The Artist Currently Known As: FREDDY
FREDDY aka Fred The Conqueror aka Frooks is a singer and producer. Her latest album Fred The Conqueror came out earlier this year.
What are you studying? Producingand digital music at the Con.
What are you listening to, watching, reading, anything? I love me some sci-fi, aliens, fairies. I think it stems from the fact I grew up while my parents were watching Game of Thrones. I’m watching it for the first time! With my dad. Oh, that’s awkward. That’s like when my parents said, you should watch Outlander. I liked it up until it got really violent. All those historical shows are like: rape. No, like why! Outlander is graphic, it’s horrible. I’m just watching Derry Girls now.
I saw you perform, and once you guys got going, everyone went a little gooey and loose, and it was just the best thing ever. What kind of atmosphere do you want to create on the dance floor? Gooey is so good. As inclusive as possible. I know what it feels like to watch performances, so I want to feel like I’m not going to be judged if I enjoy the music. Because of phones, I think some people feel embarrassed or self-conscious to dance, to be part of it, and that can be sad for me to watch. Because I would do it anyway. I have the smallest social filter known to man. I want to let people feel like they can do whatever they want, and that I’m not going to judge them, and that everyone else is not going to judge them.
With Fred The Conqueror, you’re performing as a man. Do you find that your lyrics are different, that you say different things? Oh yeah. The point is to show the hypocrisy. You can’t sit down with a dude who’s written lyrics that are pretty hurtful and overtly sexual and say, hey, this is disgusting. They don’t understand unless you do it yourself. And then they feel uncomfortable, and that’s the art. I’m really going method. And I just wanted to have some fun with that.
I’ve always been interested in making rap. I’m a producer as well, so I’ve made beats when I was younger, but I always thought it wasn’t for me. I think FREDDY was getting into a hole that I wanted to escape from. I’m more than that, and I know I can make more than that. Being this character is my way of escaping it. It’s sad as well, because it’s like why do I have to be a man to do it? I’m learning so much about myself while making the project, preparing for this show I’ve got coming up which is going to be more of a play. It’s giving Fred The Conqueror interacting with the audience. I find that shit so funny.
Like the performative male competition, perhaps? So good. But no one seemed to appreciate it. No, they did NOT appreciate it. All the women there, they got it immediately. Because you are performing man, which is the contest. That’s what I’m saying! But the whole trend of performative males, it’s not funny. Men think it’s gay to care about things about women, so they have to make this whole fucking personality trend to go, look at how stupid I am! I care about women! I drink matcha bro! Oh my god! And they do it anyway because they actually fucking like it. It pisses me off! Okay you like Clairo, who gives a fuck? I’m not judging you, just own it!
But they didn’t like me because they could tell I was taking the piss. It was like I was being anti-performative. Like your performance cancelled out. Yes, exactly! There was this question, what would you do if your girlfriend was on her period? And I said: fuck her! And they’d all be like, I have 5 pads in my bag, I have a hot water bottle.
Something I love too on the album is that it feels so meta. There’s this line on ‘Pimp Dreams’ where Fred The Conqueror says, “I think I know a thing or two about women.” And it’s funny because, no he doesn’t. But then it’s funny because it’s like, yeah, you do! That’s the funniest thing! I’m glad you get it.
On ‘I Am Good’, I love that too, because you’ve been working since you were 14, you’ve been recording and making music. And you are good. And as a man, you can finally say, yeah, I am good.
I’m glad you picked up on that! Is it so wrong for me to be proud of myself and what I want to do?It is also an Australian thing though, tall poppy syndrome. I don’t know if this is something every woman has experienced, but I definitely felt shy about being proud of what I did. And through Fred the Conqueror I could go, yeah bitch I made this! I like to think the irony through the whole thing is that he actually can’t talk to women. He’s afraid of them, so he’s saying all this stuff, but he doesn’t have women at all.
You have the women. You are the woman! Exactly! The other thing is that he’s based off a historical character, William the Conqueror. He’s so cunt. Not really though. I relate to him. He wasn’t born a king, he had to kill the king; he was illegitimate, the son of a bastard. But he’s also really insecure, because he feels like he doesn’t deserve his place. That’s how I feel a lot of the time.
You and Looks collaborate a lot together, and you’re also dating. Were you dating first and then collaborators? What came first? This is outing us a little bit, but we met through a rap group. He isn’t a rapper, he’s a producer. I don’t know if this was because he wanted to flirt with me, or he wanted me on the song, but he sent me this beautiful instrumental that he’d made. Then he went to Italy for a month. I kind of liked him at this stage so I was spending extra time going, oh let me fix this! I guess were collaborators first, but we dated and didn’t make music for a bit until we were like, well this is stupid, what are we doing.
What’s it’s been like for you guys making music together? It’s been awesome. It’s affirming that I’m on the right path. He’s very talented. We couldn’t make the music that we’re making together ourselves. And that has always been the point; we’re both very proficient in our own ways, and we make a kind of music without each other, but together it’s different, because we’re both producers. We put our minds together and we can literally create anything. At the same time that power wields its own troubles, because it’s like what do we do? I guess because if everything is available to you, where do you want to go? We like everything, all genres. He likes jungle, drum and bass, and we’ve been having a Detroit house phase right now.
On ‘I Am the King of Everything’, is that you singing or Fred? Because there are lines when you, or him, are talking about being a woman in Sydney music. What’s your take? It’s both. It definitely goes bar for bar. It was intended to be Fred The Conqueror, but a lot of them having double meanings. When I write songs, that just came out of me. That was the last song I made for Fred The Conqueror, and I think it needed that song. I thought I was going to have the album out a year ago, maybe even longer, with all the songs on it that you know. And then I sat with it and went, it’s not ready yet.
It didn’t make sense until Australian Underground. It’s this Insta account run by dweebs. They did this iceberg of all the underground rappers in Australia, and there was only one woman out of a hundred. Some women that I know were like, so where are we? The account obviously got shit for it, so they posted a slide of ‘females you need to watch out for in the underground’. Then they did this other one, ‘rappers you need to watch out for.’ Think about that. That says it all, doesn’t it? That’s when I thought: where are all the fucking women in the music scene?
You can find FREDDY on Spotify and at @eatingfreddy.