Boy Is Fiction interview by Simon Hampson

“I really like music that drags you in,” says Melbourne producer Alex Gillett. His self-titled (and self-released) debut as Boy Is Fiction was certainly that. And, thanks to a reissue on the UK’s List Records, the digital beats and soft bells look set to entice a whole new audience.

“It’s nice when music takes you somewhere else, so I try to build in atmosphere and influence the mood as much as possible,” says Gillett, who released eponymous record in 2006. There is a slow evolution of the sound over the record, and the attention to detail hints at the album’ painstaking construction over a three-year period.

“It was a pretty drawn out process, to be honest. Not through lack of inspiration, but probably more from a confidence point of view. I knew I wanted to make a record but I was overwhelmed at the thought of doing it on my own. In the back of my mind I knew that I just had to put my head down, but there were a lot of unknowns for me. At one point, I was a feeling the pressure, so I emailed a musician/producer that I’d met at a gig one night to pick his brain. He’d made a couple of records I loved, so I figured it was worth a shot. I got some really good advice and encouragement, which was a huge help, and I think it motivated me to finish what I’d started.”

“The whole process took about three years, but there was a really steep learning curve in this period. Towards the end, I spent a lot of time in headphones adjusting things, which I think is one of the downfalls with digital recording, at least for me anyway. When you’re not paying for studio time, you can make as many changes, and save multiple versions of a track. It can all get a bit confusing and is almost a hindrance in settling on the final mix, I just had to make the call at the end of the day and work on the tracks that I chose for the album. I actually became pretty reclusive trying to finish it off but I was determined. I think next time around, at least from a production point of view, I won’t have as many doubts and hopefully not as many late nights!”

Picking up guitar as a teenager, Gillett was lucky to have a teacher with a recording studio: “I spent some time there and he was really encouraging both creatively and technically. I was really into some of the industrial bands at the time and I loved the layering and fusion of digital and organic sounds so I borrowed a four track from a friend and began to make my own tracks on cassette tapes.”

The experience of playing in bands didn’ produce the results that Gillett was looking for, but when he acquired a Mac for his graphic design course it opened up opportunities to experiment with computer music production.

“My parents have been really encouraging with my music. One year, for my birthday, they bought me a little Yamaha keyboard (which I still have in my studio). I started recording my ideas, laying up tracks and building sound scapes; it opened up a whole new world for me. I began playing and recording different instruments on a regular basis and during that time I wrote a couple of scores for interactive CDs for uni. That was the first time anything I’d written was published. It’s funny listening to them now, but it made me realise that I wanted to pursue music both from a creative and production perspective. I’ve gradually built up a small studio that I spend way too much time in, but I love it—even if it frustrates the people around me!”

“With the Boy Is Fiction record, I tried to make an album that can be listened to from start to finish as a whole piece, with changes in mood and tone. It’s pretty dark in parts, but I was conscious of that and made an effort to have some contrast. I spent quite some time getting it mastered and stitching certain tracks together so the rollovers were seamless and in turn create the experience of a journey. Not everyone is going to listen to the record from start to finish, so the tracks had to work on their own as well. The record was a pretty personal thing for me and probably a fairly accurate reflection of my feelings at the time.”

“A lot of my ideas come from memories and experiences—some good, some bad. I was always going to release something in one way or another, but I wasn’t overly keen to advertise myself. I kind of like the anonymity of music, it’s something to hide behind…if that makes sense. Obviously, if you are playing live, you’re out there amongst it, but not so much when you are actually writing the material. That’s really what Boy Is Fiction is about for me; I enjoyed making the record as much as I did getting handed the master disks.”

Whilst Gillett considers a live incarnation of Boy Is Fiction, he is continuing to work on new material. “The later tracks on the record were a lot darker and I guess, to a degree, more industrial sounding. I really want to explore that sound more, which is evident in aspects of the new material that I am working on. Some of the tracks that didn’t make it onto the album get pretty full on; I still think that they have merit, but they just didn’t fit into the mood of the first record. I might revisit them sometime down the track.”

Boy Is Fiction is available from List Records.