Matthew Good Band – Interview

How are you?

I’ve been better. I have a little bit of bronchitis going on.

Really? What are you doing working?

Well, I’m a little bit of a bronchial veteran. [laughs] I quit smoking, so I thought I would escape it this year, but I didn’t. I figured after fifteen years of smoking and getting bronchitis every year, I thought since I quit I wouldn’t get it this year.

How does it effect your singing?

I’m off right now, but we just did some Christmas shows and it wasn’t effecting me then. But if we were on the road, I’d be a very un-fucking-happy person. I had bronchial pneumonia one time on tour and I got off stage one night, spit blood, and they rushed me to the hospital.

I had pneumonia once and it’s not pretty.

No, it’s not.

When did you quit smoking?

January 3rd of 2000. I had surgery on my throat on the 6th.

How does not smoking effect your singing?

I’m much better now. I didn’t have bilateral nodules, I just had one on one vocal cord, so it was removed and I spent three months rehabilitating my voice. I find I sing the same, but with purer notes. I’m not complaining about that. I actually picked up two octaves on my range.

With the surgery was there ever talk of you not being able to sing or some risk of that?

No, not really. I had been going to a specialist, who is one of the best in the world, so they scoped me and I guess the one side was like medium sized and wasn’t going to be a problem. But you have to make certain allowances in your life for things, and at that time I wasn’t very vocally ignorant, but I didn’t really know much about it. A lot of people go to vocal coaches who are basically just singers who sang for a living but don’t know jack shit about the voice. I don’t even see a vocal coach; I see a speech pathologist. They teach you how the voice works and how you physically produce sounds. They dispelled tons of myths for me. Basically, the best thing you can do for your voice is hydrate it with water. Nothing touches your vocal cords, it goes around them, but you need to keep yourself hydrated and sleep.

Sleep seems like the harder thing to do on the road.

I’m a sleep nazi on the road, dude. I get on the bus after a show, watch a movie, and I’m done. I go to bed. I’ve been doing this for ten years so I’ve done the whole blow jobs in the back lounge thing.

I’m from the Buffalo area, so I know a bit about the Canadian music scene…

You listen to Canadian radio all the time, right?

Yeah.

You listen to the Canadian Edge more than your Edge, right?

Yeah, and 107.1. Anyhow, I was wondering, since we know the new album, new being a relative term, has really been out in Canada for way over a year, is it weird still talking about it and having to have the same excitement about it now, after I’m sure you have new material ready?

A little. They took three songs off it and took three songs from Underdogs and put those on it, so it’s kind of super record 2001. I knew this point in my life would come. To be honest, I’ve had release offers in America before this, but they were always with labels where I hated everyone there. I was at Mercury before, and BMG before that, and the opportunities were always terrible. And the thing is that if you are a Canadian going into the States you usually get this, well, let’s just say I’ve never been conned by the whole ‘Oooooh, we’re going to America.’ There is just this self-defeated attitude that comes along with it too. It was interesting. I was just talking to this guy on the phone who is Atlantic Records’ field rep and this guy in Texas told me that Our Lady Peace went triple platinum in America. I asked him if he was on crack.

No way.

He tried to tell me they sold four million records in America. I’m like, ‘Try two-hundred thousand.’

They never broke in America.

Not only that, but that is as many records as STP’s last album and half of what they ever sold. Come on, who does that guy think he’s fooling? The facts are fucked. I just tell people I’m from Ventura Beach. I mean, I’m still an apathetic westerner, right? What does it matter.

It’s just hard for me to separate knowing what is going on in Canada for those who don’t and will read this article. Because even if I don’t know the material really well, I know the bands and some history. I only know that…

I could come to your town and put a thousand people in a bar. [laughs]

I guess I can never figure why it takes a year for a Canadian band to come to the US. I mean you guys are right there. British bands, yeah, I mean, they have Europe to play, but I don’t know. I can’t wrap my head around it.

Well, you have to understand, if you go to the US weak and radio weak, your goose is cooked. Because the next time you go to them with a single, then they’ll tell you to fuck off. I just wanted to go to the States with a company that I liked. I saw a lot of bands pass on our band, and then Atlantic got behind us because people there have liked us for a long time. The rumor circulated the company that we were going to be joining them through a demo that was left on a secretary’s desk and just went around the company. So they genuinely liked us. That is a rare thing. That was cool, and because of that I’m willing to put my energy to it.

Speaking about your writing, do you want people to know what you are singing about or do you want them to interpret them for their own lives?

I want them to interpret them because being a literalist is great, but it just applies to Matt Good. Yeah! (he says sarcastically) But the songs are written in three phases. That way the listener can apply it to themselves. That is the beauty of music.

Like when a song seems like it is about you.

Exactly. Like you can put yourself inside it and it’s all about you.

What songs did that for you growing up?

Anything the Police did, U2, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, I listened to everything from death metal to classical. I always thought it was a waste of time to get caught in some musical clique like the Smiths and that is the only kind of music you could listen to.

It was great when I was a kid going from Metallica to Run DMC in the same day.

On the same tape!

I know. [we both laugh]

One thing I find unfortunate in today’s music market is that that great subversive quality in music when we were kids is gone. It’ll never happen again. Everything is Wal-Mart subversion. You can only sit around and watch Korn jump around so much and those banana heads from Papa Roach talking about real life. The guy is singing a line about suffocation and no breathing mean the exact same thing. And I was laying in bed watching that Blink 182 band and that song, (sings) ‘So sorry it’s over.’ How gay is that shit? [we both begin to laugh] It’s like, ‘Dude, learn how to write some new chords.’

The funniest thing about that is it’s really just the Green Day effect.

Exactly. Look where they are now.

So a lot of these punk bands are just following the Green Day blueprint.

Exactly. And then you have all the other imageless, faceless bands that are following in the line of, well, they are the same now, aren’t they? Anything with a name and a number is cool, I suppose.

I’m curious about what you think of good music getting lost to the shameless mainstream garbage we have shoved down our throats every day.

Well, you have to realize we are living in a day and age where demographically it’s polar. We are talking about kids between eight and sixteen and thirty and forty-five being the largest market. Therefore, Backstreet Boys and Sting dominate. It’ll swing around in a few years and everyone will be listening to me and wanting to kill themselves.

+ charlie craine