Features
Chet Faker: ‘I’m Still Finding My Voice’
By Doug Wallen
One of Australia’s biggest global success stories of the past few years, crooner/producer Nick Murphy has released his first album as Chet Faker following several abandoned attempts. DOUG WALLEN talks to him at length about the winding road to ‘Built on Glass’. Photo by LISA FRIELING.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] By the time Chet Faker got around to releasing his debut album in April, he was already well established enough to top the ARIA Album Chart for two weeks and sell out landmark theatres in Melbourne and Sydney (the Forum and Enmore, respectively) multiple times over.
Built on Glass may be only the first LP from the Melbourne songwriter, singer, musician and producer born Nick Murphy, but it almost feels more like a victory lap after the continual spoils of the past two years: from the breakout EP Thinking in Textures and slots on pretty much every Australian festival in sight to a sweet US record deal and a team-up with Flume. Even the notoriously picky Pitchfork seem to approve, and Chet Faker has been in high demand touring overseas. (Although not everyone’s gotten on board.)
It’s funny, then, to remember that Murphy scrapped two finished attempts at a debut album – one very lo-fi and one very glossy – before arriving in the middle with Built on Glass. For an album that now seems to have been predestined for success, Murphy spent many hard months overthinking and tinkering with it, even considering ditching the self-produced route at one stage. Interviewed in mid-March, before the LP’s release, his uncertainty comes across – but so too does his satisfaction with the final product, and a confidence he’s had to earn.
You scrapped several versions of the new album, leading up to this version. What was the reason for that?
There were lots of phases for this record. There were these first two phases, which both produced albums of sorts. The intellectual side of it was overbearing the music side, if that makes sense. Like, I was trying too hard to make a certain type of record, rather than letting the music take its own direction. So I wrote this first record, which was this … I don’t know what it was. I remember playing it to someone and they told me it was really polite. Which was the perfect description of this first one.
It was 12, 13 tracks, and none of those songs got used on the final album. I was like, “This is wrong.” It didn’t feel like me. It felt like some sell-out vibe. And then I went in the other direction completely. I lost sight of that … I like a good hook and feel-good vibes, and I lost that as well. I was like trying to reinvent music, trying to get every sound to be something you’ve never heard before. Then I just relaxed after those two and was like, “You know what? I’m just gonna write it.”
And I ended up landing somewhere in between the two, which was the record that’s coming out.
Did any of the songs from the second scrapped album end up on the final album?
Not really. I mean, ‘Talk is Cheap’ and ‘Gold’. Which are the singles, weirdly enough. Or, like, the most single-y, whatever the fuck that means. They were on the second one. But they were different versions. Those two have been revamped again. I’ve got like 60 that didn’t make this record. I wrote so much. So most of the ones on this record aren’t left over.
Do you usually write pretty quickly?
Ah … yes and no. [Laughs] I write a lot so … if I’m stuck I’ll move onto to something new. I don’t like banging my head against the wall. At the same time, once I move on that song’s not dead. I’ll come back to it. But while I’m writing it’s very quick. I’ll often put songs on the backburner and maybe come back a couple months later and do it again.
While you were doing these earlier versions, you were self-producing in your home studio. Did you ever take those scrapped versions as a sign that maybe you should be working in an outside studio with a proper producer?
Yeah, I did. [Laughs] There were definitely points where I was even looking for a producer. There were even a few emails sent, and talk about it. But that’s part of the process. You doubt yourself and then you’re confident that you can do it. I really thought I couldn’t do it, but then I suddenly got inspired and I could see in my head what I wanted to do and I could see that I could do it.
Can you tell me any of the producers you were considering?
Well, Philippe Zdar was one that I was pretty keen on. There were a few others; I can’t even remember. There were a few names floating around. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself at that point. But that’s part of the process. You have to think you can’t do it, in order to do it sometimes. With a big project, anyway.
“I was really thinking in vocal world. I’m sick of them now.”
How do the songs usually begin? On guitar or keyboards, or using a loop? What’s the most common genesis?
It really does change every time. I don’t have that much of a method. But vocal melody is usually one of the first things I’ll go for. Nowadays most of my songs are written in my head, in the sense that I’ll have an idea and I might record it on my phone. But I’ll just keep playing around with that idea in my head, changing the words a little bit. I’m finding that my memory’s getting a lot better with being able to keep melodies in there. I always record them, but once I record them I find it a lot easier to remember. Often a chorus or a verse, I’ll just work on that. And when it gets to the point where I’m like, ‘That’s dope,’ I might sit in the studio and work out the chords or a beat and then start producing it.
But then, also, sometimes I might be doing that and then go ‘This isn’t working’ and then start a whole brand new song. I might do the beat first and then do the vocals. It does tend to vary, but usually the vocals is one of the things I’m thinking about a lot. At least with this album, anyway. I was really into vocals, thinking in vocal world with this record. I’m sick of them now. [Laughs]
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.]It got me thinking about it because the guitar on ‘Dead Body’ stood out to me, but with other songs the keyboards stood out.
Guitar was something I wanted to add more to this record. Actually, it wasn’t that conscious. I just kept pulling the guitar out. I think because guitar can be a lot more percussive, or at least the way I know how to play guitar. With keys I can be really chord-based; it’s just a bad habit. The guitar was inspiring me a lot more on this record. There did turn out to be a lot more guitar on this record, certainly more than anything I’d done previously.
‘Dead Body’ [with a guitar solo played by guest Cleopold] … that was a weird one. That was an outcome of like four different songs. The song kept becoming another song and another song and another song.
What was the first instrument you learned how to play, and how old were you?
I did piano for like half a year when I was really young, and then stopped. But then I also played saxophone for two years in primary school and stopped. Then I did drums for three years and stopped. [Laughs] And then I got a guitar bought for me and I never had lessons for that so I never stopped. [Laughs] But then when I was 15 I started getting piano lessons again for three years. The piano feels like the first thing I ever started learning, but so does guitar. It was the same year [for both]. Those early years don’t really like … I just went to lessons. I was never really into it.
“When I did that EP, I was sittin’ at home just smoking ciggies all day in my garage.”
But in terms of feeling comfortable on an instrument? Keys. That’s my home. But it used to be guitar, when I was 15 or 16, and I’ve kind of been looking back on that a little more. I’m into the guitar at the moment. Obviously.
You talked about vocals on the record. It definitely struck me that you were more focused on the singing and trying to do more with your voice, from the first track [‘Release Your Problems’].
Yes. Also, I toured for the last two years and I got better at singing. When I did that EP, I was sittin’ at home just smoking ciggies all day in my garage. But then you start touring the world and playing night after night … also, I was 22. That’s a weird age for a singer. They say your voice doesn’t fully mature until 25 and I’m 25 now, so I’m still finding my voice in a sense. I think with this album, yeah, that was something I was exploring. It was working out ‘How do I sing? What is the way I like singing?’
‘No Advice’ is credited as the “airport version” – is that something you were tinkering with between flights?
Yeah. That had drums originally. It has this kind of chain-gang vibe to it. I took the drums out at the airport and added that ambient synth. It’s a cheeky little reference to Brian Eno: Music for Airports. Which I was listening to at the time. It made sense: I was at an airport so I was like, ‘Oh hell, I’m gonna make this the Airport Version’.
Is it hard to keep track of all the versions a song goes through?
It used to be, but now I label them correctly.
You’ve got a filing system in place now?
I wouldn’t say that, but I definitely label them. So if I can find them, I know what it is. I usually remember where a song’s at. I think when you write them it becomes so default and ingrained in your psyche. But having said that, I do forget about songs sometimes and then find them and go, ‘This is good. Why did I leave this?’ But I’m a believer that the best stuff comes out on its own.
Were there certain influences you can point to for this record?
Not really. I went through so many shifts, and it was two years. I listen to a lot of music in two years. The record I probably listened to more than once during this was Voodoo by D’Angelo. But yeah, not really. I’ve never been a big fan of citing influences, though, unless it really has influenced the record directly.
Have you done any covers since ‘No Diggity’?
Well, I did ‘Archangel’, which is a Burial cover. That was a while ago. But ‘No Diggity’, that’s done enough for me to not have to worry about a cover for a while. [Laughs]
“I started to become really interested in simplicity.”
Tracks like ‘To Me’ and ‘1998’ feel quite polished. Did you have come to terms with the fact that, whatever you did, it couldn’t be like the EP? It couldn’t have the same personal, lo-fi thing. You eventually had to take it to the next level…
No one does the same thing forever, right? Even when I was doing that EP, I guess in the back of my mind I assumed that one day I’d do a more hi-fi record. Maybe. But I still think this record has the lo-fi thing. With ‘1998’, that’s like as lo-fi as house really gets. Or close to, anyway. ‘To Me’ was one of the last songs I wrote on the record, and ‘1998’ was one of the last ones I mixed. I started to become really interested in simplicity in mixes and recordings. I used to hate it a lot. I found it so boring. I really liked full mixes with a million things going on, and the ground buzzes and hums. It just meant more to me.
But towards the end of this record I started listening to songs and realising that there’s something in that cleanliness as well, and I became really impressed with people who could balance a mix with only like four parts going on. ‘To Me’ felt like a whole new type of song, or production level, for me. It’s just guitar, a kick and a snare, and vocals. Then there’s two synth bits. Some of the other songs have like 32 tracks on it. I didn’t feel like I had to move on because of anything with Thinking in Textures; it was just a real natural progression. As a musician I just started getting more interested in other things.
For every song on that record, there’s another 10 that didn’t make it. So my progression probably seems quicker than it was.
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