THE MAN BEHIND THE MUSIC
At first glance Matt Campbell is a tall guy, wearing a sweater and some skinny jeans, but there is a lot more to him than just a hipster look. I sat down with Matt to ask him about his life, his music, and his experiences as a student attending Souhegan High School.
Matt Campbell got his first guitar when he was three years old but didn’t start playing it till he was in eighth grade. He started writing songs when he a freshmen in highschool and as he said in our interview, “they sucked” laughing a little after. Going into junior year he says he thinks he drastically improved in his songwriting abilities with the song “TaylorDark.” I talked to Matt about how he started in music and if he had a specific genre that he always wanted to be in as a musician he said, “I’m gonna play and I’m gonna write what I like.”
Matt grew up listening to classic rock and blues but a lot of his inspiration comes from folk which he said has been a lot of what he listens to along with a lot of punk music. Around the time he was eight or nine he really got into Smashing Pumpkins and he said they have a huge influence on him saying, “They are a huge influence on me and they’re the furthest thing from acoustic” and are one of his all time favorite bands tied with Chicago.
When he was a freshmen Matt was working with a band but it didn’t really work out, so he decided he would play around as a solo artist.The original name of his solo project was Matty Mayhem he added after telling me this “I decided that was a stupid name and changed it to Matt Campbell Music like it should’ve been.”
Before interviewing Matt I did some research on his website about his music and read that a lot of his songs are based on people. I brought this up while talking with him asking if his most recent project was all based on one person, some of the songs are about the same person. The first song on his album being “Rosebud” is about Matt’s current girlfriend Anna, “Around the time we started dating I got a banjo and that’s actually been a big part of my sound.” Matt’s use of the banjo adds an original touch and very different but great sound. Matt proceeded to show the original “Rosebud” lyric sheet to me which was composed in the Los Angeles International airport.
Matt said that a lot of things change about his songs from the original lyrics sheet in his notebook to the final recording, there is a great amount of changes he makes in the process of completely a song throughout recording. All but one of the songs on the album are about a person but “For The Ones That Have no Hope, Hold On! (Aberdeen)” which is a personal favorite of mine and colleague Sophie Nikolenko; Matt said being from a small town like Amherst, he wanted something that people in the same position as him could listen to and feel like someone out there. “I can be more than my geographic barriers allow me to be,” the song is all about being yourself and making it out. I also asked him about Aberdeen and who or what it was, and he told me that Aberdeen is the town that Kurt Cobain grew up in but the song is not based on Cobain but is loosely is based on one of his friends.
Each song on Matt’s album tells a different story and each very powerful. “For the Things I Used to Do” is a song that Matt says still makes him emotional to play and perform. This song is about a girls perception of himself, this song is telling you how Matt feels people perceive him. I asked him if the song was based on a certain girl’s perspective and he told me that yes it was and that it was a girl that he felt himself and her had a poor relationship and that he made bad decisions that he felt hurt her.
Matt’s process to decide which songs would be on the album; originally the album was supposed to have thirteen songs but he decided to replace three former songs with “Rosebud” as the opening track because as he said “I thought it would be a happy way to start the album.” He also did this to allow the album to rise and fall giving a mix of emotion because he thinks a good album rises and falls starting with a good hook and letting the emotions fall and then rise back up. Matt believes fluctuation is a big part of a good album.
I listened to the album start to finish all in one sitting and as the listener you really hear the emotional waves he is talking about. Some of the songs were written as the album was being recorded such as “40” and others were written months before he even decided to start the project. “All my good songs come in pairs” he told me. If you listen to the last track on Matt’s album “For the Things I used to Do, I Give Up, I’m Sorry” there is a very powerful spoken word, I asked him about it and why he incorporated that, “The first album had spoken word on it, this album has spoken word on it, and I believe that my future projects will have spoken word on them.” Matt described that the spoken word on this album was really about “selling out” to the things that are trying to kill you and he thought that it would create a great contrast between the opening of the album and the ending. Matt said that the poem tells a lot about the album and was almost necessary to put it in the album. “I would encourage you to listen to the original spoken word called “Save the Graces, End the Story.”
Matt’s feelings surrounding the music industry and if after attending Souhegan if he planned to go into it.“The music industry no matter how bogus people say it is, it’s a living breathing organism, that is always changing.” One of his songs “The City” he says is about him trying to cope with the ever changing music industry. “You can quote me on this I think it’s phenomenal” Matt said after talking about Taylor Swift’s new album, saying that it took him a long time to get to a point where he could like and admire artists like her. Matt would say that music is just another evolution and that now he is able to be more open minded towards all different genres. After Souhegan Matt plans to go to school for building guitars and later go to school for producing music.
“Nothing makes me feel better than performing live and I was thinking about it the other day. You know I perform at the Pasta Loft, I perform everywhere and people come from all over to my shows and I think I’m pouring my heart out about very personal things to people I don’t even know and thats a really weird thought but for some reason. When I get up and I perform and I see those people that are voluntarily there to see me. Nothing makes me feel better than knowing that somebody is listening.” After talking to Matt for this interview I would encourage anyone and everyone to listen to his new album and to check him out on social media.