Farewell Chet Faker, hello Nick Murphy – singer-songwriter is ready to show his true self at Laneway Festival in Singapore
The Faker mask gave Murphy the confidence to put himself in the public eye – and now he’s ready to go out there as himself
The past 12 months have been tumultuous ones that saw the world irrevocably turned inside out. That, at least, is how indie singer Nick Murphy sees his 2016.
While the world in general was mourning the loss of heroes and the arrival of new demons, the Australian artist formerly known as Chet Faker was busy transforming his career, dropping his stage name in favour of his real name and tinkering with his music to metamorphose from cult troubadour into one of the world’s pre-eminent singer-songwriters.
The purveyor of electro-soul with a peculiarly world-weary tone went upbeat with acclaimed new tracks, toured the world and established himself as one of indie’s biggest festival draws. Which is why he’s headlining Singapore’s edition of the Laneway Festival on January 21, just two years after playing on a smaller stage at the same event.
“Something happened but I haven’t quite figured it out yet, to be quite honest,” Murphy says over the phone from New York, a note of exhaustion in his raspy voice after recently completing a gruelling series of gigs around the US. “It was just a really big year for me. I guess the dust settled. There was something about the year that I felt settled and was able to see myself and my whole life clearly and I think that’s what contributed to the music shift.”
