Chet Faker on why he plans to suit up for the ARIA Awards and hopes to add to his mum’s trophy cabinet

AFTER a brutal year of touring to follow his Built On Glass success around the globe, Chet Faker is heading home for the ARIA Awards.

The honest world according to Chet Faker

CHET Faker is an honest man.

Well, the creator of the electro-soul alter ego, Nick Murphy, is a tell-it-like-it-is bloke. Battling a chronic lack of sleep and exhaustion, the 26-year-old musician has landed in Birmingham for the last run of shows on his never-ending world tour before heading home for the ARIA Awards.

Ask him a silly question about what he will be wearing for the big night and he answers with some enthusiasm that Paddington tailor P. Johnson “is doing my suit”.

TORUING: Electronic soul man Chet Faker lives out of suitcase after album success

What? No T-shirt and jeans ensemble, the default uniform of the male Australian musician at awards nights for the past three decades?

It appears men are now dressing up for the ARIAs.

Chet Faker plans to rock a suit on the ARIA Awards red carpet. Picture: Supplied.

“Arguably, what I am looking forward to the most is getting dressed up for the night,” he says, in all seriousness.

“What else am I going to look forward to? Sitting around pretending I don’t care whether or not I may or may not win anything or a lot of ARIAs?”

The ARIAs do matter to him. He opened his trophy cabinet with Producer Of The Year and shared in the success of the wins by Built On Glass engineer Eric J Dubowsky and Tin & Ed, for the album artwork.

After collecting his producer award at the nominations event where he was named in six other categories in early October, he dropped it off at his mum’s place before heading back overseas.

“Mum will be rapt. That is who I am there for; I am trying to win ARIAs for my mum,” he says.

“I send all my awards back to her and she sends me pictures of where she puts them.”

Murphy’s mother is also the recipient of that other curious byproduct of success, fan art.

While the selfie with the star has replaced the autograph, fan artworks dedicated to the artist now appears to rival the stuffed toy, single rose or underwear as the gift of choice.

The Australian musician said it is a bewildering experience to be greeted with good, bad and truly creative portraits of yourself.

Chet Faker has swapped his “studio bunny” life for the stage. Picture: Attila Szilvasi.

“I send mum the fan art too. I think some people may have over-estimated my narcissism,” he says.

“The best one so far was someone handing me a picture they had done of my album cover and that one was awesome.

“But why would I want a picture of me? I do understand it and people mean well but I am proud of my work. I don’t get paid for my face.”

He is getting paid to play more than 100 gigs this year as Built On Glass rapidly established Murphy’s credentials as one of Australia’s breakthrough music exports this year.

Further evidence of the cut-through of his music and the respect of his peers have been the rise of the cover version.

He tips his hat to Thelma Plum’s recent rendition of Gold for Triple J’s Like A Version.

*Click here to watch Thelma Plum’s renditon.

“Thelma’s was a standout for me, one of the versions I particularly liked,” he says.

“But the crap ones … it’s like they are pissing on your music.”

The pragmatic producer, songwriter and performer has also had to wrestle with disappointed fans when he was forced to cancel shows in recent weeks due to exhaustion.

Any touring artist will tell you it kills them to cancel.

Aussie singer-songwriter Chet Faker. Picture: Supplied.

Perhaps they should refer the complainants to the booking agents and promoters who thought all those dates looked good on paper.

“Sleep is getting to be like gold,” Murphy says.

“I always knew this was going to be brutal because it was booked so long ago.

“It has been an interesting learning curve. Obviously, I don’t have time to micromanage all the bookings and by the time you look at it and realise it is not a sustainable level of touring, the shows have already been announced.

“You end up cancelling when you get sick and you are forced to apologise for your mortality when people are disappointed.”

The irony, of course, being that the angry people love his music. And bought tickets to see him because they care about the music. His latest update from management informed him that 95 per cent of the shows on his recent American and European tours have been sold out.

“It has been pretty good vibes all year round at the shows,” he says. “And I love performing, The more I do it, the more I grow into it.”

Tickets are expected to be snapped up quickly when they go on sale this morning for his homecoming tour in February.

The rooms are bigger after Chet Faker sold out three dates at Enmore Theatre in Sydney and four at Melbourne’s Forum alone on the album launch tour.

“Oh, I’ve got time off before the Australian tour, which will be spent half there and half in New York,” he says.

HEAR: iTunes Session is released on November 28.

SEE: Chet Faker performs at the 2014 ARIA Awards, Ten, November 26, 7.30pm.

Chet Faker homecoming tour, ANU Bar, Canberra, February 11, Hordern Pavilion, Sydney, February 13, Brisbane Convention Centre, February 14, Palais Theatre, Melbourne, February 26 and 27 and Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide, February 28.

His national tour in on sale from 9am today, (chetfaker.com)