Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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.
The thing I find frustrating about rock music is, how different can you make an acoustic drum kit sound, an electric guitar and vocals?
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.
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 just want to write another record that's as good or better than the one I've already made. That's my main goal, to follow up stronger than before.
Once you make something you think it's awesome, but it's only after you listen to it for a few weeks then you actually get a proper perspective on it.
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.
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.
It was a difficult second record. I had moments where I couldn't write; had moments where I was writing lots. It was just a massive learning process for me.
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?'
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.
I've been having meetings with people, just everywhere in the world, and it's like, 'Hey, really love you to work with me, send me some ideas.' That's the crazy part.
Once I'm in a situation where I can not do anything for three years and go off the map, I'll focus more on writing. Right now, I want to just make Flume awesome... and big.
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.
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 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.
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.
To me it's all about textures, and that's the side of music that I'm finding really exciting. I feel like it's one of the only parts of music that mankind hasn't fully discovered yet.
I've grown up by the beach all my life, and I almost get anxiety if I haven't been swimming for a couple weeks or a month. It kind of builds up, so I try and get out as much as possible.
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.
My parents used to play me this album when I couldn't go to sleep. It was called 'Deep Forest.' I think it was a self-titled record. It's actually still one of my favorite albums of all time.
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.
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.
I always regret leaving home if I don't get at least four or five surfs in the week before I leave. I try to be in the water as much as possible before leaving, and it's the one thing I miss massively.
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.
I had an idea when I was 18 or 19 to start tutoring people, like the way that people get tutored in saxophone or guitar, but for production. I really enjoyed it, but I don't have time for that any more.
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 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.
When it's your own thing there's a lot more pressure to make it awesome, since these people bought tickets specifically for you. Whereas at the festivals, you're one of many acts on a bill so I find it's less pressure.
Making sounds that literally no one has ever heard before because the software and the technology's never been there, and pairing that with great songwriting, then that's what's exciting for me. That's what I wanna do.
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'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.
Sydney's beautiful, the weather's great, and the air's fresh and clean, but it doesn't have the scene and the amount of likeminded people. At home, things are very comfortable, but I feel like putting myself out there a bit.
I don't think I can name any names or anything, but this is what I've wanted to do for a long time: to have Flume as my creative outlet and to work on the biggest songs in the world, like pop, and come up with the idea and send it off.
I feel like the first record was really finding my feet, figuring out what music I wanted to make... Now that I've done that, I feel like I've got a much clearer idea of what I want to sound like and what I want to discover. It's exciting.
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 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.
I did a few DJ gigs at empty clubs, sort of as a warm-up set before Flume was a thing. I did one when I got big enough, and I had five friends come down, and they were the only ones dancing. That was one of my earliest ones. I was super nervous.
I want to write a score for a film. It can be a proper film, maybe for a film kind of like... I saw that movie 'Drive', or a bit of a 'Blade Runner' vibe. A little bit sci-fi, but I don't know. I've just always wanted to write a score for a film.
I'd like to actually work with a lot of other people, and whether it's someone who is completely unknown who I love and think is a talent, maybe I'll work with them, or, like, maybe I'll work with some of the biggest pop stars and write music for them.
Sometimes you can just tell there's something unique about it, but you can never really truly tell until you show it to a third party - you show it to you friends, or you show it to people you know that know about music like my label or those kinda people.
I think at first the Flume project really started out as an online thing. I used Facebook and SoundCloud, and I think we got lucky because it felt like a bit of a golden age of those social media platforms. So I managed to create quite a solid fan base online.
Along with 'Free,' where I sing quite a bit, there are additional songs on 'Skin' where you can hear my voice in the background - lots of 'oohs' and 'aahs.' But more often than not, I use my vocals to prompt other rappers and singers to feel calmer, better, bolder.
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.
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 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.
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 like your own shows because you can have a bit more fun and extend your set, you can go a bit over if you want because it's your show. Whereas at festivals it's very strict, like if you go like two minutes over they get ready to pull the plug kind-of-thing. They're both good and bad.
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.
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.