotus, I was like, 'Wow, okay, everything can be off the grid.'
I'd like to do some crazy art installations and design some weird synthesizers and work with other people and make some fun stuff for a bit. Maybe tap into virtual reality stuff or maybe write another record... We'll see.
In the right context, you can make ugly sounds, different sounds feel right at home.
I'm a huge fan of Flying Lotus. I like The XX's stuff.
I feel like I've got a pretty good presence online through Instagram and Facebook. I just keep it simple.
I know how to make a record that commercial radio or Triple J will smash now... It's kind of hard to stay true and write what you would write if you didn't have that in your head. Because I know I can get way more airplay and get this much bigger... and that's what I'm trying to avoid doing. Trying to avoid the poisons of success.
I can't sing, but I'll sing over this chord progression, like, over and over, for however long it takes - sometimes it's, like, two minutes, sometimes it's 20 minutes - until I've found like a hook or something that I'm really happy with. And then, basically, it just like that's my melody, and that's where I start from.
I love working with people and having them bring something to the table that I couldn't. I think one of my favourite artists to work with has been Kucka. She's Australian, too, and it's great working with her because we kind of have a very similar take on music, and we like a lot of the same stuff. We're not super-precious about ideas.
My main inspirations come from early '90s Trance, the French electro movement round '06, then a bunch of artists like Flying Lotus, J Dilla, Moby, The Prodigy. So I'd say it's some kind of experimental electronica with a strong hip hop influence. It's chilled, but people can still get super crazy and dance to it.
I think I put a lot of special attention towards creating interesting textures and unique sounds. Music essentially boils down to two main elements: rhythm and melody. I feel tones and textures often get overlooked, so I like to take my time finding the right sounds.
I'm not thinking about the next record really yet. I kind of want to do a bunch of stuff with Jonathan Zawada, the guy who did the album art. I'd like to do some crazy art installations and design some weird synthesizers and work with other people and make some fun stuff for a bit. Maybe tap into virtual reality stuff or maybe write another record.
I've never been one to want to be the center of attention and be put up on stages every night. That's just not really my personality. I'm comfortable with it now, but my real passion is being creative.
There's a lot of creativity in the industry, but I don't necessarily think that the most creative DJs or producers are always the biggest ones. I think it would be nice to see more of an open culture to different music. I think that's happening. With Spotify, I think people are discovering a lot of artists they might not discover otherwise.
Meditation is a really powerful tool I have for life now. The only reason I know about it is because I was stressing about writing and a friend taught me it. It's been useful.
I'm just trying to work out how to write music now, because I've never had the opportunity where my number-one priority is writing music. I don't know how my brain works yet.
The thing I find frustrating about rock music is, how different can you make an acoustic drum kit sound, an electric guitar and vocals? It's very stuck, whereas with electronic music, new sounds are being created.
I'm always really curious about, you know, 'How do you deal with success psychologically?' and all this stuff.
For me, I actually come from an electronic dance music background: house music, electro house, trance music, even. When I was coming out of school, basically, I discovered Brain Fever, Flying Lotus, J Dilla and all that. That was when I got excited about hip-hop and when the Flume project started.
I feel like I need to continuously keep evolving and moving.
Every kid has a laptop; everyone can make music, so in order to stand out, I think it's important to find that sonic identity, I think my sonic identity - and mine is finding these weird sounds that may not necessarily sound that musical, and make them sound musical.
What So Not used to be a lot more dance-y, and now it's becoming a lot more melodic. Flume has always had that melodic thing, but it's starting to become a bit heavier, so it's just difficult to navigate between the two.
I want to fuse the abrasive and the beautiful.
