Song Exploder - Chet Faker - Gold

Episode Date: October 26, 2015

Chet Faker is the stage name of Australian singer and songwriter Nick Murphy. His debut album, Built on Glass, won five ARIA Awards, Australia’s version of the Grammys, including Best Male Artist, Producer of the Year, and Best Independent Album. In this episode, Nick breaks down the song Gold from that album, and traces the journey it took from a dream, to a cover, to a love song. This episode is sponsored by iZotope Spire, Dropbox for Business, and Lagunitas Brewing Company.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. Chet Faker is the stage name of Australian singer and songwriter Nick Murphy. His debut album, Built on Glass, won five ARIA Awards, Australia's version of the Grammys, including Best Male Artist, Producer of the Year, and Best Independent Album. In this episode, Nick breaks down the song Gold and traces the journey it took from a dream to a cover to a love song. I might as well be in our garden. This is Nick Murphy. I write, record and produce under the name Chet Faker.

The first thing I had for this song was that opening line. Dung-da-don-dun-d-dun-dun. And I dreamt it. I woke up with it in my head in the middle of the night. And I have a voice memo of me. Like, I mean, my girlfriend was asleep in the bed next to me, so I was mumbling, really quiet. It's like almost indecipherable. Boom.

Boom. Boom. I'm always recording ideas and stuff. So it wasn't like, okay, that's going to be a song. That was just a piece that got like put aside into my palette. And then after a few days, I was in the studio trying to cover David Estes. cover David Essex rock on. He was this like heartthrob pin up boy from the 70s who had this like album.

It was pretty soft but there's a song on there rock on. Ah, it's awesome. So I went to the studio like I normally do and I was just messing around. I tracked the do-dung-d-dun-g-dun-dun-and I knew that I could sing the David SX part over the top of it, the vocals. I was like, hey, key, ubi-two, did you do, duncuh-dun-dun. Yeah, so it kind of fit. And I was like, yeah, that's cool.

This can go with my rock-on cover. But it started to sound really good, and I was like, nah, I'm not doing this to the cover, you know? I want to write my own song. So, yeah, that's how I got to this part. It was the bass line, but it ended up on the track being the Wellitzer. I obviously tried to play on bass first,

on bass first and realized I couldn't because I just bought a bass, you know. I didn't know what I was doing. And I couldn't play. Like a lot of it's really me just playing a section and copy and pasting it. I can play it now, but I played literally one note for the whole song. And I put drums. These collapse were done in my home studio in my mom's garage. I was living with my girlfriend at the time and I would drive each day to the studio, which is where I first started recording, which was like had like a tin roof so I couldn't record when it was raining or if there was wind because the trees would brush on the roof. I think I spend the most time on drum sounds than anything else. I spent hours looking for high hat sound. Because the thing

with drum sounds is it needs to sound like it's in one cohesive space. You can't have like a hat that's like really close sounding and then a kick that has distance or it just puts people off. And it loses that groove. The pocket's got to come from sounding like it's a real player. A lot of people put me in that electronic area, but a lot of that's because I don't have the real instruments or the capacity to play them or record them how I want. So I always envisioned kind of real a drums, and I think my drum samples are getting more and more like that. I was in love, and you only fall in love a couple of times in your life, like depending how lucky you are. And I have this like inbuilt, like distaste for anything that's so cheesy in a way,

but I kind of had to sing that, you know, I had to sing that. When you're so in love, you don't care of what anyone else, and you actually just want everyone to know that you're in love. you know and you're annoying I was kind of channeling that guy or that part of me that wanted to like stand on a mountain and shout it out you know and in a way that attitude allowed me to do things in this song

that I would say would air on the cheesiest side of things that I usually wouldn't do because it was playing on that love sick kind of vibe I think this song is the highest I've sung in a recording ever feeling love it's like way up there you know I was playing off that weak, fragile voice, but then harmonizing in the chorus with like big, brash, masculine backing vocals, you know, harmonizing, I'm feeling love, you know?

That was the shout off the mountain top kind of thing. Like, I was literally shouting it. You gotta know, I'm feeling love, made it go. I'll never love another one, another you. The identity of a song, which is often the hook or the chorus, that's the hardest. Every other aspect of a song you can work away at and improve. You can't work and work and work and get a good chorus. You either have it or you don't.

A heart will swell before it's hardened. With the flick of the hair it can make you old. A flick of the hair can make you old. like you're so attracted to someone, this person can just do the smallest thing and it can just make you feel like, you know, like you're done. In this case, it was just like how this girl would like flick her hair and you just be like, oh, for me, it's like a punch in the guts. It's not always a good thing. Love, it's kind of punishment because you just, you just want to be with them all the time. Well, the guitar falls in again to that cheesy. I mean, the line. I mean, the

is like, dung-g-g-dang-d-d-g-d-g-d-g-d-g-d-g-d-g-d-g-g-d-k-g-g-d-l- like, that is just the cheesiest, you know what I mean? It's like, dude with the window down, driving, like, you know, down the highway with the shades on. It was okay, because I was kind of, I was in that zone. The outro, it's like a beat with a loop, and I really like the vibe of that to get out of the ridiculous territory that this song took itself it's the song is so like grand it's so ridiculous I couldn't wait for another song the next track to bring it back I had to reset it before the audio stopped you know an audio version just being like no just relaxed let's come back to reality you know and now here's gold by Chet Faker in

its entirety You gotta know I'm feeling love As well be in our god I said a smell in the air is a dripping rose Another soda be my warden of anything there that's made of gold Thailand

Look at the hair it can make you old Another hole to dig my soul And nothing better that keeps me so Visit SongExploder.net for more information about Chet Faker. I've posted the music video and a link to buy the track. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Her Way.

I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me.

So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city. Like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage. And then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website.

Rishi-kash.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploader.net slash live. Thanks. You can find all the past and future episodes of SongExploder at songexplor.net or on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you download podcasts. Find the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Song Exploder. Next time on Song Exploder, the arcs. It's the new project from Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. Special thanks this episode to Christian Coons and Mickey Carter. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of extraordinary story-driven shows. Learn more at Radiotopia.fm.

My name is Rishi-Kesh-Hirway. Thanks for listening.