No Longer Like Drawing Blood
2011 was a big year for Belgian-Australian sensation, Gotye. As well as picking up a slew of awards, including three ARIAs, he became only the second musician to simultaneously hold both the number one single and the number one album on the ARIA Australian chart.
It's been ten years since Wally De Backer recorded his first tracks and handcrafted a CD of songs under the moniker Gotye. The idea for the name came from Gaultier (the French translation of his birth name Wouter), his mother's pet name for him.
Born in Bruges, Belgium, De Backer arrived in Australia with his family, aged two. From a young age, he displayed a passion for music, picking up a variety of instruments including drums, piano and synthesizer, and forming a band in high school.
Gotye Animated Album Launch. Photograph by Dan Boud.
But it was a large collection of old records given to him that set his musical path in a different direction. Primarily using samples, he created his first songs and crafted a small run of CDs with hand coloured cover sleeves and handwritten track lists. Others followed in a similar vein, and Gotye's musical talent, and quirky and persistent promotional approach, started to gain industry attention, eventually earning a distribution deal for an album, Boardface, which was released in 2003.
Gotye's second album, Like Drawing Blood, attracted further attention, being nominated for an ARIA award, amongst others accolades. In 2007, he won his first ARIA - for best male artist - and his star continued to rise. In 2011, Like Drawing Blood came in at number 11 in Triple J's Hottest 100 Albums of All Time.
However, as the title of this album suggests, success and recognition don't always come easily. Like many artists, there were moments when De Backer needed a leg up to take his career to the next level. In 2008 he was awarded a Music Touring grant from Arts Victoria to support a European tour to support the release of Like Drawing Blood.
The tour included 16 shows across Europe and the UK, including London, Glasgow, Berlin, Amsterdam and Paris. The live performances had a huge impact on success of both the record and Gotye's profile.
Almost every show on the tour was sold out, and the significant media and online attention that came with the tour helped Like Drawing Blood win 'UK iTunes Album of the Year', a major award in such a large territory. The tour's success gave Gotye a platform on which to base future tours and record releases in Europe.
Arts Victoria's Contemporary and Live Music Development program helps Victorian musicians and bands take the next step in their career - whether this is recording a debut album, cracking into an international market or promoting a new release - and aims to support the creative growth and viability of the Victorian music industry as a whole.
Alongside Gotye, the program has supported Victorian artists of all musical genres with grants to record, release, promote and tour their music. In the 2010-2011 funding year, Arts Victoria awarded a total of $664,165 funding for contemporary music projects.
Wally De Backer. Photograph by James Bryans.
In 2011 Gotye released his third album Making Mirrors, and its second single Somebody that I used to know, featuring New Zealand singer Kimbra, became a runaway international success, topping charts in Australia (where it has achieved 7 x Platinum status), New Zealand, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Poland.
2012 will see Gotye return to Europe as part of an extended international tour to support Making Mirrors - a tour that will build on audiences developed during his Arts Victoria-supported Like Drawing Blood tour in 2008.
Despite his international success, De Backer still calls Victoria home, "I think I'll just continue to launch random and whimsical musical nuggets into the netosphere from the comfort of my secret studio lair, inside the belly of a dormant volcano, out back of Frankston shoppo".