Phone call from Brooklyn: Matt of Matt & Kim - jams dean
(photo via Sucka Pants)
After a few failed attempts, Matt of Matt & Kim finally found a time in his relentless schedule to talk on the phone with us about the insanity of the modern day indie rock tour, the future of Matt & Kim, and why he hates rock stars that love rock stardom.
CreamTeam: Matt, how’s it going?
Matt: Good, I’m just inside in the air conditioning. It’s real hot out there. I’m almost just visiting here, even though I live here.
CT: How is Brooklyn treating you?
Matt: Good. Yesterday we saw some friends play at McCarren Pool and then went to a friend’s barbecue. It’s good, New York in the summer is real fun. Where are you at?
CT: Chicago. I saw you guys at the Hideout with Death Set and Hollywood Holt recently.
Matt: Yeah, Hollywood Holt shredded!
CT: Yeah, he’s a pretty popular guy around here.
Matt: He always seems like a maniac every time I run into him. Like, we were in Austin and he was walking around without his shirt on and fanning himself with a bunch of cash and just making a scene.
CT: And you guys just played at the McCarren Pool recently, right?
Matt: Yeah, that was last weekend.
CT: Who was the marching band that played with you guys?
Matt: It’s called the Rude Mechanical Orchestra. They’re from Brooklyn and they do mostly political activism. They play at protests and things like that. They’re trying to make a little cash because they just bought a bus that runs on vegetable oil and they’re trying to drive to the RNC (Republican National Committee), wherever the heck that is. We played a show with them at a college, that’s how we met. They were doing covers like Beyonce’s Crazy in Love and Salt ‘n Pepa’s Push It and we were talking about getting together and doing something and Kim just organized for them to play a couple of our live songs with us and it was awesome. We’ve done the same line-up for three or four years, however long we have been playing, I don’t even know, and it was really cool/nerve-wracking to switch it up.
CT: Was that vegetable oil-powered bus the same one that you were traveling on?
Matt: No, coincidentally thats a separate vegetable oil-powered school bus, but we were able to give them a couple of pointers cause we’ve experienced that now.
CT: And you were on the other vegetable oil-powered school bus with some other bands for the F Yeah Tour, is that right?
Matt: We were loosely on the bus. We had some friends that were following in their car and making a documentary and when we got into the South, in the heat, and there was no air conditioning and 27 people on the bus, we totally just hopped in the car. It was a saving grace from a catastrophe.
CT: But for the Colt 45 thing you guys were flying around on planes right?
Matt: Yeah, we took off in Dallas and flew out to LA to start off those five shows.
CT: How was flying after surviving a 27-person bus?
Matt: I don’t really prefer flying. Just getting there on time, and we always have a baggage loss. I don’t know if there’s somebody always there that looks for tags that say Matt & Kim and then they just throw it away, but luckily on that trip it all ran smoothly.
CT: Did you guys get your fair share of Colt 45 on that tour?
Matt: Haha, I had one can the first day. I’ve been to a couple of Colt 45-sponsored events and the last one, I don’t even remember it. So, I decided I should take it easy. I think Kim made it the whole trip without drinking a single one. I don’t think it even tastes that bad, it just kind of catches you off-guard. It would have been awesome if it was 40s though. It was all just those tall cans they were giving out. If I could have looked out to a whole crowd holding 40s of Colt 45, that would have been amazing. Next time I’ll ask.
CT: Did you guys make any good friends or close bonds on the F Yeah Tour?
Matt: We were on the F Yeah Tour for the most part with The Death Set, Team Robespierre and Monotonix and we were friends with The Death Set and Team Robespierre beforehand, but the drummer from Monotonix, I can’t even pronounce his name, he’s a Swedish dude, he was a really nice guy. Then there was a film guy who did a video for his website, and he was awesome, and there were a bunch of really cool people who weren’t even in bands. We were talking yesterday to Team Robespierre, who actually were the only ones who had never left the bus the entire trip from beginning to end, and they said it was all really cool people.
CT: And there was art on the tour from Space 1026?
Matt: Theoretically yes, there was supposed to be some projections and stuff but Monotonix smashed the projection screen on the first show. They just have a wild shtick of destruction, it’s pretty ridiculous, in a good way, but sometimes it went out of hand, like when they smashed the projection screen. But there were also people from Space 1026 who had built, like really big cardboard robots, and there was a big cardboard cutout of…I don’t even know, just a lot of weird stuff. But this girl Delilah was also selling different art-related products.
CT: Does Kim ever bring any of her artwork on the road?
Matt: Actually it’s funny, we were talking about that once and she’s made these etching patches for a while, and she has some friends here that sell her stuff in their store. She would love to have stuff on the road on the merch table, but you have to be able to make more time to make yourself make more art, and that hasn’t worked out thus far. It’s funny, we’ve been doing this band full-time for a couple of years, and we’ve had the least amount of time in the past couple of years to do anything else. There’s no time off. I’m not complaining about it, but I don’t have any other hobbies. But Kim was going through some old art stuff because she’s working on the artwork for the cover of the next album.
CT: Kim’s doing the artwork for the next album cover?
Matt: Yeah, she did the last one too.
CT: Any idea when that might be out?
Matt: We’re shooting for October, but it’s really confusing. We did our last release with our friends at iheartcomix, and it was all good, but we sort of need a larger thing, somebody who can handle a little bit more. We’ve been talking to all these people and it’s really confusing knowing who you’re doing business with. It’s funny because that shit has nothing to do with music and it frustrates me so much because all I want to do is play shows and write tunes.
CT: You seem to hear that from a lot of bands.
Matt: But we have a manager who is taking care of that stuff now. We’ve signed some pretty gnarly pieces of paper in the past, not knowing all the law lingo, but now we got our backs covered on that. Once, I signed something that said in lieu of, and I thought in lieu of meant including, which I was totally wrong on that, but I’ve learned…I’ve learned…
CT: Obviously you’ve been on the road a lot, but tell me a little bit about the music thats happening in Brooklyn right now, do you feel like you guys are a part of some sort of Brooklyn scene? Would you say that there’s a Brooklyn scene?
Matt: It’s weird, there’s so many bands in Brooklyn, just in our practice space. There’s probably like three bands per room and there’s fifty rooms, so there’s 150 bands just in our practice space, and there’s so many different practice spaces here. There’s so many different New York bands I don’t know about, but there is a particular scene that Kim and I fall into, which is a lot more like Todd P shows, which is more of the underground shows in Brooklyn, the warehouses and unconventional venues. That’s more like the bands like Japanther, The Death Set, Dan Deacon and all these types of bands. The last show of the F Yeah fest was through Todd P here in Brooklyn.
CT: You guys definitely make sure that you make a personal connection with the audience and separate yourself from the rock star thing.
Matt: It’s funny, I was talking about this with someone the other day. The best description for the opposite of that is the guy who’s standing on stage and you can tell he probably had his guitar strapped on and was looking at himself in the mirror in the morning and picturing how he was going to look on stage. The kind of guy who is just living the dream a little too much, you know? And that just pisses me off whenever I see bands like that. I mean, Kim and I…I just consider it to be all about honesty. Bands that try to look bored on stage are just really boring to me, so if you’re pissed on stage and that’s what you’re going through, then look pissed on stage. Being in a band that came up playing in basements and artspaces you know, lofts and stuff on the floor and parties, and just wanting to make something where I would want to just go and hang out, we try to bring that kind of ethic to whatever kind of place we play.
CT: That’s awesome, that’s definitely what I saw at the Hideout. There was zero pretension. If you both weren’t taking off I would have felt no intimidation in asking you guys to come back for a beer. You seem like the people who live next door.
Matt: Yeah, totally, and that’s what I want to have when I’m at a show. You know, it’s awesome to just go and have a party every night, and just go into that with that mindset. And it’s all about team effort. Kim and I get psyched the more the crowd gets psyched. And the more we get psyched, the more it comes back. It’s a team effort. It’s not just about watching us on stage, it’s everyone’s—everyone’s involved.
CT: It was awesome just watching you two and knowing that you’re actually just making music because you really just love making music.
Matt: And it’s awesome for Kim and I’s band, even when we came up with the name. At our first show we didn’t have a band name and we put Kimberly and Matthew on the flyer and then afterwards we shortened it. We thought it was really good to take any kind of pretension out of it, not that it’s pretentious to have a band name, but we just wanted it to be just like hanging out, we wanted to be on a first name basis with everyone else.
CT: So what’s next for the Fall?
Matt: Well, I’m sitting in front of this computer mixing the next album. We are trying to finish it up this week. We have been working on it for about four months on every spare day we have off. We hope to have this released by October. Then, we leave next week to do some shows, back over in the Midwest with CSS and The Go! Team. I’m not sure if we’re playing in Chicago, but they’re doing Lollapalooza so we are going to at least come and hang out with them. But we are going to Milwaukee and Minneapolis and back over to the East Coast. We’re in and out, but I would like to be back in Chicago again because it is one of my favorite towns.
CT: Good. Mine too.
M: I know a lot of dangerous people there. Dangerous in the sense that they get ridiculous and then tend to get me in trouble.
CT: This city has its fair share of people who like to party really hard.
Matt: Yeah, it’s crazy, it doesn’t matter what day I come to town—Monday, Tuesday, whatever—it’s always on. I had a friend who had to leave Chicago and move here because he said he couldn’t get anything done because there was too much hanging out going on. He had to leave because everyone was hanging out all the time and he needed to be somewhere he could focus.
CT: That sounds about right. Well, go get to work on mixing that album. I’m pumped to hear it!
Matt: It’s going to be killer, that’s all I’m saying.
CT: Is it going to be different?
Matt: Yeah, it’s pretty different. It’s more varied. While it does have songs that sound like what we had before, we have some songs with a lot more instrumentation, but it’s still going to be what its always been like, simple beats and simple melodies. But we are trying things that I have always wanted to do. The last one was recorded in nine days which was pretty quick.
CT: Well, take it easy. I hope to see you guys in Chicago soon.
Matt: Alright, later!
Matt & Kim – Silver Tiles (128 kbps)
Matt & Kim – No More Long Years (Radioclit Remix) (320 kbps)
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… So jealous you guys get sweet interviews and I don’t
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