Do we like them?

Do we like Gotye?

Our score: 8 out of 10. Years of backing refugees and park rangers, no harmful words found, but the record is quiet and I couldn't open the full articles.

Gotye is the stage name of Wally De Backer, a Melbourne musician who was a member of The Basics long before one breakup song made him a household name. That song, Somebody That I Used To Know, is still being sampled and covered more than a decade on. Doechii built her 2025 track Anxiety around it, and Fanny Lumsden released a country cover that same year.

Then he mostly stepped away from the spotlight. He has focused on his band and his own projects instead of chasing a follow-up, and when a report claimed he would run for parliament in Victoria in 2014, he denied it. So no political career to check, just a musician who got on with his life.

On the harm test, there's nothing to find. No dodgy comments about LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet turned up, and no slide into conspiracy theories. His public causes point the other way: he's an ambassador for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, which lists him alongside other Australian musicians backing refugees.

He's also put his name behind conservation. Crikey reported on his work with the Thin Green Line Foundation, which supports park rangers. In 2014 he joined Tex Perkins and Nicky Bomba in a one-night supergroup, with proceeds going to the foundation.

His band The Basics also played a 2013 fundraiser that raised money for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and a Greens candidate's campaign. Where you land on that depends on your politics, but it was a benefit for refugees. That's backing others with his time rather than selling himself.

On the good-person test, no lawsuits, no allegations from established outlets and no stories of him treating anyone badly turned up. Nothing new has surfaced on him lately either, and the 2026 results were mostly clickbait and rumour-mill rubbish, which I've ignored. I couldn't open the full articles today, so this is built from what the searches returned. Treat it as a good but thin file.