You can turn something into art just because of the way you tell people to look at it.
This whole show business industry is awkward; I just met you and I'm telling you personal things about my life. But that's my life: "Hey, how you doing?" There are not a lot of people that you can relate some of these things to, so it's nice when you meet someone who is going through similar stuff - not "going through," but that "gets" stuff like that.
I think you can move to everything, but with some music you just want to sit still. Like Claude Debussy - I couldn't dance to that.
All of my friends are really good dancers, which was initially why I never danced - we'd go out and they would kill it and I'd be like, "Yeah, I'm just gonna sit at the bar." I broke my foot, and I couldn't run for a year, but I realized I could kind of dance. It reminded me how amazing dance is; it's so in tune with music - it is music. It's a physical expression of whatever music is. On stage, you're interacting with things - physical things. So I've really started to like and notice the way people move with music.
On my Instagram, lots of people tag me in photos of just dudes with beards and they're like, "Oh my god, I met Chet Faker" and I'm like, "That doesn't even look like me." I feel like I'm experiencing beardism or something.
My album to me is something, but anyone who buys it, it's whatever it is to them. I don't like telling people what specifics are of the record, because that could ruin it as an experience for someone else.
This album is my life, and my life's really not that interesting. It's not "not interesting," but I'm just some dude just like everyone else. But by recording it in an album format, it becomes a product. That's the idea of Built on Glass; it's the relationship between my personal life and the music I make.
I can't afford back up vocalists; they're so expensive. Because I'm independent - I'm not signed to a major label, which a lot of people don't know, and it doesn't matter anyway. I can't just have an eight-piece band touring. One day - definitely. That's like a goal.
Sometimes people can get shitty, but you won't last in music industry by taking things personally.
I've done a bunch of collaborations where it goes well and you finish it, but then you're kind of like, "I just don't like it." And it sits there. It can be awkward, but a real musician understands that you're not always going to make what you want it to be. You can't just polish everything into perfection.
I think it's really important to not talk about how you're going to release something until you've finished it. People are like, "What are we going to make? What are we going to do with it?" and it's just like, "I don't know, we're just making music. Then we'll talk." You can't always write something you're happy with; you can't force it.
If people come up to me, I'm going to be nice to them. Essentially, the assumption is that they support what I do. If I met someone I'd be like, "Hey, I respect your art or your work," and then that's it - let's not go beyond that. But sometimes people are like, "What's going on, man?" "I'm on the street, and we've never met before."
