18 months ago, you had no idea who Flume was. Now it's impossible to imagine our musical landscape without him.
He claimed four spots in triple j's Hottest 100 (including the highest local placement), he's selling out a massive national tour, and his self-titled debut album soared to the top of the Australian charts.
We caught up with the superstar producer to talk about "fucking up" One Direction and Justin Bieber, his next record, and how you can get your track a Flume remix.
You've just come back from a massive American tour. How'd that go?
It was great. Lots of dates. I started off at South by Southwest, then worked my way to WMC [Winter Music Conference], then all through North America and Canada for a month.
Was this the first time you'd played in America?
I went over there last year in October for a small music conference called CMJ. I played in New York and LA, but that's it.
Now that you've spent more time there, did you notice any major differences between American audiences and Australian audiences?
I guess the big difference I did notice was that here in Australia where it's become more of a commercial thing, a bigger thing, you obviously get big reactions for the big songs. Some of the smaller ones don't get as huge a reaction. Whereas overseas, I felt like I was playing to an Australian audience six months ago. The songs that don't have as many plays, the not-so-big songs, still get really big reactions from these kids who are super into music and come to the shows, rather than the average punter in Australia.
Was that weird at first, when you'd play the tracks that are bigger here and didn't get a bigger response?
Well, it wasn't that the big ones didn't get a bigger response, it's just that the smaller ones got a bigger response as well. You could tell they knew their shit. That's what it was like in Australia when I played six months ago. Everyone knew their shit. They knew everything I'd done, they were music heads. But the way it's changed now, it's not like that anymore.
Your Australian tour is obviously going to attract a pretty broad range of people. You're bringing the Infinity Prism on tour with you; where did this thing come from? Whose baby is it?
It was these two guys, Toby and Pete. They're based out of Redfern and they just do random shit. They did the Parklife video where the people are wearing the Chewbacca costumes, they've done a whole bunch of promo videos. They do a lot of creative stuff. We came to them and they came up with a bunch of different concepts,and we figured out the one which would work best and that we could actually achieve.
What they've done is they've actually made visuals from scratch for each particular song. Every song has its own visual that's audio reactive, they work with the music. I still have the freedom to change songs up as I want, and the visuals will still work with the audio and react the right way. So it's cool. It's kind of the next stage, I feel.
Daft Punk kind of set the standard for light shows back in 2007, was that an inspiration for this?
I guess they started it all. We were looking at stuff like Amon Tobin's crazy projections, but I guess they were an inspiration, too. What we really wanted was that performance aspect. What I do is not so visually stimulating, so having a really unique light show, something really special, that was the path we wanted to take.
Aside from the Infinity Prism, how does a Flume live show differ from a Flume DJ set, from a spectator's point of view?
Well, first of all, I'm pretty bad at mixing. Trying to mix my tracks is quite a challenge. [Laughs] Look, I've got, like, a drum pad now, and I've got different versions, live versions, of the songs that I'll play out. [The live show] is a lot more fun and it flows a lot better and I've got, I suppose, more control than in a DJ set. I can take it to places that I couldn't otherwise. I have the option to make the build-up extra long, or if it's not working so well, I can shorten things. All that kind of stuff. So it really puts me in the power seat, and I can play instruments, I can play keyboard parts. It's cool.
You said somewhere just recently that you used to be big into techno, house and trance, until that music essentially died for you in 2008 or 2009. What killed it for you?
It got commercial. I mean, that's not such a bad thing, I don't care about the fact that it's commercial, but when something gets commercialised, it gets... well, you know what happens. It gets wrecked. It just gets fucked. It gets dumbed down to its most basic form. So it just got really shit, basically.
Now I'm actually getting into some dance music stuff again, I feel like it's coming back, in an underground way. Guys like Duke Dumont. That Disclosure vibe is also a lot of fun. But nothing in that genre really excited me around that time, and that's why I moved away from it.
Given your aversion to commercial music, were you surprised how readily radio embraced your sound?
Yeah, of course. It's great. I'm super happy about that. I never made it for radio, and I'm trying not to... you know, obviously there are expectations on my head for whatever I do in the future, whereas before there weren't. But I'm trying not to think about any of that. I'm just making music for me and not being influenced by anything else. I just want to keep it pure, rather than contaminate it by thinking about making music for my audience.
I don't want to spoonfed them. I want to push them again, I want them to listen to something they might not usually listen to. I feel like that's my responsibility, because I'm in a little bit of a taste maker position right now. I could just sit back and write another record of similar stuff, and it'd probably do well. Kids would eat it up and I'd make money and that'd be fine. But what I want to do is something quite different, and push the kids to listen to something new. Hopefully it works, you know?
Yeah. That must be an incredibly exciting position to be in, to know you have that influence over an audience. Especially a younger, impressionable audience.
It's cool. It just means freedom. I always had that freedom, because I had no expectations, and now that I do [have expectations], I just want to make sure I've still got that freedom. Whatever I do from now on, I just don't want chart success or that kind of thing to have any impact on the music. I want to pretend that this record sold to five of my friends, and that's it, and it didn't make any money. I want to go into the next record in the same head space.
Do you think other people who have sold the sort of numbers you've sold in Australia, your One Directions, your Biebers, have a similar mentality? Or do you think you might be unique in that regard?
Well, it's a completely different beast. It's like apples and oranges. It's not really the same thing. They're on major labels, they know what the score is. You can't compare it.
Having said that, you must be happy your apples outsold their oranges.
Absolutely! It was really nice to see Australian kids get into something different. I like seeing myself up there next to P!nk and Bruno Mars and all these dudes. It's nice, because it's like, 'Man, we spent no fucking money on this release, and we're fucking you guys up, and it's awesome. I'm sure you're great dudes, but fuck you, Universal.' [Laughs] No, I shouldn't say that, I'm probably burning my bridges right there.
Have you found it strange, adjusting to being a celebrity? Having fans? Not just casual fans of your music, but, like, obsessive fans?
Yeah. It's funny how many people come out of the woodwork that you haven't spoken to for years. Girls that you haven't spoken to in years all of a sudden message you on Facebook, like, 'Hey, do you want to come out for coffee? Oh my god, I haven't seen you in ages!' You know? As if we were, like, best friends, even though we hardly knew each other.
How do you normally respond in that situation?
Well, if it's blatantly obvious... I know who my friends are, basically. I'm a good judge of that. And I just brush the rest. I just don't respond. Because it's obvious! It's like, fuck, man. I can see through it quite easily.
Aside from old friends trying to get in touch with you, you must have every artist in the world banging down your door for remixes. How do you decide who gets one?
First of all, I don't want to remix anything that I like too much. I mean, I have to really like it, but I have to have a vision of where I want to take it. If I think a track's perfect, I'm not going to touch it. If I don't think I could make it any better or put it into a new context, then I'm not going to. That's the first one. If it matches that criteria, it comes down to positioning.
I don't have much time, so what we're doing is, I'll do a remix for someone, but in return we'll get them to do, say, a vocal for my next record. Rather than money, we've been doing swaps. I'll do a remix for you if you do a vocal for me, or you do a remix for me down the line.
When people remix your tracks, is it weird to hear their take on it?
It is a bit strange. You're so used to hearing it one way, so when other people remix it, it's quite odd. But sometimes it really pays off. Like Ta-ku's remix of 'Left Alone', I was really stoked with that one. He absolutely nailed it.
Speaking of collaborators, you just spent some time in a beach house with Chet Faker working on some new stuff. What came out of that?
The music. We're buddies and we work super well together. All his strengths are my weaknesses and vice versa. We have a system now; we can just write music and it comes so naturally to both of us. It's great. We're definitely going to be doing lots more in the future.
Any dream collabs you want to tick off your list?
I think it'd be cool to work with Oliver from The xx. I've always liked his vocals a lot.
Is there anyone you wouldn't work with, under any circumstances? If someone pulled up to your house with a truckload of cash and said, 'Hey, Flume, let's get you on this new Pitbull track', that kind of thing...
Oh, there's a lot of people! There's not a lot of people I would work with. I have to really, really like their work. If Pitbull rocked up, it'd have to be a lot of cash. Like, a lot of cash. Like, 'I can buy an island with that money' cash...
Flume Dates with Chet Faker:
Mon Apr 29 — Hordern Pavilion (Sydney)Tue Apr 30 — Hordern Pavilion (Sydney)
Thu May 2 — Festival Hall (Melbourne)
Fri May 3 — Festival Hall (Melbourne)
Tue May 7 — Riverstage (Brisbane)
Wed May 8 — Thebarton Theatre (Adelaide)
Sun May 12 — Metro City (Perth)
Mon May 13 — Challenge Stadium (Perth)
Flume will also appear on the Groovin' The Moo tour
Sat Apr 27 — Maitland (NSW)Sun Apr 28 — Canberra (ACT)
Sat May 4 — Bendigo (VIC)
Sun May 5 — Townsville (QLD)
Sat May 11 — Bunbury (WA)
Flume will also appear at Splendour In The Grass on Saturday July 27 at North Byron Parklands.
