It's fair to say that Christian Büttner, known professionally as TheFatRat, has created one of the largest and most engaging fan-bases for artists in his genre - boasting over 6 million fans on YouTube and over 10 million fans across all platforms.
We sat down with the Billboard charting artist to discuss his latest track, "Still Here With You,” now available on Apple Music, Spotify, Soundcloud, and YouTube. The artist shared with Nuovo that he initially planned to feature female vocals in the song, but upon revisiting the track, he found himself drawn to his own singing, marking a departure from his usual releases.
TheFatRat is known for his polarizing approach to lifting copyright restrictions on his music, resulting in massive viewership and over 29 billion total views on YouTube. He has become one of the highest charting acts in dance music, having had multiple singles remain in the iTunes top50 for over three consecutive years. He has also had his music sync-to-screen for advertising giants like Coca-Cola, and has been featured in popular video games like Dota 2, Rocket League, Rolling Sky and Game For Peace. TheFatRat planted himself as the go-to-artist for Esports brands like ESL and Dreamhack.
Photo Credit: Jenson Koschak
Tell us about your new single, "Still Here With You". What inspired you?
Sometimes we feel lonely in a room full of people. The song, “Still Here With You” takes the opposite view, which means being with someone that you're close to, but you still feel like you can’t connect to them. I think we all experience this once in a while. I have recently experienced it with friends but also for example with my daughter. Where you realize this person is lonely even though you’re close to them. You want to show that person that you're there, how beautiful the world is, and how good life is. But you fail to reach that person, and in a sense you're just waiting for the person to return. That feeling is what the song is about.
How did you become the go-to-artist for Esports brands like ESL and Dreamhack?
That happened without a plan. I did not sit down and think, “Let me become an artist that esport companies go to.” What happened was that I'm a gamer, and I have been one since I was a young kid. So automatically, my music was influenced by video games. When I put out my very own music that I personally liked, it resonated with a lot of gamers and therefore became big in the gaming community. For that reason, a lot of gaming companies ended up knocking on my door and asking to collaborate with me.
What is your advice for those looking to advance their creative success - professionally, personally and romantically?
I think with any success the first question that you have to ask yourself is, “Why are you chasing the thing that you're chasing?” This might seem obvious at first, but I think it's worth digging deeper. Because especially today with social media and beautiful videos and pictures everywhere, we easily tend to chase shiny objects that we saw somewhere. But these things sometimes don't resonate with who we truly are. I think the big challenge for everybody today is to find out, “What is it that I really want, that is not something that I saw on social media or on a poster or TV that made me think it would be nice to have?” I think a lot of these things we see, especially online, are very superficial. They look good on the outside, but I think if we chase them for the wrong reasons or just because we think they're desirable without it resonating with us on a deeper level, then I think that sets us up for failure. We will not achieve those things, or if we do achieve those things then we will probably be very unhappy because we've been chasing it. Once we achieve it, we may realize it's not what we truly want in life. I think reconnecting to ourselves is the most difficult, but most important first step that we have to take and constantly take again and again to even have a chance to achieve any kind of success.
How do you manage a positive community that supports your releases and stays connected to them?
The most important thing for me is to listen to my followers. A lot of the best ideas that I acted on over the last 10 years were actually coming from my fans that they either sent through messages or posted as comments on social media. That is one important aspect. The second is, you get more of what you pay attention to publicly. This means when people criticize me, I absolutely take it seriously, but any negativity in comments online, I just delete it without a second thought. I will not respond to it or make drama out of it. I just simply delete it, because I don't want to have it on my channel. Instead I respond to very positive comments, because I get a lot of really heartwarming and incredible comments on all social media platforms. I really noticed that whatever you pay attention to publicly, you will get more of that. So don't feed the trolls, but feed the angels instead. Just encourage and pay attention to what you want more of.
What's next for you?
The songs that I'm currently releasing like my latest single, “Still Here With You” and the four songs that came before it are telling one consecutive story. What I’m currently working on is telling more of that story. I’m developing ways to tell the story more visually and incorporate more dialogue into the story. The other thing is that the next song, which will be chapter six, is already ready to go. I hope it won't take too long until we get to put that one out as well.
