Matthew Good's Loser Discussions

06/19/01 2:00pm

by Aaron Brophy (CHARTattack)

So here it is in all its glory. The man himself, Matthew Good, discussing events in, around and vaguely connected to the Matthew Good Band's new EP Loser Anthems, their forthcoming cross-country tour and other things that tick the man off.

ChartAttack: What do you want to talk about?
Matt Good: Anything in general, that's cool.

Then let us first discuss all the intricacies of Loser Anthems. First off, "Flashdance II": smart strippers, is that the best or the worst of both worlds?
I don't know. There's always an inferiority complex involved with any woman who takes her clothes off for money. But y'know, I wrote that song for Underdogs, that song's five years old. So, it was about somebody I knew. That song, that album [Loser Anthems] I put out for fun, for shits 'n' giggles. It was kind of a weird thing. "Flashdance" we had done for Underdogs and we also demoed it for Beautiful Midnight, which is the version on that record. "My Life As A Circus Clown" I actually wrote on a piano. It was a piano number that the band then tried to do in a Frank Zappa-ish, Primus kinda way [detect the coy Chart slam there] or turned out that way because of Dave's guitar part, which I've never really agreed with.

I'm not keen on it either but I mixed those two songs when I was on vacation in England and I was kinda like, "I don't care." If I put this out it will be on some fuckin' b-sides collection so whatever. Fuck it. And then I wrote "The Man From Harold Wood" to match those two up and I did that by myself in England. And then the last three songs on the record I did by myself in 12 hours with Zack Blackstone who engineers most of our stuff.

The recording style seemed very old-school. Everything was done quick.
Everything's got a story behind it. "Flight Recorder From Viking 7" I did first and Holly [McNarland] came in real quick, in 10 minutes I think she sang that part. "Life Beyond The Minimum Safe Distance" I wrote the night before. About 12 [midnight] the night before. "The Fine Art Of Falling Apart," that's live, first take. I wanted to do one song in my life where I sat down with nothing on anything, no fuckin' effects, anything. I sat down in front of two stereo mics and I basically played and sang the song and no matter how flat and out of fuckin' tune it was I didn't touch it. I walked into the control room and said, "That's one time. And that's it." And I left it alone.

So the EP was very much, "I'm going to try all this new shit?"
Stuff that I would never do or stuff that I would have more components of it in our music than if I just did it myself or if I was hired to do soundtracks and that kind of thing. It's kind of difficult to put small, very focussed kind of thoughts, like two minute thoughts, on a major record. I really dig soundtrack-y stuff like that. I mean, not in a Radiohead sense, because I think that what they do, especially in the last two records, sounds fantastic but it feels horrible.
I was interested in recording the last three songs with a lot of air. In "Life Beyond The Minimum Safe Distance" I actually set up mics in the hallways. Just to record nothing. Just air while I was tracking. So that when we mixed it there was just this huge envelope above the mix that added all this hiss which I just adore from old records. I kinda really wanted to do it that way to translate vibe. In the last five months I've been all about that. Shit feeling good, not particularly sounding good.

That counts for so much, getting the "vibe."
It's totally true. And there are up sides and down sides to it. There are up sides and down sides to everything. I mean, "The Fine Art Of Falling Apart,' for example. I wrote that song in C-sharp, like a drop tuning from E-flat. Basically I couldn't get the fuckin' acoustic to stay in tune so I tuned it up a half a fuckin' semi-tone which stretched my fuckin' range up. So I'm flat all over the place on some of those high notes right, those mics just compress the shit. I listen now... for the first two days I was like, "Ohhh, dude!" And then, I put it on and I was like, "I fuckin' love that." It's out of fuckin' tune, it's grainy and too bassy an' shit...

But you're going for that genuine thing. It's the flaws that make it.
Totally. And unfortunately in this day and age in music that doesn't happen a lot. I don't think a lot of bands go looking to do it in a sincere way. I think either they do it and it's contrived - they look to do that but so much so that it's contrived. And then there's these bands, the majority of bands, who are so caught up in making things sound so right that they lose a great deal of their credibility because they feel terrible.

It almost seems like the whole EP format is agreeable to you.
I enjoyed doing it primarily because it's a cool fucking fan thing. And that's the only reason. This EP is me period. If I wouldn't have the fuckin' gumption, Dave or Rich wouldn't have went "Let's put a fuckin' EP out." I love doing shit like that. It's 35,000 copies and all the copies are numbered. And y'know, it's kinda like a no-win situation with our fans especially because they're all fuckin' hotheads for some absolute weird reason.

Would you rather them have passion or not though?
It's cool. I think it's great though. But it's kinda funny because you put out 35,000 copies because it's not about selling shitloads of records and making cash. You need something cool? I made 35,000 records. It's done. If you got one, cool. Then people start bitching because there aren't enough of them. On one hand I'm a fuckin' corporate sell-out and on the other hand there aren't enough records for them to purchase.

It's that fine line you have to walk every day.
Yeah, but it's a bullshit line. It has nothing to do with anything real. In this business especially. You know I can count on as many fingers how many bands just kowtow to policy. Especially in a country where the labels are complete idiots and working off 10 year old rock 'n' roll templates.

Hey, I just finished covering North By North East. I understand.
The really unfortunate part about that I find is because of the inferiority complex people in this country have about their own art — I mean, let's face it. There's nothing wrong with most Canadian music. There's a lot of fuckin' great Canadian music but for someone like me it's very difficult to compete with bands from the U.S. and England in the eyes of Canadians. And for one reason and one reason only. They have more money than I do. An American band or an English band can out-spend me fucking tenfold. Let's look at Radiohead . Let's just take Canada for example. Obviously in an international profile they're much bigger. But how many copies did Kid A sell compared to Beautiful Midnight? Half. But, they're fucking Radiohead and they have a gazillion dollar marketing budget. They have a fucking machine, a behemoth behind them that just throws cash into whatever they want to do. Canadian labels don't have that kind of clout. And why don't they have it? Because they're locked in an industry where people can't think outside of the box. I always found that unfortunate because Australia has a population smaller than ours and they're like this microcosm, this musical microcosm who doesn't give a shit about the rest of the world. But it just is.

They've got Men At Work. They exist outside of any machinery.
Oh, totally. It's impossible. I understand American TV and American everything gets beamed across our border infinitum, and that is a large problem with it. It starts in the industry and it spreads to regular everyday people. Unfortunately it effects how bands operate. They feel they gain a certain amount of success and they fear losing their career. Let's face it. When a Canadian band goes to America to play, or does an interview with American media, the first thing they know about you is that you're a Canadian. And the first thing that that basically entails is that you're not as good as them. No matter what I can do — you know me and the press, dude — it doesn't matter. You sit down on a couch and they go, "Oh, you're just a Canadian."

When you're British and you come across from the ocean you've got that lineage behind you. Like a fucking fist!

If you're from Liverpool or Birmingham or London or any of it you have far more musical credibility somehow. But if you're from fucking Mississauga no one cares.
The truth of it is when we released Beautiful Midnight in America, we probably could have spent a fucking year down there working it and we probably could have done pretty well. I'm 30 years old man. Fuck that.

That's the Barenaked Ladies model. They spent years down there.
No wonder they [Americans] have such a bullshit opinion of Canadian music. Jesus Christ!

You gotta remember too that America is built on the cult of celebrity. Think of the Super Bowl here for a minute. You've got Aerosmith and Britney Spears. I mean this is someone like Joe Perry and Steven Tyler, who you'd think would have enough control over their careers to go, "Fuck, that's just not rock!" But they do it anyway because it's about the cult of celebrity. It's got nothing to do with intentions, because if intentions ruled, then bands like Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo would have sold trillions of fucking records. But it doesn't work that way in America. And I don't even know them, but I bet fucking dollars to doughnuts that's one of the main reasons why At The Drive-In is no longer a band.

They didn't want to be part of that.
They didn't want to play the game. They're in a country where that rules. I just don't understand it. And the great thing about Canada is we don't have that here. We really don't. That should be celebrated in our musical culture instead of "We're not as good as the Americans."

I just challenge anyone to go to Los Angeles and hang out in West Hollywood for awhile at all those bullshit hotel bars to get a true sense of how fucking non-human that industry is.

Or make 'em watch MTV for 24 hours straight.
Even better. That's a fucking great idea.

My favorite is VH1's Top 100 records of all time and you've got like [The Police] Synchronicity is like number 47 and Cyndi Lauper is like number 21 or some horseshit band like Britney Spears is number 11. It's like, "Dude, are you on crack?"

At least Canada doesn't get that MTV influence? The core 20 bands pelting you over and over again. We're saved.
We are and we aren't. I mean, I watch these pop bands and I try to see. I try to clear my mind of all thoughts and feelings on it and I actually try to find some relevance in it. I look for it, I really do. On a sociological level, I try to understand. For the life of me I just can't understand. Kids just have their heads up their ass. I don't get it! It has absolutely no soul. You know what my favorite thing is? You know that ID band? What the fuck is happening? You line them up and give me a bat and I'll do the world some fucking justice. Oh God! Are they fucking serious!

We get tons of records like that.
Have you heard the new Copyright record?

Yeah.
Fucking genius!

The first time l listened to it I was like, "Ugh." And then I heard "Rock Machine" in a car stereo and I understood.
Y'know what, I've contended for a long time and I still will, that that band [Copyright] is the best band that this country has ever produced. I think the fact that they've been overlooked for so long is a terrible injustice. I mean Tom Anselmi's history alone, him and Christian [Thorvaldson], that's enough shit to write a mini-series about, dude.

You know what about that record? If you put out Transfiguration right now, it would be huge. Cause it falls into that Radiohead, blah, blah, blah, blah, Coldplay universe. That record came out what three years ago? And Tom wrote that four years before that. Which just only goes to prove it.

That's why I'm taking them on tour dude. Everyone always asks that. I'm not going to lie to people. It's not because I want to give them the opportunity to play in front of people. It's because I want to stand on the side of the stage and watch 'em.

That's always the best reason to get an opening act.
I fucking love watching them. We sit fucking side stage with our fucking jaws on the floor watching Christian. That guy is one of the best guitar players I've seen in my life. It just blows my mind.

So what else is going to happen on this tour?
It's gonna be a fucking fun tour. I'm pulling off some crazy shit. There'll be no cheerleaders this time but I've got some fun stuff lined up. Just yesterday I had to put to bed this idea, I was going to bring a catherine wheel on the road and I was gonna pull people from the audience and strap them to the fucking thing and spin 'em. But the liabilities of the thing! If someone fell off I'd be financially ruined for three lifetimes. So it can't happen. But I've come up with some shit that's just as good.

Fun police are always out.
I know. We're gonna have a good time. Summer shows are so much not about playing well as they are about putting on a carnival. I just can't abide bands that stand around doing nothing with moody lights behind them. It's so boring.

Once you reach a certain size you are as much a performer as musician.
Whenever we play big festival shows I'm not so concentrated on how well I sang. Put it this way, this is the third time I've gone out on Beautiful Midnight, 'cause it's summer and we can have some fun. My budget is restricted. Half the shows are outside so some of the stuff I wanted to do can't work because we can't incorporate lights and it could still be light out. Trust me though, I got some fucking funny shit going on!

Hints?
We've got a rule in the band. We come up with something three hours before the show every show to add to the performance. Let's just say that I'm probably going to have people in Laz-E-Boys watching television onstage while we play.
The Laz-E-Boys are on the whole thing. And I'm also gonna have the typical cheesy three mic back-up thing going on and I'm gonna pull lucky people out of the audience and they're gonna sing some fucking songs.

Everyday, Ian could go to our tour manager, "I want some dude that breathes fire." "Get me a contortionist." Or "Get me a clown with a frown that's upside down who makes balloon animals." We'll just throw this shit out and see if people can pull it off.

I think on my birthday in Calgary I'm trying to get this huge ceramic bull. And I'm going to hire a professional photographer with a polaroid and I'm gonna pull people out of the audience and let them have their picture taken on this giant bull while we're playing.

That is great stuff.
When you come to the point in your life when you realize you never should have written "Rico," you just regret a whole lot of shit that you never should have penned in the first place. You gotta kinda try to numb yourself to the fact it's going on by distracting yourself side stage. Which I try to do as much as possible, especially with the old stuff.

What's wrong with "Rico?"
The problem with our catalogue is it's a lot of cool, trippy-weird mid-tempo shit. I could play an entire show of that fuckin' stuff and be happy but it's a fucking rock show and if you're playing in front of 5,000-6,000 people you gotta figure "Rico" is a great song because people go balistic.

Any new songs?
We're going to probably play three new songs off the record coming up in September. I'm not going to give it away because all the internet kids check your site all the time. Let's just say it's the three we've already performed live. I'm not going to play any more new stuff besides that.