And here we are with the artist of this week. The guy who brought us a new anthem to sing with “God Gave Rock and Roll”, but making it clear in half the time. Nothing against Argent, but is a good point when the message can be sent a bit shorter.
Going back to our Artist, Matt thanks for taking this moment to answer this question to know more about you, the band, the song of the week and of course this great album that combines indie and 80’s/90s rock. Although, there are some tracks that show your open view about the indie genre.
So, Matt my first question will be about you. Tell us about yourself, how did you come up with this band and what are the expectations for this 2018?
I started this band as an outlet for some songs I’ve written over the years that don’t quite fit the remit of my other band (The Holy Orders). In 2016 I went to visit my friend Joe Bennett (Goldrush/The Dreaming Spires) at his small studio in Oxfordshire for a week and recorded the album “Stairgazing”. We both have a flair for musical extravagance so what was originally going to be a “solo” record turned into much bigger affair. Joe and I filled the sound out with a load of instruments and we got some friends in to enhance the orchestration even further.
The record’s just come out on Farm Music so we’re planning on promoting it throughout the year. Myself, Joe and Mike Monaghan (who played drums on the record) make up the core live band. The plan is to do as many shows as we can and get the music out to as many people as possible.
I must say that I can’t stop myself associating your sound with some of argent, oasis, Polaris (for the ones who does not know them, they were the project band for the series, the adventures of Pete & Pete) and some more, which makes me love that combination as well as the ended product that you are sharing with us.
Therefore, Which bands and conjointly maybe which writers do you consider your main influences? I love this kind of question on the point of doing a “Matt Edible & the Obtuse Angles” radiography and let the readers related their taste of music and find the connection between their influence and yours through the whole album (one of the best practices for melomaniacs)
So, I wouldn’t say that I’ve listened to Oasis for quite a number of years but they were the first band that really got me into guitar music - in fact - guitar playing. I’d tried to teach myself a few times but playing along to (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? was the first time I actually started to feel like I could really play. From them I started getting into a lot of the 90s Britpop stuff, Manic Street Preachers and then to Radiohead. From there I started listening to everything. I like lots of noisy and post-rock stuff like Shellac, Melt Banana, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Mogwai and Sigur Ros. I really like clever lyrical writers such as Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, Joanna Newsom and Bright Eyes. Some huge influences (certainly on this record) are a couple of great artists I’ve been fortunate to meet over the years. One of them is Hawksley Workman who makes amazing left-field pop music. His ...Delicious Wolves record is always one I go back to if I need reminding of how great hooks should be. The other is the wonderful Josh T. Pearson - the way he emotes stuff with such a dry sense of humour always gets me.
Talking about influences is such a difficult question as I love so much. I just want to keep listing artists (PJ Harvey, Neil Young, The Lovely Eggs, My Morning Jacket, Ezra Furman, Omar Souleyman, Neutral Milk Hotel…) but I know I’ve got to stop sometime!
Now I need to inquire about our song of the week, Nightclubbing. I honestly feel is the kind of song you must raise a glass/bottle/human/whatever and yell the song all the way through. A song that should be a bar anthem. A song that it the perfect banner to raise when you feel the night is in diapers (read as the night is young, but I did a literal argentinian translation of our phrase). How did this song come to you? Are there many stories or at least one you might want to share related to this? (we are on PEGI 12 here. even if it’s not a game I’ll use that rating so we all know) Is there another message that my “never stop partying” brain is not getting?
The chorus for the song actually came to me while I was working behind the bar at a nightclub! One of the ways I like to write is by knocking ideas around my head and, if anything really good sticks, developing them. When I’m doing that I tend to get a lot of daft little ideas and cast them aside - Nightclubbing was one of those ideas. The problem was that it kept popping back into my head with a bit added on each time - before I knew it, I had a chorus! When I went into the studio to do the album I decided the best way to exorcise this daft little song would be to get it down on tape. I did a simple lyric about going out and that was that. We realised pretty quickly that we’d produced something bigger than both of us. Before we left the studio in the early hours of each morning - we’d have to listen to Nightclubbing. Everytime someone new came to the studio - we’d play them Nightclubbing. Eventually, we realised there was no choice - we asked “what would Noel Gallagher do?”, put the violins on the record and decided to produce it as a Britpop anthem. Originally I kept apologising for the song (it’s a pretty nasty earworm!) but now I’ve come to love it - it’s pretty ridiculous and I hope people do drunkenly soundtrack their nights out with it!
Matt, the last two songs… What...? How...? Why...? completely unexpected and one more beautiful than the other one. Coming from the Astronauts track, you started with a kind of a movie progression and from there to the end of the album everything is so nice. I’m using the word nice to set the level of the feeling. Nice as didn’t go too down either upbeat. Nice as you dedicate the last bit of your album to let music speak for you and it did it really good. Are you planning to continue composing in this way? On this days we have artist like Jack White that on every album he’s doing one or two song with more music that lyrics, which I consider it shows how versatile your mind can be to create music. What do you feel when you listen to this songs?
As I said, I’ve always been a big fan of post-rock music. Bands like Godspeed…, Mono and Rachel’s introduced me to instrumental music being a really exciting form. I often find that I’m moved more by instrumental music. It doesn’t just overwhelm you with the hugeness of it all; it can overwhelm with minimal delicacy. It was great to take advantage of working with Joe in the studio. He plays lots of different instruments so we had the opportunity to experiment with a lot of different textures. Those last tracks on the album just felt right. We had some great fun having an Ennio Morricone/Brian Wilson attitude to sounds on those. I’ll definitely continue to write instrumental stuff - one of the main reasons being that when you play that stuff live you don’t have to worry about the vocals cutting through so you can turn your amps right up!
And last but not least, Do you have any gigs coming? I’ll try to go at least to a gig as I’m not as far as I thought from you guys and What would you like to say to the audience about your band to follow you?
We’re still working out a lot of shows at the moment but the ones that we have in currently are:
- 26th June - Hull, The Sesh @ The Polar Bear
- 30th June - London @ The Betsey Trotwood (opening for Fonda 500)
- 21st July - Oxfordshire @ Truck Festival
Thanks to everyone for listening - please let us know what you think and tell your friends. It’s such a cliché these days but please do like, follow and share our stuff on Spotify, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. Anything that will help just one more person hear our music is invaluable to us.
If you’re interested on buying his album: https://mattedible.bandcamp.com/album/stairgazing-2