Publicity Campaign: Faker - ‘Enjoy Your Problems’
FAKER (Nathan Hudson) returns with ‘Enjoy Your Problems’, a new album shaped across years of movement, setbacks, and self-discovery.
Written in bedrooms, on the road, and in borrowed time across multiple cities, ‘Enjoy Your Problems’ is less a comeback narrative than a document of what happens when you leave, survive, and slowly learn how to return. Hudson describes the record as the result of getting lost in the world and finding the pieces of himself as he moved from place to place.
First emerging in the early 2000s, FAKER became a defining Australian indie rock project of its era, built on sharp hooks, restless energy, and a live reputation that travelled fast. For Hudson, it was always a project shaped by people and momentum.
A moment that changed Hudson’s life forever, and the trajectory of FAKER, came after an incident that led Nate to run away from the country, from the band, and from the version of himself that had been trying to hold it all together. What followed was a long stretch of movement and reinvention, getting lost in the world and learning, slowly, how to come back.
During those years, he continued writing and releasing music through other projects, including Map of Stars, while moving across the world - a unique songwriting and travel project in which Hudson would spend a month in a new city, assembling a team of musicians and creating 2 songs that took influence from each city's distinct environment. Eventually, he returned to Australia and began the slow, patient work of finishing ‘Enjoy Your Problems’, pulling together songs written across bedrooms, borrowed studios, and different versions of his own life.
The album opens with ‘Comet’, a kinetic, guitar-driven single that captures the sensation of seeing overwhelm coming and choosing to stand your ground anyway. “It's about a comet crashing down into the middle of your street, home, neighbourhood, town, and life and trying to stand your ground, even though it feels ridiculous to do so,” says Hudson. “It's about what the world is at the moment, and trying to find an optimistic spin. Ultimately, we're surviving.”
Across the record, Hudson's songwriting moves between the heightened and the everyday, the romantic and the mundane, holding both without flinching. There is the restless pulse of ‘Nightmare’s Coming Back’, built from an old riff that finally found its moment, and the tender self-talk of Partner In Crime, where longing gives way to something quieter and more honest.
Collaboration is threaded through the album's DNA. Longtime FAKER drummer Paul Berryman appears on five tracks, recorded during a short window in Seattle. In Brazil, Hudson worked with Adriano Cintra (CSS), alongside an Italian drummer, in what he describes as the queerest window of the record's creation. Additional parts were shaped remotely with longtime FAKER bass player and guitarist Nick Munnings (based in Hong Kong), and the album was mixed by longtime collaborator Sameer Sengupta (Australian-born, LA-based), who has previously worked on Map Of Stars, helping unify songs made in different cities into something that feels like a band in one room.
The album closes with Heavens, a final turn that feels like the lights coming down and the credits rolling. The title ‘Enjoy Your Problems’ came from a phrase Hudson heard often during the sessions, lifted from a joke T-shirt with the slogan “enjoy your problems,” written on the front and on the back, “bye”. What started as a blunt, funny sign-off became a kind of thesis for the record. The last word of ‘Heavens’ is “bye”, tying the album's final moment back to the phrase that named it.
With friendships and creative relationships scattered across the world, ‘Enjoy Your Problems’ reflects a way of making music that follows connection, not geography.
Track by track:
‘Comet’: A rush of anticipation and dread in the same breath. ‘Comet’ frames overwhelm as something you can see coming, thrilling and terrifying, and leans into the push and pull between craving structure and chasing novelty.
‘Frida’: A love letter to women who carry more than they should have to. Built from people and places across Hudson’s life, ‘Frida’ holds many identities at once, shifting depending on who is singing and who is listening.
‘Trustfall’: Written in Melbourne with Alex Lahey and Gab Strum, ‘Trustfall’ began as an abstract lyrical conversation and became a breakup song about risk, hesitation, and what you tell yourself after something doesn’t work. It travelled through Brazil and Mexico City, shaped by edits that cut the noise and left the clearest lines standing.
‘Nightmare’s Coming Back’: Born from an old guitar riff and finished in a flash, ‘Nightmare’s Coming Back’ is heavy but danceable, with a droning pulse that nods to goth and post-punk touchstones. Lyrically, it circles the fear of getting stuck, using transformation imagery to capture what it feels like when your body and mind won’t let you move.
‘Goldmine’: A song written like a hand on a shoulder. ‘Goldmine’ is Hudson trying to lift a friend out of their lowest moment, offering a small push back toward the light without pretending the dark isn’t real.
‘Partner In Crime’: ‘Partner In Crime’ starts with pining for a grand, cinematic kind of love, then turns inward. It’s about learning to meet the romantic with the everyday, and giving yourself permission to stop self-punishing, with Hudson’s sister’s voice threaded through the choruses and outros.
