Unless you’ve been living offline since September, you may recall that homegrown producer Harley Streten – better known as Flume – made quite the little viral sensation when video of him, ahem, eating ass at his Burning Man set hit social media and generally broke the internet.
As the online hype ensued, the ‘Never Be Like You’ producer stayed relatively quiet – only really responding with an Instagram selfie showing him snacking on a peach with the caption “It was a joke (sorry mum).”
Now, in a new interview with dance music outlet Mixmag, Streten has given some insight into the aftermath of the video, and reflected on what it’s like to go viral for something entirely unrelated to your music.
“I have to ask about the viral video from Burning Man,” asks interviewer Devyn White at the end of the interview.
“What was it like going viral for something like that and what was it like for you to address it head-on with such grace?”
In response, ol’ Flume was quite open about the response, discussing the initial stress at waking up to the chaos.
“It was kind of crazy. I didn’t expect it to go viral honestly. But, I woke up one morning to thousands of tweets and chaos,” says Streten.
“At first, I was kind of stressed out about it because I don’t know. I looked at a graph actually and it was the analytics of Google. The first record and it had a little spike on the graph. The second record, a little slightly higher. The mixtape, a little spike. Then, the eating ass at Burning Man and it was just like to the top of the graph.
“So, it’s the most Googled I’ve ever been, and it was about none of the music. But, I think it was funny. It’s definitely the most press I’ve ever gotten. It’s fine, I don’t mind. I think it’s hilarious.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Streten discusses genre classifications (“I’m happy to be called EDM. I think it was a bit of a dirty word when it first came out, but it seems like anything electronic these days is labeled EDM”) and the future of electronic music as technology moves forward.
“As new technology progresses, you’re literally able to make new sounds that have never existed in the history of mankind before. For me, the most exciting frontier in music in general is on a computer just because you can create literal new sounds that have never, ever existed. I think electronic music gets to enjoy that about it. So, that’s for me, the most exciting part of electronic music.”
Read the whole interview here.
Flume released latest single, the Vera Blue-featuring ‘Rushing Back’, last month.
