Chet Porter, in his own words, makes music to pet dogs to. His charming and unique style, ranging from sparkling indie-pop gems to experimental sample-driven tracks, evokes warm feelings of youth and innocence that bring smiles to his listeners’ faces.
Over the past three years, Chet Porter has amassed over 25 million streams and has been vital tour support for massive names such as ODESZA, Alison Wonderland, Jai Wolf, Louis The Child, San Holo and Whethan. We had a chat with the LA based producer to talk COVID-19, new music and more.
Chet thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, how are you travelling with the COVID-19 pandemic which is sweeping the globe?
No problem, Thanks for having me! I’m handling it alright, even before the lockdowns hit I would spend most of my time at home already [laughs], so not much is different for me personally. Had to stock up on loads of food and cleaning supplies and such. I’m doing my best to keep safe/clean.
We hope you’re not suffering from cabin fever while on lockdown.
I am a little bi,t yeah. Even though I’m definitely a homebody, I used to go out and get my exercise by either skating with friends or going bouldering at the climbing gym. So I’m starting to go a little crazy in my apartment and also getting out of shape [laughs].
You were meant to be out on the US Spring tour until the Coronavirus kicked in and pretty much shut those and many other artist’s tours down. Did you manage to get everything postponed alright?
Yeah my tour got fucked. It’s all good tho. Public health and safety comes above everything else and i was planning on postponing before even being advised to do so. We don’t have specific dates yet but we’re working on it! Should be all good, I’m not too worried.
Now we have to talk about your new track ‘Bummed’ with Alison Wonderland. Big congrats on the success of the track, we’re big fans of your music. Can you tell us how you teamed up with Alison on the track and a little about the collaboration process?
Thanks, I’m glad you’re into it. It’s been cool yeah, it’s been about a month since the release I guess, but I’m still getting tweets about the song everyday and stuff. I think that’s pretty cool considering people’s attention spans these days [laughs]. As for Alison, we’ve just been close for a while now. I played her this little instrumental demo (which was completely different than the final product), and she was like “aw yeah I hear something”, and just started humming the melody. She wrote the lyrics and we recorded it within like 10 minutes. Then it kinda just sat there for like almost a year until I finally figured out how I wanted to turn the idea into a full track.
It’s great to see you back and working on music again after your hiatus. Can you tell us what made you want to return to music?
I never really intended to go away, I was just sorta struggling with what I wanted to make and then all of the sudden three years went by. I was thinking a lot about what I wanted to be known for, because like, this music represents me as a person. I didn’t want to put something out and then a month later not feel proud or connected to it. I had to just mess around for years to figure it out and discover where I wanted to take things. It’s so cliché to say, but I feel like I’m finally making things that I’m proud to stand behind and feel like “me”.
Last year you released two other smash hit originals with Secrets and The Longest Day Ever. Can you tell us a little insight into those tracks and what they mean to you?
The Longest Day Ever was kind of my breakthrough in the creation process, and that whole song came together in less than a day. I was just exhausted and kind of in this numb depression loop, started this instrumental and my brain just knew exactly how to finish it. I just kept going until it was done. Then I literally freestyled the lyrics directly into my laptop with no microphone and was like “yeah, I’m stoked on this”. It ended up being about that numb “no-feelings” loop i was stuck in. Secrets was a song I wrote before TLDE, but then I decided to delete the instrumental and basically remix my own song. I sped up the vocal a bit and just made a whole new song. That one’s just about a bunch of random mental health shit. My insomnia is really bad, and I feel like that just makes my mental health worse. I’m not one of those people who’s just like “Aw yeah, I’m an insomniac” because it makes them sound cool or interesting. I sleep like 2-3 hours a night, I hate it so much. But yeah, the song touches on that, how the internet is bad for us… One year everyone forgot my birthday, that’s in there too [laughs].
For our readers who haven’t seen you perform before, can you give us a rundown on what they can expect at your shows?
I don’t even know what to expect [laughs], I was in the middle of planning exactly what I wanted to do for the tour but everything stopped suddenly because of the pandemic. Whenever I get to play again, it’ll be a lot of new music, new visuals, lights, and me, of course. I like projectors, I want to do something with those.
Your live setup sees you become a busy man on stage. What does your live setup include?
Yeah so, I haven’t really done a proper live set since 2018. I wanted to do DJ sets all of 2019 while I worked on finishing the new music and came back with a live set. That also involved me changing what the live set would even be. I reckon it’ll be me playing some synths, some guitars, drum pads. I definitely like to keep busy and bounce around different things to do.
Hopefully we can find a cure for the COVID-19 and see you performing again soon .
Hope so, I’m currently working hard on finding a cure, nothing yet though.
When it comes to your music, what’s next? What have you got in store for the rest of 2020?
I definitely want to get a lot more music out this year, again this pandemic kind of threw a wrench in things but I’m going to work on getting all this stuff together and ready. Should have a project’s worth of music coming out sometime in 2020.
Thank you for your time, please stay safe and take care!
Thank you, you too!