MATTHEW SWEET: WEB EXTRAS

In the July/August issue of Performing Songwriter you’ll find a story on Matthew Sweet in which the power-pop maestro discusses his 10th and latest album, Sunshine Lies. Here, in this web exclusive, we present a lot more of our wide-ranging and candid talk with Sweet.

When did you start working on the new album?
I did the first tracks quite a while ago, around the time we were doing the first stuff for Under the Covers [the 2006 album of ’60s cover songs recorded by Sweet and Susannah Hoffs]. It must have been ’05, ’06, somewhere in there. I did mostly more rock stuff at first, including a couple of edgier things that didn’t make the album. Then when Under the Covers came out, we got so busy that I had to put my thing aside. Then I came back and did some things that were more like ballads and added that in. Then in the end I did three new songs [in spring 2008], right when I was going to mix and master the record. I thought I would try it and see what I got, and those ended up on the record. I probably worked on 30 songs for it, and there are three or four that aren’t on the album that are finished-ish (laughs). It ended up being a good blend.

You said recently that in making the album you were going for “sonic art nouveau.” What is that?
For a long time, I wanted musical lines to seem like nature, to seem winding and unpredictable but also gorgeous and cool. It’s a way I started thinking about my music that I don’t expect other people to understand—only I need to understand that connection. On this one, things like “Sunshine Lies” and “Time Machine” popped out like a flower, in my mind. When I was young I started out doing songs and not thinking about it. I just did my songs, and it was cool for me. I wanted to be happy. Then when I had success it was cool because other people liking what I did meant that I could get gear and keep doing music (laughs). But after that there was a subliminal pressure from the labels. I never tried to do my music a certain way for it to be successful, but it dampened my freedom a bit. I didn’t feel comfortable in the way I feel now. So much has changed in that world for me.

You recorded the new album on your own, then shopped it to record labels. How was that experience compared to having a label involved throughout the process?
Kimi Ga Suki [2003, initially a Japan-only release] was a way for me to do something after I finally got out of a deal with Jive, where I made In Reverse [1999]. I spent a couple of years trying to not make a record with them and get out. It didn’t work out. I became free, and the business was so weird. Now it’s a better time for someone like me, because if you’re known at all you can make records on a smaller level, and there’s a market for that. There’s a new model that didn’t exist then.

So I made this record for Japan, went over there to tour, started flying again for the first time in eight years. Right around that time I got a call to write a song with Shawn Mullins and Pete Droge. This would be 2002. We did this song and got offered a deal from Columbia the next week. [Droge, Mullins and Sweet released a self-titled album as the Thorns in 2003.] I was conflicted about it. I honestly didn’t feel right about it, but looking back it was fantastic. I learned to work with people and come out of myself in a way I never would have done. After we put The Thorns out and sold 175,000 records or something, which is giant now, they wanted us to do another record. But we didn’t want to do it unless we were totally free. Thank god we didn’t do it.

So then I came home. I had the rights to the Japanese record, and two years had passed, so I could release it in the States and the rest of the world. I also had this weird acoustic album, Living Things, that I had from when I was writing Thorns stuff. So I put those two records out independently in the States, did a deal with Red Eye, went on tour—this would be late 2004. I made some money, and it was OK.

In the meantime I got to know the people at Shout! Factory and really liked them. There’s a thing about having a group of people that have enthusiasm and are trying to make something happen. Hopefully I’ll make more than one record with Shout! because I know everybody, and I feel strong right now. The idea was to go somewhere there was some artist development, and since they don’t have all their eggs in just the record business [Shout! Factory is also a DVD company] it’s a good place where I can be under the radar a bit.

You’re a pottery aficionado. How did you get into that?
My wife had a kiln from many years ago when she was going to learn to do handmade clay pottery, and she never really did it. She had it for 10 years, and our new house had power put in so we could run the kiln. She left her job and got a big severance, so she was going to take two or three months off. We said, “Let’s get a pottery wheel.” We had researched it and she had already bought technique books, so I had been reading about it. We got a wheel, I went crazy over it, and she never really did it (laughs). I was self-taught and tried to do stuff way beyond my learning level, but because of that I have this way I can do it that’s weirdly advanced for someone who never went to school for it.

And you sell some of your pieces.
I sold stuff on the road the first time I made pottery. It was so much fun, and people were so into it. That’s how I bought one of my kilns. After that tour I got a great big kiln. If I take my pottery on the road now, it’s like a master made it compared to that early pottery. It’s so much beyond it. (Sweet’s pottery can be viewed at doctordoctorstudio.com/matthew/content/blogcategory/39/61/)

People must have been surprised to see pottery on the merch table.
It was the highlight of my day going up and pumping up the merch person about it, getting them excited, getting it all out of the boxes. The crew was all snotty about it: “Oh, it’s his pottery” (laughs). So I had to get the boxes out, wrap it up with newspapers and unwrap it at the end of the night. That was part of the fun of it—doing it on my own, making it small.

I tried pottery in college and was very frustrated.
It’s very, very difficult. You have to suspend time and space. And you’ll have a day where it’s magic, where you’re like, “Oh my god, come look at this thing I just made!” And then the next day you’re inept. It’s totally connected to what your spirit is like right then. It’s very odd. When it’s working you get so zoned out that you might as well be meditating. And music is similar. If I’m working I’ll get into a daze.

When did you start putting your home studio together?
A long time ago I started getting into a real home studio, probably sometime in the mid-’90s. I was supposed to make 100% Fun [1995] at home alone, but I just couldn’t get started. So after a while I called [producer] Brendan O’Brien and he said, “Why don’t you just come out and we’ll do one.” So I went out there with what songs I had, and we made that record. In fact, a new song I wrote while I was driving out there was [the first single] “Sick of Myself,” so that worked out well.

I got more and more into the Pro Tools toward the end of the ’90s, but it still wasn’t good enough quality to my ears. Before Pro Tools HD came out [in 2002] it just didn’t sound good enough to me. It seems good now. There’s lots of great plug-ins. There’s these Abbey Road EMI plugs that are fantastic, these EQs and limiters and compressors. I’m unusual in that I mix right in Pro Tools. Most people send it out to a board and have someone mix it, but it’s so inexpensive for me to do it this way.

Has working in your own studio made the writing and recording processes inseparable?
Yes, totally. There aren’t demos now. There’s either a song that turns out so great I want to put it out or a song that I won’t put out. I didn’t finish it or I didn’t like it.

Do you write in the studio?
Yes, to the extent that I might work on a track and build it up. Nowadays I might record with my friend Ric [drummer Ric Menck], do some first take of something and play around with it, and then I will build whatever that is into a song. I just add things—add some bass, some guitar. I usually have a melody with the original idea, but oftentimes I will be working on the words while I’m building the track, so I can be singing along with it in my head while I’m working on it. That’s pretty cool. It allows me to be more free-form about it. I do a lot of stuff where I just do it without knowing whether it will stay or not. I’ve been doing a lot of stuff that’s the first or second take of the drums or the bass. We don’t use clicks. It is what it is. I’m thought of as a super-craftsman type who perfects little things, but I’m really a lot more offhand than that.

You’ve kept a core band for a long time, including Ric and guitarists Richard Lloyd and Greg Leisz. Why do you keep coming back to them?
They like music like I like, and they play a way I like. And we’re all really good friends at this point in our lives. They’re my buddies. Without them it’s awful lonely.

How is the group dynamic different now than 15 years ago?
I’m a lot different. At the time, things were really hot. In the ’90s I was pulled in a million directions. I had to leave all day and do this soul-grinding promotion work while they hung around, so I tended to be moodier and unpredictable. My moods would throw shows a lot more back then, which was frustrating for them. Things weren’t as easygoing back then, because I wasn’t as easygoing. Nowadays we all just love to play. It’s groovy and cool, and we do it.

As you alluded to earlier, you wrestled for a long time with a fear of flying. How did you do all that promotion without flying?
[Not flying] left me in such a less crazy state that it was better for everyone. During a lot of Altered Beast [1993] I was pretty crippled in what I was able to go out and do. At the time there was a lot of pressure. I was having a lot more trouble flying. My manager, Russell [Carter], and I had a talk after that record. We said, “OK, next record we just won’t fly at all. We’ll promote it here and in Canada, and we’ll figure it out.” That was such a huge relief to me that it probably helped me do a good job on 100% Fun and on through to Blue Sky on Mars [1997], as far as me being ready and able to promote myself. On Blue Sky they actually put me on the QE2 to go to Europe and tour. That was worse than flying, being on a huge ship in the middle of the ocean, days from land. We didn’t have a terrible storm, thankfully, but they have these photos of storms where the waves are three times as high as the giant ocean liner. It was horrifying.

Then in 2001 I agreed to go to Japan, so I knew I was going to fly. At the same time I got invited to be a part of that Brian Wilson tribute at Radio City Music Hall that Phil Ramone produced [“An All-Star Tribute to Brian Wilson,” held March 29, 2001]. Of course I wanted to do it because it was Brian. They said, “Will you fly if we put you in first class with Brian?” I thought, “Well, if I go down I’ll be with a great musical genius and forever attached to his name” (laughs). So I did it. Everyone was really nice to me because they knew I was afraid of flying. Then they called again and said, “OK, you’re going to be on Letterman with [Mark] Bryan and Darius [Rucker] from Hootie and the Blowfish. Will you fly to New York again?” It was like, “God, I have to be on Letterman with Brian Wilson.” So I flew again, and that’s how it started. Then I had a great time in Japan. It was still very hard for me, but it was good because once the Thorns happened I flew a lot. We went everywhere. We opened for the Dixie Chicks in Europe and Australia.

Finally by the end of the Thorns thing I started to get treated for anxiety disorder, and my life became so different in terms of that kind of thing. Flying, now, I barely am afraid of it. Susannah Hoffs had a horrible fear of flying and just lost the fear. She doesn’t care at all now, which is great. We’re a lot alike, so to know someone who doesn’t care who’s like you helped, too.

Musically speaking, are there still things you want to do that you haven’t done?
I’ve been thinking of doing something more surf-y sounding, twangy riff songs that aren’t rock-riff songs. The riff songs never mean as much to me, but people want to rock out and labels always want those upbeat songs. So it would be interesting for me to do upbeat stuff that was fun and crazy but in a more rambly, surf kind of way.

I understand that you and Susannah are also making another Under the Covers record, this time with songs from the ’70s.
We’re deep in the thick of it. We recorded so many songs that we’re just trying to get through it. I think it’s going to be a double album. We literally are working on about 40 songs. We thought the ’60s was our favorite, but in a way the ’70s is more fun because there’s such a wide range of stuff. There’s stuff that you would think was inappropriate, which makes us so excited to do it (laughs). We’re pushing the edges of what kind of things we could cover.

How has making this one compared to the first one?
People liked that record, so we thought, “Great, we have fun doing this thing and people like it” (laughs). That made us super-relaxed about what we were going to try.

How do you approach other people’s songs compared to your own?
There’s a lot of musicians who can play every cool old song, but I never learned any of that. I can learn something by ear if I need to, but I never did that many covers except when I was a bass player from 13 to 17 playing in bands. So the interesting thing for me was listening to those original records and trying to understand what was going on that made them cool, having to go through and go, “What is the bass doing? What is the guitar doing?” That’s something I never had to do in that much detail before. Having done it, somehow it’s in my brain now.

Sunshine Lies is your 10th album. How does it feel to reach that point?
It’s cool. I guess you can’t think you aren’t an artist if you have 10 albums (laughs). In one way I think, “God, I’m surprised I didn’t make more in the last 20 years.” But I can imagine I’ll make them faster now. I don’t think as much weirdness will happen from now on. But who knows?

For more with Matthew Sweet, get the latest Performing Songwriter, ISSUE No. 111