In between a standout performance at this year’s Splendour in the Grass and launching his new album at the Sydney Opera House on August 20, we caught up with one-man indie pop success Gotye for a quick chat about where the Belgium-born artist to find out how to correctly pronounce his name and how long all that body paint took to put on.
How do you pronounce your name exactly?
Gore-ti-yeah, as in Jean Paul Gaultier. I often say to people it’s however you pronounce his surname, which results in a few variations, but a lot of people do then go, “Oh right, Gaultier...”
Where did the name come from?
Ah... I made it up [laughs]. My mum used to call me Gaultier when I was a kid – it was a bit of a pet name. It’s kind of a translation of my Flemish birth name which is Wouter – which is kind of hard for English speakers to pronounce even at the best of times [laughs]. Mum spoke French as well as Flemish because we're – my mum and dad and I – are all from Belgium, so Gaultier was an English translation of my Flemish name Wouter. I kind of recalled it when I was in my early 20s and I was looking for a personal sort of name for my project.
Does your European background influence you at all?
I guess I always felt like my family was a little bit different from a lot of my friends' Aussie families when I was growing up in the suburbs in Melbourne. I think I had – and still do have – this kind of strong, but a little bit vague, connection to Belgium. It’s a country that I’ve gone to visit relatives and been to for a few weeks at a time over the course of my life, but I still don’t really know [Belgium] very well.
What would say was your biggest musical influence?
I hear from a lot of corners that you can never really shake your formative musical influences from when you’re a young kid, or especially when you’re a teenager – you know, when you’re really obsessive about certain types of music. So if that’s true, then I guess maybe the English band Depeche Mode must be some kind of formative influence for me because I was so hooked on them when I was a teenager. They kind of very much, almost fully, informed my desire to be a songwriter and a producer when I was a teenager and into my early 20s. Since then, I guess I have branched out and opened up a lot more. I’ve opened up to lots of different types of music but maybe they were a starting point for me.
On your new single Somebody That I Used To Know, you work with Kimbra. Who else would you like to work with?
I’d love to do some stuff with my friend Tim Shiel who plays laptops and keyboards in my band. He makes music under the names Faux Pas and Time Shield and I’ve always wanted to do a collaborative project with him. I’d love to do some music with my girlfriend Tash Parker, who I’ve sung with on stage and who I’ve produced a little bit of stuff for. I’d love it if we could do a record together. One of my idols is Kate Bush and I’d love to work with her, but I think that’s highly unlikely, [laughs] but if it was possible... I think she’s amazing.
What else inspires you?
The world around me, particularly art. I’ve always been a big fan of Paul Klee and Klimt – I’m really fascinated by his use of colour and of texture in his work. Sometimes just looking at art and all the colour in it, you kind of play with it... and I suppose I play with colour and abstract art sometimes, and that makes me want to make music. Apart from that, I’m inspired by just the experiences in life that lead to ideas for lyrics.
Are your songs based on real-life experiences?
They are... but not necessarily neatly captured in one song. People have asked me about whether Somebody That I Used To Know is about a specific relationship – it’s not really, but I guess it has elements of real relationships and experiences and things I’ve thought about over the years kind of rolled into one. So yes, they’re based on real experiences but there’s also an element of fiction.
How long did the film clip for Somebody That I Used To Know take to shoot?
It was kind of like three days worth of time squashed into two. I worked closely with a skin illustrator called Emma Hack from Adelaide – she’s really amazing. The director of the film clip, Natasha Pincus, suggested we get Emma involved with the body painting concept. Emma is phenomenal; she’s renowned around the world for her work so it was really great to work with her.
You just played at Splendour In The Grass. How was that?
It was great; very exciting. It was an amazing festival and I think everybody just seems to be having such a great time – it just has such a good feeling to it, despite how big everything was and how much music there was to see. The crowd for my set were really phenomenal and deafeningly loud – I clocked them at about 115 decibels, which is equivalent to a jumbo jet flying 10 metres over your head!
That must have been amazing to hear from on stage...
Yeah, pretty insane! It was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard – in an audience screaming back at me. I also saw a heap of other great bands over the weekend so all in all, it was fantastic.
What’s the best gig you’ve ever played?
I don’t know... I’d say I probably enjoy the ones in quieter environments – festivals are fun but sometimes with my music, I find it a real challenge because my music is quite dynamic.
Do you prefer a more intimate setting?
I think I could probably get better at tailoring my music to work more specifically for a festival audience; be more about communicating directly to people in the crowd and “doing festival things” – that’s what the guy from Elbow said when I was watching him on the main stage. They're from Manchester and he’s really lovely; he was really personal towards the crowd and said things like “Come on folks, let’s do festival things...” [laughs]. I thought it was really cute because he was just very direct and making a statement about, ‘well we’re at a festival, playing music, let’s get together and make this really clear!’
I think the shows that I’ve enjoyed the most musically was when I did a series of shows at The Athenaeum in Melbourne in 2008 with the first version of this large band – a mini orchestra that I put together. That was pretty special because the sound was great and the audience was really quiet and we could do some delicate things on stage, so I really enjoyed that.
You’re also launching your new album Making Mirrors at the Sydney Opera House on August 20. What can we expect to see?
A large band – there’s 10 pieces, including drums and percussion and horns and lots of other things. The visuals to most songs are being done by a whole different range of animators I’ve been working with who are really brilliant. You can expect a wild, lovely, varied, multi-coloured live animation show with some pretty diverse music things happening live on stage from a large ensemble of people singing and playing.
Has animations and graphics always been something of interest to you?
Yeah, I like graphic novels and I like animation because it’s like being in a different world. That’s kind of what I hope for with my music – that it’s kind of like living in another world; it’s not tied to images of a world that we know and see with our own eyes, rather it’s more magical; it feels more other-worldly.
What made you decide to launch your album with such a big project?
The guys from Sydney’s Graphic Festival and the Opera House approached me about being part of their weekend festival – it was obviously an amazing opportunity to play at the Sydney Opera House and to develop visuals which could kind of define my show. It was something they pitched to me and I worked through it and thought it was a really fantastic opportunity.
For more information and tickets to Gotye's Making Mirrors album launch, visit sydneyoperahouse.com/graphic.
No comments:
Post a Comment