TheFatRat chatted with Digital Journal’s Markos Papadatos about his new album “Parallax,” and his new song “Let Love Win.” He also discussed his transition from creating specifically for gaming to producing more mainstream and contemporary music for a bigger crowd of listeners.
TheFatRat is the EDM moniker of Göttingen, Germany’s Christian Büttner, whose music ranges from euphoric progressive house to orchestral trap, melodic glitch-hop, and K-Pop with a heavy influence of video game music.
Can you tell our readers a little about you? Have you always been a musician?
Yes. Indeed I have always been a musician. I learned music like a language, starting when I was two years old, and have never stopped ever since. Despite being a Kung Fu trainer assistant for half a year I never had any other job besides music.
How did you get into producing music for gaming?
That happened thanks to the gaming community. I simply made the music that I loved and put it out. One important decision I made was not to copyright protect my songs on social media.
So people could share it and use it as background music on social media, especially on YouTube. And that was exactly what they did. After a while, my music became so prominent in gaming videos that the studios started reaching out to me to license my songs into their games.
We’re excited to hear more about your album, ‘Parallax,’ tell us about the latest release, also dropping on that day, ‘Let Love Win.‘
“Parallax” has ten songs and every song has its own artwork. All songs and artworks together tell one story, which ends with the last song “Let Love Win.” It’s my favorite song on the entire album.
Funnily, the main production idea for Let Love Win happened on one of the worst days that I had in 2021. I was in a legal dispute with Universal Music, had a hefty discussion about a much-too-high invoice with another company, a third company threatened to sue me about an allegedly uncleared sample and then I got notified that I would get a tax audit, which is never fun in Germany.
That afternoon I was sitting in the studio. The album was basically done and the release was already scheduled. But I still needed the last song. I knew how the story of the album was supposed to end but for weeks I could not come up with the right song to tell it. And I couldn’t even really think about music because my head was buzzing about legal questions and accounting.
Then, I remembered this vocal line that I had tracked a few months ago with Anjulie in Dubai. We only recorded it over some piano chords and nothing was produced. But when I listened back to the vocals in that frustrating situation it totally hit me.
The worries I had before suddenly felt so trivial to me and I thought “This is it. This is what the story is about and this is what I want to bring into the world.” The entire vision for the song came immediately.
As you’ve transitioned from creating specifically for gaming to producing more mainstream music for a larger audience, what have you found to be different in those two worlds?
Even though my music is popular in the gaming space I never felt like I was creating specifically for the gaming community. I simply made the music that I loved and because I’m a gamer myself it clicked with the community. The same holds true today. I create that music that I want to hear, hoping that if I make something that I truly love, other people will like it too.
You have a strong international fan base that follows you passionately, especially on social media, is there anywhere in the world you’re surprised to hear you have fans?
It doesn’t surprise me anymore, but it still blows my mind. Even though I have a strong following of roughly ten million followers on all socials combined, my music is still so much more popular than me. For example, when I rented a house in Dubai this winter, the couple that was renting it out asked me about my work.
I played them a song and immediately their teenage kids came up to us and said they knew the songs and listen to it all the time. Situations like this happened to me literally everywhere in the world. From the USA to China to our own neighborhood where friends completely freak out when they realize that they’ve been listening to my music for months without knowing it was me.
There is a very creative, artistic presentation in the videos and social media we’ve seen for the current releases and upcoming album, what inspired this?
The artworks for “Parallax” are pixel art. It’s so fascinating to me how a style that was simply born out of necessity in the 80s and 90s today has become a well-respected art style.
You have great collabs on this album, what artists are on your wish list for future collaborations?
It’s not even an artist, but I would love to write and produce a song with Max Martin one day, the most influential producer of the last three decades.
Anything more you’d like to add? Please let our readers know how to find you and your music.
The best way to get into my music is on YouTube where you can not only listen to it but also see the animated artworks and can connect with the community.
And of course, you can listen to it on Spotify and on other music platforms. And if you want to get into direct contact, I’m doing a Q&A on my Discord server every Friday at 4 p.m. CST, simply google “TheFatRat Discord” and join.
“Parallax” is available on digital service providers by clicking here.
To learn more about TheFatRat, follow him on Instagram.
