Catapult Music Interviews Gotye
Wally De Backer Defines Success and Tells Us About His ‘Tarzan Chest Expander’
There probably isn’t a nicer guy in the music industry than Wally De Backer of Gotye. His humility is refreshing in light of the rapid, international success of ‘Somebody That I Used to Know,’ particularly the success of it’s visual counterpart on YouTube. I remember stumbling across it last July when it had about 25,000 views, and as of this writing, it now has 153,562,530.
After playing to a sold out crowd at Seattle’s Showbox SODO last night and having just completed a grueling European tour as well as the majority of his US tour, the biggest challenges still seem to be looming. This weekend he goes on to be the musical guest of NBC’s Saturday Night Live and joins the Sunday line-up of Coachella 2012.
Gotye’s single, ‘Somebody That I Used to Know,’ featuring the very talented, Kimbra, has officially reached #1 on iTunes and judging by the crowds at two of the shows I’ve attended, he is reaching a very large and diverse audience. Although he denies any assertion of “Rock Star,” he certainly seems to be headed in that direction. All the while, the most important thing for Wally is that he is producing and writing music that he loves, and always creating something new and unique.
Catapult Music was lucky enough to catch up to Wally De Backer by phone, on January 23rd, to discuss his thoughts on his own success, how he survives a tour, and advice to other musicians who, like him, are trying to re-write pop music:
Catapult Music: Do you have any encouragement for other musicians who have been struggling to get attention in the industry?
Wally De Backer: Yeah, well persistence is just key I guess. And that’s not necessarily persistence until success, because you need to create your own success, create your own opportunities and create your own concept of what success is for you. I mean, I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve had a couple breaks all along the way, but I think that’s because in some ways my expectations have never been unrealistic or super high.
The highest expectations I have are really as a producer and a songwriter and trying to aspire to make better music, to be more expressive and to challenge myself to be more original, basically to strive further with the music I make. I’ve never really put too much emphasis on whether I’m ‘making it’ and such, I suppose as long as I feel like there’s development and I’m just sticking with it and being persistent and weathering the challenges that come along, or the knocks that inevitably come your way when you do anything creative. I think that the striving and the journey itself is the reason you do it.
CM: Is there a particular song on Making Mirrors that you are especially protective of?
WD: I’m very proud of the closing track, ‘Brontë’ and its quite resonant for me emotionally, because it was written about a friend’s experience. A friend had to let go of their long-time family dog. And I had this little piece of music sitting around that I hadn’t written the lyrics to yet, and I felt very strongly about the fact that they and their whole family were putting their dog down, I think at their home. I don’t know, it was almost like an out of body experience and I had this kinship with them. I had lost one of my pets in preceding months and I don’t know, it felt very emotionally raw for me. I felt like that managed to come through in the song and in the lyrics, so I am quite proud of how, to me, that still feels potent when I listen to it, it feels true to me.
‘State of the Art’ is the other track on the record that is kind of close to my heart and I think that I’m aware that it puts off some fans or some listeners, but that doesn’t really bother me too much. I think I like it because of the kind of novelty aspect it has and the sound-play; the combination of the peculiar concept with the way it sounds vaguely like some kind of alternative pop-rapping. I mean, I kind of see it as a pop song, myself. To me, it’s like the way I want pop to sound, kind of weird and you know, examining a weird sub-strata of culture that you don’t hear expressed in pop songs very often. But doing it quite directly and evoking a certain peculiar fascination of period of time or sound. So yeah, ‘State of the Art’ is one that in my heart of hearts I would love to see become a pop hit, but I’m pretty sure its never gonna happen. (laughs)
CM: What inspires you or stops you in your tracks and makes you want to write?
WD: Ah, well, like I said before, it can be just a very stirring life experience, so in the case of ‘Brontë’, that was very direct, I felt very much in the moment like I was sort of charged with translating this strong emotional headspace into lyric. It was written in a very short period of time, but the music sort of had to already be there for me to kind of bring the two together.
Other times, I don’t know, it seems that a lot of times things that have been floating around in my subconscious for a long time come out. I feel like in the case of, ‘Somebody that I Used to Know’, it was kind of an installation of lots of relationships I’ve had over the years, or there certain lines that relate to me, like to certain people, or to certain moments. But they’re all just kind of a vague, sort of an undercurrent, and they weren’t even really floating around as an undercurrent, they just bubbled up to the surface, so I was giving voice to that lyric or that song. Mainly because it was me responding to the emotional headspace that the particular samples and sounds that I was playing with put me in. So the guitar samples that started that tune off, and some of the other bits and pieces just sort of put me in this reflective kind of melancholy headspace and that is what brought those certain feelings and memories to the song.
CM: What did you learn from the worst show you’ve played?
WD: What did I learn, um, well, I think I had it recently, it wasn’t that long ago, (laughs). It was only about a month and a half ago at a festival in Australia. And what did I learn? Well, I learned that I probably shouldn’t play festivals with my 10 piece band, unless we have our full production requirements completely taken care of and I learned that you need a sound guy who is, um, very, very adept at dealing with all possible crap that can go wrong with the sound desk and has to have a plan B ready to go at a seconds notice.
CM: Good to know going forward, seeing as there are probably more festivals in your future, first and foremost Coachella.
WD: Yeah, Coachella, yeah that’s very exciting. So, yeah, that’s the ONE festival really, on the horizon. I’m not really aiming to do a lot of festivals. I’m lucky enough that my shows are selling out all over the world, which is great. So, I’m kind of keen that I can just create an aura at my own shows and focus more on that. And maybe as the production gets more feasible and we can take along more of our own gear and have more control of it internationally, it might be easier to do festivals. But to be able to really do those quick changeovers where you don’t have sound checks and where you’re trying to, in my case, produce complex music that varies greatly, song by song, on foreign stages where you don’t get to do sound check properly, so it’s a fair challenge.
CM: What is your favorite obscure record?
WD: Oooo, that’s a good question. Let’s see, I can give you a track that just jumped to mind. I don’t think the whole record is amazing, although it is very interesting. It’s a track called, ‘I’ve Been Over the Rainbow’, and I don’t really know who the vocalist is because she’s not really credited on the copy that I have. But its from, I think the 60’s, from a record called “The Wozard of Iz”, which is basically like a psychedelic, moog, synthesizer-laiden, electronic version of the “Wizard of Oz”. And yeah, a lot of it is kind of crazily hokey. It’s a sort of experimental, sort of electronic arrangement and mostly pretty questionable character acting from the vocalists (laughs). But then there is this incredibly beautiful moment that has this really poignant synthesizer playing a little bit like a folk guitar and this really striking female vocalist who sings this song, ‘I’ve Been Over the Rainbow’ and that’s one of my favorite songs ever, and yeah its hugely obscure.
CM: Being from Belgium, do you have a favorite Belgian beer?
WD: Ah, I don’t drink a lot, but I do like a lot of Belgian beer. So if I was pressed, I would probably order something like a Duvel.
CM: You are about to head out on an extensive tour to Europe and North America, what is the one thing you will not be leaving home without?
WD: Well, on this tour, I’ve promised myself one of my necessary items is a Tarzan Chest Expander. I found it in an antique shop recently. It’s like one of those old school springing things that guys do for muscle length. Yeah, so had been looking for one, well, not looking for one, but kind of had it in my mind to get, thinking, how can I get a travel-able implement with which I could kind of work out with on the road? Because at times, I’ve felt depressed and really run down on tour and thought to myself that I really need to exercise, just to keep my headspace more positive. So yeah, I’m gonna pop that in my suitcase, it’s light, but if it helps me get a bit of a workout in the venue and get ready for the next day’s show, you know, it should be good. So that’s this tours’ ‘indispensable’ item (laughing).
For more on Gotye, visit his site: www.gotye.com
