In House With Gotye: Australian Pop Genius Prepares to Take America By Storm (Even When He's Naked) -- Exclusive Video

In House is AOL Music's series in which we welcome artists into our offices to play some music, chat with our staffers and, generally, just hang out. For our latest visit, Spinner sat down with Australian pop genius Gotye, aka Wally De Backer, to discuss his latest album 'Making Mirrors,' thrift store treasure hunts, American's fascination with cupcakes and stripping down for his 'Somebody That I Used to Know' video, which currently has over 73 million hits on YouTube.

The video for 'Somebody I Used to Know' features you and Kimbra without any clothes on. Do you find it funny that you are naked in your introduction to the better part of the world?

Um, it's not the first time I've done it. A video clip from the rock 'n' roll band the Basics featured me "nuded-up" also. I don't think about it too much. Maybe early on when the clip had its first million views, I was first excited about that number and then thought people are seeing a lot I suppose. I feel comfortable enough with my body, I guess. I don't think I'm an exhibitionist, but I'm not too self conscious about it.

You've once said that a lot of pop music is about "going to the club," and you think people actually do crave something else, something with much more substance, in commercial music. Has writing 'Somebody That I Used to Know' changed what you think about what connects us all?

Yeah, I think that's true. It's very easy to find alternatives to the subject matter of commercial pop these days if you go on streaming services or listen to independent radio. I think pop music is somehow representative of what everybody's listening to is less and less the case. In terms of music that millions of people listen to, something that is commercially successful, yeah, there could certainly be a wider range of things covered in songs that seem to make it through to the top of the charts.

Production and Videography by Elizabeth Bruneau

'Making Mirrors' took quite a long time to finish. What did you find out about yourself during the process?

Well, I found out that I'm not prolific at all and that if I give myself more time to make music, it usually makes me less creative in terms of output. I had a lot of time to experiment and the more I would allow myself to disappear down certain rabbit holes, exploring things I'm genuinely interested in, pieces of technology or certain modes of composing, often the less able I would find myself finishing something that fitted my record. I'm interested in lots of different things but I find it very hard to corral those interests into something that makes sense that can hang off a single concept for one tune. So my record, as it is, is quite diverse and vaguely schizophrenic but that's not even vaguely representative of how many directions I'd like to go in.

Sometimes it's just a matter of imposing limitation. That was one of the biggest things I learned. I guess I really enjoy not having a specific goal because then you find out the greatest truths, when you make things up or work things out as you go along. But then at some stage you can lead yourself astray and it can be very confusing and you actually need to impose some limitations and have some direction. So over the course of two and a half years of making this record, at some stage I needed to decide what it was going to be and hone all the things I was trying into something that would work together.

The YouTube play count for 'Somebody I Used to Know' is really getting up there! Have any famous musicians approached you to collaborate?

There's a few people who are fairly high profile. I've been chained to a guy who works on Bjork's records over the years, engineering and producing which is really exciting because he does amazing work. Some other mixers and producers who I've admired over the years, meeting them for the first time is a bit of a thrill.

Anyone you have in mind to work with?

Well, I've always loved records that were mixed by Nick Launay. I met him the other night and he turned out to be a really, really lovely man. You feel an instant connection with people who feel like they have the same focus on what you think is important, in terms of following your passion in music, and in terms of having the same general disregard for all the faff that goes around that. It's refreshing to meet somebody who you connect with on that level.

Watch Gotye's 'Somebody That I Used to Know'

What's your favorite thrift store find that you've sampled on this record?

Probably the break of horns on 'State of the Art.' It's from a pretty obscure record to find in an Australian thrift store. It was a promotional record for Cathay Pacific airlines in the '70s and it featured a fairly commercially successful pop star from Korea at the time, Francis Yip. It's a great song. It's a traditional recording called 'Green Is the Mountains,' which was a Taiwanese folk song. So that was kind of vaguely perverse to weave that into a sort of pseudo-dub, weird tech production extravaganza tune.

What inspired you to become Gotye?

I'd been making music for a few years already as a teenager and was so hooked on Depeche Mode and a few of their records from the late '80s and early '90s and I was copying so many licks and production ideas directly from their albums and Martin Gore. I think at some stage I made a conscious decision to go, "I can't keep doing this, I need to find something different that doesn't feel so directly informed by copy-catting." Which is ironic because when you define sampling there is an inherent element of copying in terms of borrowing other people's breaks and sounds.

But that's when I started getting into records like the Avalanches' 'Since I left You' and 'Endtroducing' and 'the Private Press' by DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist stuff with Jurassic 5. I'd been fond of KLF for many years and they were huge, exciting pop collagists. When I was 20 or 21 I thought, "That's it! I'm going to stop making songs that just follow a Depeche Mode fascination." Sampling opened up so many possibilities for how to write songs.

This is your fourth visit to the United States. What do you find strange about our country?

The amount of cupcakes stores. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're great. I love a good cupcake. They're very readily available.