He is the most talked about multi-instrumentalist to emerge from Generation X, yet Gotye, aka Wally De Backer, keeps a relatively low profile, living 10 minutes’ drive from his parents’ Mornington Peninsula house.
Capping off an extraordinary year, Gotye has taken out the coveted Aria awards for single of the year, best pop release and best male artist, adding to the three awards (producer of the year, best video and engineer of the year) already bestowed at the Aria awards nomination event in early October, all for the hit single Somebody That I Used to Know (featuring Kimbra).
He won an Aria in 2007 (for best male artist, after his album Like Drawing Blood); is the darling of Triple J, the radio station that has nurtured his songs for years; has just played sold-out concerts at the Sydney Opera House, and also drums with his other band, the Basics. Yet for someone who seems to be everywhere, he’s not exactly easy to find.
To describe Gotye as a rising star is not entirely accurate, for here is a guy who has been doing his thing for a decade, maybe more if you count his teen years exploring samples.
But it’s his third studio album, Making Mirrors, which he mostly recorded in his parents’ backyard barn, that has spawned a No.1 hit and got celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Lily Cooper (née Allen) tweeting about his music.
In fact, it’s Gotye’s second single released from the album, Somebody That I Used to Know, that has put this 31-year-old’s name on everybody’s lips. Could it be Gotye has finally hit the mainstream? He’s the first to admit he didn’t see it coming.
His duet with New Zealand-born Melbourne resident Kimbra (who won the best female artist Aria for her debut album Cameo Lover) had tongues wagging. Somebody That I Used to Know is emotionally stripped and the video clip is, well, stripped naked in an arty kind of way. It has clocked up about 20 million views on YouTube – nearly 2 million of those before his album was released. His producer, FranÇois Tetaz, suggested Gotye get Kimbra involved on the song.
The song is about breaking up … well, several bust-ups, according to Gotye. Loaded with resentment, bitterness and raw emotion, it’s not as painful as it might sound, but he does a good job convincing us otherwise.
Gotye is happily in a relationship with musician Tash Parker, (her debut album Waking Up, which he co-produced and played on a few tracks, is out now) but the song itself is an ode to failed relationships – a clearing of the decks, so to speak.
“If there is one aspect of Somebody That I Used to Know that I am proud of it is that it falls into a genre-less space. To me that’s what making music is all about,” says Gotye, speaking from his property down the coast. “It’s not cut-up hip-hop, it’s not obvious pop or ambient. I think it’s good that these songs exist outside genres. I try to write more songs like that. To me that is what Gotye is about. Oh, and the song isn’t about one person – that might disappoint some people – but it’s more about collating experiences of several relationships.”
However, Gotye knew he wasn’t happy with the song being told just from his perspective. “It’s an introspective song and it needed a female voice,” he says.
“It’s a lot to ask any singer to cut so much emotional ground in just six lines. I had tried a few things and I wasn’t getting an awesome feeling. With Kimbra, I got that feeling.”
He’s been compared to Sting, but Gotye says he has more in common with 1980s acts such as Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. He’s a one-man band (but has others help on stage), sampling sounds and mixing this with his own instrumentation.
Gotye uses a Lowrey Cotillion electronic organ (a Christmas gift from his parents) and an 18th-century pump harmonium on the record. He is the antithesis of a wannabe rock star and makes geek freak seem cool.
“Making this record was like following a piece of dark string in a forest and seeing where it led me,” he says. “Some strands would break off that string and lead me somewhere else. This happened a few times and I had to try and bring them all together in one big ball of wool. It was a big challenge.”
He likes to speak in metaphors, describes his concerns about making the album as “First-World problems” and sometimes wishes he lived in Melbourne because travelling up to three hours in a car to get to the city and back isn’t very environmentally sound. He talks about the world economy and its faltering heartbeat, how difficult it is to buy a house, wonders about our obsession with YouTube and questions why anyone would want to be drowning in debt just to own a home.
Given he spent the first half of the new album bringing up the ghosts of his past, Gotye makes a peace offering to Parker by writing a song for her called Save Me. It’s the last track on the record. “That song is a celebration of how we came together, how we came to be as a couple and how much I cherish her in my life and the life we have together,” he says. Parker moved from Kununurra in the Kimberley to Somers in Victoria to be with him and pursue her love of music in Melbourne.
Born in Bruges, Belgium, in 1981, Wally De Backer migrated to Australia with his parents when he was two, went to Parade College and completed a bachelor of arts at Melbourne Uni.
Some record company executives call it career suicide to wait five years between records, but Gotye has proved them wrong.
He will be heading to Britain and Europe next year.
“I didn’t really anticipate this sort of reaction,” says Gotye, who has always said in the past that didn’t get into music to become famous. “But it’s definitely something worth acting on. I won’t deny that.”
» Gotye’s Making Mirrors (Eleven) is out now.