Quotes from Flume

I probably listen to more instrumental music than music with lyrics, but at the same time I do love both.

A lot of electronic music out there feels cold. I want to incorporate a human element.

When I heard Flying Lotus, I was like, 'Wow, okay, everything can be off the grid.'

Honestly, production when you first start can be difficult to wrap your head around.

I love working with people and having them bring something to the table that I couldn't. I think one of my favourite artists to work with has been Kucka. She's Australian, too, and it's great working with her because we kind of have a very similar take on music, and we like a lot of the same stuff. We're not super-precious about ideas.

Australia is so influenced by America. It's kind of in-between the U.K. and the States.

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.

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. And how it works is, say - I have a program called 'Ableton Live.' And, you know, you'll open it up, and it's just blank. There's nothing there. And then you start.

My main inspirations come from early '90s Trance, the French electro movement round '06, then a bunch of artists like Flying Lotus, J Dilla, Moby, The Prodigy. So I'd say it's some kind of experimental electronica with a strong hip hop influence. It's chilled, but people can still get super crazy and dance to it.

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.

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.

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.

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 don't think I make dance music. It's not even 4/4. And it's slow.

It's more my own thing if I do instrumentals, but I also do really love collaborating with vocalists, so it's a good balance.

I get bored of music really easily, so I always try and make music that makes sense, but then it's just a little bit wrong.

I know how to make a record that commercial radio or Triple J will smash now... It's kind of hard to stay true and write what you would write if you didn't have that in your head. Because I know I can get way more airplay and get this much bigger... and that's what I'm trying to avoid doing. Trying to avoid the poisons of success.

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.

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.

I want to keep Flume kind of experimental, weird, melodic, pretty.

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.

In the dressing room, we've just made it really Zen: low lighting, lots of candles, and fresh, healthy food.

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.

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.