The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast

Episode 034 - Nick DeMatteo - The Interview

• Alex Gadd / Nick deMatteo • Season 1 • Episode 34

Share episode

Send us a text

This week, we speak with Nick DeMatteo, the creative force behind the band {REC}. Nick is a lifelong musician and also an actor and film producer. A modern day renaissance man, he shares his creative journey with us, from his earliest musical influences through his first bands, his early stage and film productions, and his current creative outlet, {REC}, who just released their new record, Kite to Camden. Nick is also a podcast host himself, and we'll talk about that as well.

In all, it's a power-packed conversation that you won't want to miss, so join us this week on the Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast!

=========================== Connect with Nick:
REC's NEW ALBUM: https://recarea.bandcamp.com/album/kite-to-camden
NICK'S MUSIC AND MORE: https://www.nickdematteo.com/music
MUSIC is not a GENRE: https://link.chtbl.com/mxgpodcast
SUPPORT NICK'S MUSIC AND PODCAST: https://www.patreon.com/c/MUSICisnotaGENRE

===========================

Connect with us on social media!
YouTube
Instagram
TikTok
Facebook

Alex Gadd:

Welcome to the Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast. We're here to share the thrill of experiencing music of all kinds together with strangers and with friends, and to get to know our guests a little bit better through their musical experiences. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and I do this because I love talking about music with people. Finding out what kind of music someone's into and how they got into music in the first place allows us to get to know and understand one another better Today we're excited to have Nick DiMatteo on as our guest. Nick is an audio engineer. He's an actor and producer in both film and theater, and he's a musician. He puts out music with his band REC, which is spelled R E C, all capitals, and has released 10 albums since 2004 with an 11th one on the way. Additionally, he has a web series called Nick and Daniel Present, and he has a multimedia project called Music Is Not a Genre, which includes original music and a YouTube channel. And that YouTube channel has a podcast, which I was fortunate enough to be a guest on just over a week ago. He's a native of the South Jersey Philly area who moved to New York City in 2000. And he's just an impressive guy all the way around. I'm looking forward to a wide ranging conversation. So without further ado, Nick, thank you for being here today.

Nick DeMatteo:

Hey, Alex. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.

Alex Gadd:

right on. So let's start at the beginning. I think for people who make music and people who watch this show, it's always interesting to find out how you got to here. And we'll talk about how impressive your credentials are as a musician, but how did it start for you? How were you exposed to music when you were young?

Nick DeMatteo:

Well, so my dad is a musician. Uh, he made his living and supported the family as only a musician for maybe 50 years, 40 to 50 years. And prior to that, prior to having kids, he was a very well known singer in the Philadelphia area. He toured the country, he toured South America, he toured Canada. He was part of rock-n-roll shows and things like that, and released singles, and one of them was on the Top 100. And so, I was fed all of this as a kid and would go to see his shows at the restaurants and nightclubs he played at year after year, several, many, many times a year. Eventually up to sing with him. My first live singing experience was with him when I was two years old or something like that. And then at home, he would listen to music constantly with a stack of LPs, just one after another, all various genres, really mixed up. And my mom was a big music fan too, from the time, you know, she was a kid. So the whole household was just music all the time.

Alex Gadd:

What kind of music did he play? Wow.

Nick DeMatteo:

So he's a piano player and a singer and after a certain, well, pretty much all the time would, would use a drum machine. So he's a solo act and did that four to six nights a week. You know, every week except for vacations. And it was a, it was a range. He used to like to say he he'd do anything you want from the last hundred years, and most of it was standards in rock-n-roll and musical theater, but really a real mix, you know, he didn't really go past the nineties, let's say, but he, he had an impressive mix. Yeah.

Alex Gadd:

That's amazing. I could go into a hundred questions about how he started, but I really want to focus on you. So when you were young, what music did you latch on to first?

Nick DeMatteo:

I think about this a lot and I have to say the two things that come to mind are one the Beatles. My dad was a huge fan has all of the albums and he gave them to me. I have them now. And that was just, I was immersed in that and because he revered them so much that was passed on to me, but Two, as I started to get into my, uh, late single digits, let's say, or, or, you know, 10, 11, even what really struck me for some reason was funky music. So, uh,"Le Freak" or"Rock the Boat" or something like that. Those were the things that really hit me first. And then from there it just took off and it was, you know, post punk and new wave and, all this stuff in the eighties.

Alex Gadd:

Yeah, and, and we'll talk about it more, but your music reflects that and it definitely,

Nick DeMatteo:

Oh, cool.

Alex Gadd:

It's very interesting that you say that because I hear that in the music that you, that you've put out. First favorite band? Do you have a band that you latched on to early?

Nick DeMatteo:

It was, it was the Beatles. You know, I, I like to say, because you have to say something, when, uh, I'm writing a mini bio of the band or whatever, I, I say that I have the heart of the Beatles, the soul of U2, and the brain of Prince, and you can kind of figure it out if you listen, and of course there's more, you know, influences than that, but the way the Beatles approached music is basically now the way I approach music.

Alex Gadd:

Those three are acts you can't go wrong with. That's a good amalgam of bands. All right. So when did you start playing music? You started singing at a really early age. Did you know that you were going to be a singer? Did you know you had talent as a singer that early?

Nick DeMatteo:

well, my parents tell me that when I was very little, I told them when I grow up, I want to be a singer and a waiter. I've now been both. I prefer the one to the other, but yeah. And, I started taking piano lessons pretty young, but didn't really want to be a piano player until my teens. And my dad was my teacher and that was, that's always, you know, pros and cons. And then eventually went to acoustic guitar, then electric guitar, then bass. And I'm, I'm trying to get a little better on the drums now, but it, it was a thing that I have known, I wrote my first song when I was six years old. I still have it. I can still sing the beginning of it. I don't know. I mean, I guess because of my dad, but it's that idea that before I could even form the thought of what a purpose was, i, I had it and I knew that what I didn't want to do was what my dad did. Which now he looks at me and says, you're kind of doing what I'm doing, you know, but the difference being his focus was on strictly cover tunes. He put out maybe 20 originals in his lifetime, which is wonderful. And I love those too, but he didn't really want to do that. He wanted to be the guy who could make a crowd, love the night. And take requests and all of that, which I, yes, I do some of that too. But as a career, I was like, no, I, I need to do original music. I just have too much inside that needs to come out.

Alex Gadd:

So your first song when you were six, Did you recorded that? Or did you just record it like on a, on a portable tape

Nick DeMatteo:

That cassette. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Alex Gadd:

Yeah. When did you start writing songs that you played?

Nick DeMatteo:

So in. middle school. It might have been sixth or seventh grade. I wrote a song called a new song and I got a couple of my friends to do backup vocals with me and we did an acapella version of that. And that's probably the first time I performed any of my songs live. I never recorded that one, but that was kind of the start of that.

Alex Gadd:

And was that a band or was that just your friends backing you up?

Nick DeMatteo:

That's just my friends. I think we did it twice and you know, and that was that.

Alex Gadd:

So what was your first band? What was the first band you played in?

Nick DeMatteo:

I formed a band. Really, I was pretty much solo, and you know, doing either piano or eventually a sequencer through late high school until college. And I just said, I need to form a band and that did not go well. So, you know,

Alex Gadd:

Well, tell us more. What does that mean?

Nick DeMatteo:

Well, so what happened was, and I, I kind of have this same situation now where I'm in five different bands at the moment. And, one is all original, This other guys'. One is a mix of original and covers. And then the other two are all cover tunes. And then my band. I find it easier... There's less weight on your shoulders when you can just be the utility guy or the singer for somebody else's band than when you're crafting your own project. So It took me until, let's see, maybe One year after college to find a band that I knew I could fit in well. And I became the lead singer of that band. It was called the Ape Cafe and,

We'll fly at dawn, we'll fly at noon, round'em up boys, it's the Vodka Balloon. We'll fly at dawn, we'll fly at noon, round'em up boys, it's the Vodka Balloon. Vodka Balloon.

Nick DeMatteo:

I didn't write the tunes, but I wrote the melodies and sang the guy's lyrics. And then two years into that, I used those guys to form my own band. So we had kind of two bands going and that was, that was the first. So I was probably mid twenties when I had my first legit band

Alex Gadd:

And what was that band called? Your band.

Nick DeMatteo:

NICK. Actually have prior to R E C, I have several recordings, maybe three EPs and two albums under the name NICK, again, all caps, which, which a critic once said, this guy thinks he's Prince or Madonna or something. He's just using his first name and I'm like, yeah, kind of, I'll take that. You know, I, I want, I, and what I meant by it really was. I just want to be the guy you know who plays music. Hey, I'm Nick, and, uh, it, you know, it worked for as long as it worked and then I shifted gears.

Alex Gadd:

Right on. So you started playing and performing your own songs in your mid twenties. Did you have another gig at that point? Or have you always been a musician only?

Nick DeMatteo:

no, no, I, well, so I was performing my songs starting in high school, just by myself. And my, my dad again, had an annual Christmas show that he would do for orphans, uh, for long, I think even before I was born, it went on for a couple of decades and as I got older, I would go and play one of my songs or I'd play one at his club and, and all of that. And then when I left college, the first thing I did was wait tables for a little bit and hated that. I had done that for many years through school and I just couldn't take it anymore. So then I started teaching piano. I taught piano privately for about a decade. And during that time was when I started legitimately recording and performing.

Alex Gadd:

Got it. And for recording, do you record all your music in a home studio or do you take it out to studios to produce your music?

Nick DeMatteo:

It has varied. When I first started, it was me and a four track. I then did a bunch of projects in a studio, when I was still NICK. And then as REC started, that first album is a hybrid of that. And then since then, it has been exclusively home studio.

Alex Gadd:

And I assume you've had to learn how to become a recording engineer as you go, especially doing it at home. Have you been able to learn the necessary skills to produce yourself. Cause oftentimes people say, musicians who produce themselves are like lawyers who represent themselves. They're the worst client, you know? So how is it producing yourself? Is that harder, easier, or the only thing you know?

Nick DeMatteo:

I worked with, maybe three and a half other producers. Let's say there was someone that were co produced and a couple fully produced by other people. And some good things came out of that. But I think because of my lack of ability to express my exact needs and also that person's vision was different. They are not my favorite projects, you know? And, and so that was a trial and error thing of, Oh, wow. I really know what I want. Like I think the first song I recorded, not just on a, like a cassette, but layered tracks, I was 17 or something like that. And actually I did it in some guy's basement studio back when computer setups were the, were brand new. It was a, it was a crazy, phenomenon. And I remember thinking. This is one of my favorite things, producing. When I talk about myself, I'll say I'm a singer songwriter producer, and it's partly because I know so many other singer songwriters who either can't or don't want to do that part of it. And that's so essential to me because I'll play a song of mine, just me and an acoustic guitar. Pick a song,. I'll do it. But what I hear in my head and what I want other people to hear has all of the elements of everything that I've ever absorbed that I feel is perfect for that tune and going through the trial and error of using other producers, doing it myself and making a lot of mistakes, working with, particularly that guy, Daniel, you mentioned Nick and Daniel Presents. He was ahead of my curve on knowing how to self produce and self engineer. He taught me a lot. And through that process, I didn't just learn how to produce myself and think as a different person, but I fell in love with it. So when I play, when I, I, I play the instruments, you know, most of lately, it's almost all of the instruments on any recording. And what I found through the years was if I try to play a guitar, like a piano player, it's going to suck. If I try to play a bass, like a guitar player, it's going to suck. You have to know the instrument intimately and think of the song as if, Oh, this isn't my song. I'm just a session guy trying to make the most of this. And that learning process has given me the ability to come kind of outside of myself as a producer and say, I don't need that many backup vocals or whatever, whatever felt great at the time. I'm like, it's, there's too much. Take that out. Or why am I missing a, you know, a crash hit here or something like that?

Alex Gadd:

Yeah. Yeah. Understood. My biggest challenge with home recording, which I've only dabbled in compared to you, I've done virtually nothing is I didn't technically know how to get the sounds captured in the recording that I heard in my head. I just didn't know how. So I'd spend so much time learning the software that it, I would lose interest in doing it. And I just rather record it flat and then figure it out later.

Nick DeMatteo:

Yeah. And it's funny you say that because I use exclusively, for now, Ableton, as my DAW, digital audio workstation and it's version eight. And I think they're getting ready to release 12 or something like that. And I felt bad about it for a while. Cause I'm like, well, I don't want to spend the money on it's working fine for me. There are plugins that don't work in the later versions, et cetera. And then I talked to some people and they're like, there's a community of musicians who self produce who deliberately use old versions of DAWs because they. Have access to things that they can't use in the newer versions. And I wouldn't say that's necessarily my reason, but I'm so comfortable with that, that there's really no barrier between what I'm doing and how I want to capture it.

Alex Gadd:

I don't blame you as long as they don't actually sunset the product, use what you can, that's getting you the results you need, right? Sometimes upgrading is causes more problems than it solves. I totally get that. So with REC, you started the band, I believe in 2004, is that correct?

Nick DeMatteo:

That's right.

Alex Gadd:

Where did you play your first gig

Nick DeMatteo:

Oh, that, I, I don't know if I have a record of it, pun intended, but I, believe that I, I, the one, the first one that I remember was, uh, CBGBs.

Alex Gadd:

Oh, that's nice. That's a good place to start.

Nick DeMatteo:

Yeah.

Alex Gadd:

That's why you come to New York, so you can play at CB's.

Nick DeMatteo:

Play there, right? Yeah. And it was just me and a drummer. So it was me and on acoustic guitar and a drummer and

Alex Gadd:

Was it like a Monday night?

Nick DeMatteo:

you know, like Wednesday, I think

Alex Gadd:

Yeah. right, early in the week.

Nick DeMatteo:

Yeah.

Alex Gadd:

How'd it go?

Nick DeMatteo:

Uh, it was good. It was really that solidified the fact that that drummer was, was, uh, a mensch, I guess he was just somebody who I felt I could rely on day and night who loved the music and, and he contributed things that I wouldn't have thought of and all of that. And he really helped me shape the early sound of REC.

Alex Gadd:

the first record that came out as REC was what year?

Nick DeMatteo:

Uh, that was 07. That was Parts and Labor.

Burn this, burn this, I won't feel it I'm sorry if you think I earned this If I could, I'd burn this Speed of gas is my two best guide It's all up in me and I'm gone Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Gadd:

That's the first one I listened to. How has your music changed? Because I listened to that record and I heard everything from New wavy rock kinda to Beastie Boys kind of rap rock at the end, there's a little bit of everything on that and it sounds now more like you've dabbled in electronic music and, and those sounds I didn't hear so much on that first record. So today, who is REC? What kind of music do we get from REC?

Nick DeMatteo:

So I call REC."Electro Power Pop" because my base is I want every song to be listenable, to have hooks, to have some element of, you remember it or you want to go back to it and the power comes from it being rock or funky or something that has drive to it. And then, of course, the electro kind of self explanatory and the 2nd release from REC was Distance to Empty. And that was heavily influenced by Daniel, who was almost exclusively electronic

If I lose it all again, Maybe because you're around, Am I gonna therefore lose it all? I guess I will, I guess that's

Nick DeMatteo:

It's probably the most electronic of anything I've done and then as that developed with The Sunshine Seminar and the further ones, I brought back in more of the rock and now I feel like, and especially with the upcoming album, my sound. Isn't just not that it's bad, but it isn't just, oh, this one's a hip hop song. This one's an electronic song. This is a rock song. Everything's mixed together. So one song might favor a certain style, but you'll hear elements of those other things. So it's, you know, it takes years sometimes, but I feel like I have a sound now that is distinctive, but allows me to go wherever I want to go.

Alex Gadd:

I think that's what all artists look to evolve to is where you can always tell that it's Prince, but Prince plays all kinds of music from funk to hard rock to ballads to pop. He covered it all. So I think that's the goal. I think you've, that should feel pretty good. As far as performing goes, how often do you take out a band to play these songs?

Nick DeMatteo:

So anytime I release something new, I make an effort to do a bunch of shows. The most I've ever done for REC in a given year was, I believe, 20. But it generally gravitates more towards 5 to 10. They're more kind of showcases than tours or gigging or anything like that. I want to do closer to maybe 15 or 20 next year, but I, I don't, it's hard to sustain that. Especially if you're staying in one area and don't have the kind of promotional support you need, et cetera, et cetera. But also I'm a studio rat. I just love it, you know, and, and as much as I love performing and I just rehearsed last night, I'm a little hoarse from it. You know, we have a show coming up on the 13th and that's the last REC show of the year. Uh, it's still, it's not the thing that drives me. It's the creation of the music that drives me.

Alex Gadd:

It's all music, so it's great. I do want to ask a couple more questions about your live music experience though. Where's the biggest venue you've ever played

Nick DeMatteo:

I played as REC or as anythinG?

Alex Gadd:

anything.

Nick DeMatteo:

as anything. So I have played up to, I think the biggest crowd was 3000 people. And it was, a fundraiser event and it's for a cover band. I'm in, and we were hired to play, you know, among other bands.

Alex Gadd:

Where was that

Nick DeMatteo:

that was in, uh, actually it was in an, I don't know which room, but it was in the American Museum of Natural History.

Alex Gadd:

wow, that's nice. and let's talk about that. But is that the Prefab Four?

Nick DeMatteo:

That was the Prefab Four. Yeah.

Alex Gadd:

okay, let's talk a little bit about that band. Tell everyone about that band.

Nick DeMatteo:

So, a guy named Anthony Rella started Prefab Four back in 07. I did a few shows then and then dropped out. And then about 2016, he called me again and I've been their bass player, keyboard player, and one of the singers we all sing ever since. And we do not. We are a Beatles band that does not do tributes. We are ourselves. We don't wear wigs; every now and then we'll wear costumes, but we're very cheeky about it. And, we say in honor of the Beatles, we, you know, stopped at Goodwill on the way to the show and got these. And we do faithful renditions of the Beatles songs, but not in imitation. I've been told that the guy who used to, uh, Will something who used to play in the David Letterman band,

Alex Gadd:

Will Lee.

Nick DeMatteo:

Will Lee has a band like that, where they do renditions of the Beatles that aren't meant to be exact perfect copies of the recordings. They're themselves, but they give it life the way you hope the Beatles did when they performed.

Alex Gadd:

So exclusively Beatles music, correct?

Nick DeMatteo:

Uh, for that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, then we rearranged ourselves and become two other bands that have nothing to do, uh, 1989, which is we do eighties, seventies, eighties, nineties, two thousands music. And, uh, Gin Fizz is our jazz band.

Alex Gadd:

cool. That's great.

Nick DeMatteo:

Yeah.

Alex Gadd:

You know the players, everyone's comfortable with each other and you explore different genres of music. Let's transition that to Music Is Not a Genre. Tell us what that is, what that means and, and what it means to you.

Nick DeMatteo:

So, when The Sunshine Seminar wrapped, I started a new project immediately,

Alex Gadd:

an album, correct? The

Nick DeMatteo:

Correct. That's, uh, that's REC's third album. And I realized at the time that I needed to expand my sound. I had explored what I wanted to and wanted to go somewhere else, so I started doing demos under the title, Music is Not a Genre. Which are still on band camp, I believe, and that was more just for development that eventually developed into a series of EP's and albums that I released in 2020, which I did not call that. But then in 2019, after I was recently laid off from a job, I said. I need to get online and start talking about music because I do it anyway. So why not just do it there? And I started the podcast in 2019. It wasn't called Music Is Not a Genre till mid 2020. My, my wife said, why don't you use that name? You're not using it. And it's a great name. The idea being that, and you know this and having been on, you know, you, you know, talk to you yesterday, I feel like there are a lot of, you know, similarities in the way we think about music. I describe it as a show that can go anywhere because it, it realizes that music cannot be confined to one genre, but moreover, music as a body, as an entity cannot be separated from the rest of the world. So you can bring in other things and ideas from the world within your talk about music and vice versa. And I do it from the standpoint, it says it on my site, of a music insider, which a lot of people do. Yes, and I feel like the difference that I bring, the voice that I bring, is that I always put the actual music first. I may talk about how the Gallagher brothers fought or whatever, but that may be about one minute of the episode on Oasis. The rest of it is what were they doing with the music? How did they create it? What did it sound like? What music moved me? What albums do I think were amazing? What were underrated, et cetera. And even when I'm reviewing something I don't like, I bring respect to it because I understand what it takes to create it from the bottom up.

Alex Gadd:

Right on. Yeah. It's interesting because when I started this podcast, some people that I was bouncing the idea off of said, do you want to call it The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast? Because doesn't that limit U2 rock-n-roll? And I said, in my mind, rock-n-roll is not a genre. Look at the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame. It has Judas Priest in it now. It has Springsteen and U2 in it now. It has The Beatles and Chuck Berry in it now. It also has Madonna, Cher, Jay Z, N. W. A. Lots of different things are pop music with a little bit of an edge and even pop music is just a sub genre of rock-n-roll because rock-n-roll is what start what's separated from the swing jazz era to the modern era of music was Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis.

Nick DeMatteo:

Mm

Alex Gadd:

You know, Bill Haley, and though that was called rock-n-roll. And even then that was different things. That was part country. It was part R B. It was part blues. It was part swing. It was part jazz. And so rock-n-roll in my mind. And that's why I proceeded to call this The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast encompasses all the genres instead of calling it the music show podcast, which sounds horrible to me. So it resonated when you invited me on Music Is Not a Genre because I don't think rock-n-roll is a genre. I think rock-n-roll is the bigger superset of, of all pop music since 1954.

Nick DeMatteo:

I, I mean, you probably know. I love that. I love everything about that. I couldn't agree more. I always think back to the mid eighties. I think it was the Run DMC second album and the song was"King of Rock" and when

Alex Gadd:

ain't nobody higher.

Nick DeMatteo:

right, right. And when you hear DMC talk about it, he says, he's like, I'm not kidding. He's a huge fan of rock music and he doesn't make

Alex Gadd:

fan of rock-n-roll music.

Nick DeMatteo:

Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Gadd:

Agreed. Well, yeah, he's amazing. First of all, DMC is just

Nick DeMatteo:

Oh, incredible. Yeah.

Alex Gadd:

But, uh, yeah, I liked that King of Rock song. That was a good one. I love Run DMC. I mean, I'm from New York City, so that was my sweet spot. That was my teenage years. All the rap bands really were from New York City. We had, you know, Kurtis Blow and the Sugar Hill Gang and, Afrika Bambaataa and the original first generation rappers were from the Bronx essentially, and then Run DMC came out and blew my mind. And Rick Rubin to credit where credit's due, Rick Rubin had a lot to do with merging rap and rock from that second generation for Run DMC and the Beastie Boys. and then Public Enemy started sampling rock-n-roll music to lay the beds for their tracks And so, to me, they're, they're, part of the same thing.

Nick DeMatteo:

I could, I did an episode on the history of hip hop production and I could go way too deep a dive into that, but it's, yeah,

Alex Gadd:

I do? Am I pretty, pretty on

Nick DeMatteo:

point? That's why. Yeah. I'm like, oh my God. Yes, exactly. You

Alex Gadd:

Yeah. Good. So Music Is Not a Genre, the YouTube channel, the podcast. How many episodes have you done on that podcast?

Nick DeMatteo:

So I'm on season 7, I'm 5, 6 episodes in and I average around 40 or so per season.

Alex Gadd:

So almost 300 episodes,

Nick DeMatteo:

and some of them are minis. I do a. I do shorter episodes. I call"podfast" and they're vertical. They're meant to be a little bit, you know, more fun, et cetera. I do physical comedy and stuff like that. But, but I take topics that maybe don't warrant a full hour and I do them in a half hour. So if you're, if you're including those, then yeah, it's close to 300.

Alex Gadd:

Yeah, look, I do concert reviews that are 17 minutes long, and I do hour long interviews. I do all the same things.

Nick DeMatteo:

Great. Nice.

Alex Gadd:

for live music, the last question I have is who inspired you as a performer? What bands did you see live that you're like, yeah, I want to do, I want to be like him or her. Or did you say, I want to do my own thing, I don't have any preformed idea that I want to imitate someone or take from someone else's act?

Nick DeMatteo:

I think, well, the two answers would be my dad, who, I mean, I've seen my dad live more than anybody else, I'm like the, the Deadhead for my dad, you know, wherever he played, I would go, and yes, it was sort of like, I want to do what he does. Like I mentioned earlier, I want to do what he does, but differently. But of course the inspiration was there to be able to, you know, do that consistently. But really the, I mean, it was almost a religious experience. The first time I saw U2, the Joshua Tree tour, open air stadium in Philadelphia, where I grew up and I was already a fan for maybe two years prior to that, starting with Unforgettable Fire. And they blew me away. And that idea that you could, feel them no matter how far away you were, was something that I want to try to achieve with the music when I perform live.

Alex Gadd:

That's a great influence to choose as something you want to emulate. They are incredible live. Incredible. Yeah. I saw them for the first time at the Garden on The Unforgettable Fire tour, and that was pretty spectacular, pretty spectacular. And Joshua Tree is one of the formative albums of my late teen years. I was in college when it came out and whoa, blew me away. Talk to me and tell us a little bit about your other interests because it's not just music. You're also an actor and a producer and that involves both theater and film. Let's start with theater. You move to New York City. Good theater town. It's the company town for theater. How did you get involved in the theater in New York City?

Nick DeMatteo:

I had a, had a couple of shows in the Philly area before I moved. And I realized like you say, well, if I want to do this, I need to go where the action is. And about two years in, I mean, I was auditioning the whole time. I had done some student films and things like that. And then I got a couple of off, off Broadway stage shows. And in'03, I co founded a theater company called 10 Grand and a Burger Productions with the drummer from REC, actually the original drummer. It was his brain child. So, you know, he put it all together. We did a bunch of productions and I contributed music to one of them that was at the Cherry Lane Theater was, you know, pretty big deal, not for anyone else, but for us at the time and, kept that theater company for just a few years and continued to do theater until maybe seven years ago. That's where I met my current wife was the last theater production I ever did. So we were the only two actors in that play. But then knew that having done so much of that musicals and straight plays and the whole thing, that really what I loved more was kind of similar to music. I loved the technology, I love the film aspect of acting, the subtleties you can do in all of that. So in'07,'08, I co-founded a film company called Feenix Films and we did like six films there

Alex Gadd:

Let's talk about that a little bit. Any films that that made it into the greater public consciousness?

Nick DeMatteo:

I wouldn't say consciousness, no, but the last film that was released was a film called Clandestine and Tom Sizemore was a co star in that. Most of the budget went to him, uh, and it's on the streaming, you know, a bunch of different streaming channels and all of that and it's gotten decent play And all the rest are Some of them you can see, most of them you can't see. They're kind of out of circulation now. Uh, I left that company about six years ago. I believe they're just now in editing for their next film. So things changed

Alex Gadd:

Did you act in the films that you produced?

Nick DeMatteo:

I did. Yeah. I, I was fortunate to have either co starred or starred in every single one of the six films. And, and yeah, a different versions of producing. There was one film called Dealer, which I also directed and was the music supervisor for. So I had a few of my songs, of course, and then got to listen to so many independent musicians and pick the songs that fit perfectly. And I think I probably had more fun with that than I did with the directing.

Alex Gadd:

Yeah, I bet you did. I would do that in a minute if someone would pay me to do it. I'd do it anyway for free, just if anyone's interested out there. Also you have acted in other people's films, correct?

Nick DeMatteo:

Yeah, so I've done some television, some film. The most recent film that I acted in was, The Many Saints of Newark, which is the prequel to Sopranos. And if, if, anyone who's seen it, who, uh, remembers the big shootout scene and the poor guitar player hiding behind the car, who, if you, I don't want to spoil what happens to him, that's me.

Alex Gadd:

Yeah. Frankie?

Nick DeMatteo:

Frankie, yeah,

Alex Gadd:

Yeah. right, Yeah. I saw it a couple of times.

Nick DeMatteo:

Well then thank you because I'm still getting residuals from that, uh, it's because of you. He didn't have a name, he was just the guitarist slash comedian or whatever it was, and then Jon Bernthal just yelled out"Frankie" and all of a sudden I had a name, he's a pretty generous thing to do, honestly,

Alex Gadd:

He's a cool guy, that guy. I'm a big fan of his.

Nick DeMatteo:

Yeah,

Alex Gadd:

his

Nick DeMatteo:

Yeah, I love him.

Alex Gadd:

Any plans to act again in the future?

Nick DeMatteo:

I've been auditioning. I did a commercial earlier this year that was for an in house for a company and like an online learning company. I forget the name, but I have an agent. I've, I do the auditions when they come. I've, you know, it's almost all TV auditions at the moment, but I wouldn't say that it's a, it's a, major pursuit. Most of the auditions I get are for voiceovers.

Alex Gadd:

Interesting. And do you do a lot of voiceover work now?

Nick DeMatteo:

I do. Yeah, you can see on my website like credits and all that stuff, but every year I get a nice handful of VOs that often make up the bulk of my income. And, I've been doing it, well, you could say 25 years, but more something like 2010 was the first time it really started to take off. I did one for Connect Four and, and, and then I've done World of Warcraft and et cetera. But when I talk about this, I usually say to people, do you happen to know a little drug called Ozempic? Because for the first several years of Ozempic's existence, I was the voice of that commercial.

People with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of once weekly Ozempic. In a study with Ozempic, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an A1c of less than 7 and maintained it.

Alex Gadd:

That must have been very lucrative.

Nick DeMatteo:

It was, yeah. Yeah, you know, it's not like I'm buying a house, but it was damn good. Yeah.

Alex Gadd:

Yeah, good for you. You got to buy a new keyboard, at least, I

Nick DeMatteo:

Yeah, exactly.

Alex Gadd:

Cool. So the new record coming out, let's talk about that for a minute. You say you're about to finish mixing it, so it's, it's, happening. It's going to come out soon

Nick DeMatteo:

Yeah, in fact, it, it, well, so it's coming out November 8th. And the reason I'm qualifying it is because for now, it's only going to be on Bandcamp and Patreon. I usually, I'm someone, I'm a fan of put your music everywhere and let people find it because that comes back to you, you know, and I don't, I don't believe in restricting, but for this one, I'm starting with just Bandcamp and Patreon partly because, you know, you'd like to generate a little bit of exclusivity from it and income, but mostly because there is an independent label that's interested in hearing it. And I don't want to stream it without knowing what they want to do with it

Alex Gadd:

Right. Cause maybe they'll be the ones to pick it up

Nick DeMatteo:

Exactly. Yeah. So, but yes, I've been recording it, uh, probably a year and a half it's taken. And some of the songs are certainly predate that, but it was, this year was the intense movement to get it done finally, because I was going to release it last year and, you know, things happen. And I had planned 17 or 18 tunes. It's almost like a, not a double album, but a three sided album, let's say, and decided to stick with 14 because the way it, it shaped the beginning to the end was perfect. It was better than I could have imagined. And I thought to myself, why put these other songs here at the end and ruin this this perfect shape. So I'm going to do those as a separate release. And that means I can finish it on time. I've got everything mixed and pretty much mastered, but I've asked my wife to do a backup vocal on two of the songs and she's been really busy. So she promised me today was the day she's going to come in and sing them. I'm going to mix it right in. I'm going to put it in the can. And then by the end of the week, before we go on a trip, it's going to be ready to debut. It'll, I guess it'll be out by the time this episode is out.

Alex Gadd:

Can't wait to hear it. Do you have a name for the album?

Nick DeMatteo:

Oh, yes. So it's called Kite to Camden, and I, I've been coy about why I've called it that, and I've only told my Patreon people, but because the album is coming out now, I'm just going to say that I can talk about mystical, flying a kite is hope, and you know, it's a signal to the world, and blah, blah, or, you know, I grew up in Camden County, and Camden in London is an amazing neighborhood for music.

Alex Gadd:

it. One of my favorite neighborhoods in London.

Nick DeMatteo:

And I've never been, but I seen, I saw the documentary that they, uh, was amazing. I could say all that, but really back in my early twenties, I was messing around with anagrams and it's just my name, the letter switched around spell"Kite to Camden." and I did that because this, this record embodies more of me than anything I have ever put on recording, ever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex Gadd:

Well, I can't wait to hear it. Okay, before we wrap up, I do want to cover a couple of standard things that we do on the show every week. What was your first concert that you ever saw?

Nick DeMatteo:

I mean, I'm going to say my dad. That's got to be the answer. I, I don't have a memory of my first concert, but the first ish concert was I was backstage on Broadway for one of the original productions of Grease Because my brother's Godfather played Eugene.

Alex Gadd:

Uh, Eugene is the nerd,

Nick DeMatteo:

Yeah. And I got to sit backstage and watch it at the age of like five or six. Yeah.

Alex Gadd:

That is a wow. Good answer. Okay, what's the most recent concert you've seen? That

Nick DeMatteo:

it was Foo Fighters.

Alex Gadd:

Was it at Citi Field?

Nick DeMatteo:

Yeah,

Alex Gadd:

The one that got rained out?

Nick DeMatteo:

it was the, you know what, wait, no, it was Foo Fighters, but then I saw Green Day. It was the night after it got rained out, so we got lucky, but yeah, that, but no, Green Day is actually more recent. I just saw them with a bunch of amazing opening acts. It was, also at Citi Field.

Alex Gadd:

On your bucket list, if you could play any venue with REC in the world, what is the ultimate venue for REC?

Nick DeMatteo:

Do you, do you happen to know any well known venues in London? Yeah.

Alex Gadd:

Yeah. Sure. The Hammersmith Odeon. uh, the O2 Arena. Wembley Stadium.

Nick DeMatteo:

No, I'm going to say Hammersmith. Yeah, that's it. That's gotta be it. I'm a huge Anglophile when it comes to music. And I feel like the way I create music is more akin to the way people create music there, even then here, and I have been dying to play.

Alex Gadd:

And if you could play live with any musician, who would it be?

Nick DeMatteo:

It's always going to be either Paul McCartney or Bono. And I, and I said to my wife, if things go well for me, they're probably both going to die before I do. And even though as a

Alex Gadd:

I certainly hope so.

Nick DeMatteo:

right, even though as a kid, I would say Paul McCartney was one of my, you know, on the Mount Rushmore and it's still true when he dies, I'll be sad, but if Bono were to leave anytime soon, it would just. It would crush me. So I have to say Bono's the answer.

Alex Gadd:

Great answer. You talked about, you're playing one more show with REC this year. November 13th. Is that correct? That's right. That's two weeks from now. Where is that show?

Nick DeMatteo:

uh, L. I. C. Bar in Long Island City in Queens.

Alex Gadd:

And then next year you have a bunch of dates lined up to start promote this album that's coming out. I assume?

Nick DeMatteo:

coming. Yeah, my guitarist is leaving for three months. So I have to find somebody to replace her before I can schedule things. But I'm looking to do 10 to 15 shows next year.

Alex Gadd:

Okay. Well, the big finale, I like to always bring it back to some learning and so the question I ask is what is it about live music that keeps you engaged? That keeps you pursuing it and not just live music, but making music. It sounds to me like you can't not make music. Does live music still feed any part of you, given that you're a studio rat or is it, if you never played live again, would you be fine?

Nick DeMatteo:

there's more opportunity, I think, for two things live. One is exploration. Which you can explore in a studio, but exploring in an immediate moment has a different quality to it. Um, I'm with a band called Lynx, and we're doing a version of The Door's"The End," because the guy wants to do it, and that song is so long and I love The Doors, but that's not my favorite song of theirs. We have done it so well, five or six times in rehearsal and it's different every single time. So that I think is, is one of the things that's exciting. But the big thing for me about performing is when you know what you you're doing, you let it all go. You're not thinking all you're doing is your existing and feeling.

Alex Gadd:

Yeah. Well, that's beautiful. Is there anything that I didn't ask you that I should have, or that it would be interesting to share in relation to the rest of our conversation?

Nick DeMatteo:

I don't think so. You're you're great. You ask amazing questions and it was a real pleasure talking about all of it with you.

Alex Gadd:

Yeah. Well, I hope we get to do it again. We've had two great conversations. I look forward to meeting you in person. It would be great to see you play.

Nick DeMatteo:

it'd be great to see you.

Alex Gadd:

in the meantime, we will look forward to your new record coming out. Kite to Camden. REC is the band and Nick DeMatteo. Thank you so much for your time today.

Nick DeMatteo:

Awesome. Thank you.

Alex Gadd:

And that's it for today's conversation. Thank you for joining us. We'll be back next Tuesday. And if you like what you heard today, we'd appreciate it if you would subscribe or follow to make sure you get notified about every new episode and tell your friends. Also a reminder that we release a playlist for every episode. So look for The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast Playlist on Spotify every week, featuring songs from the bands that we talked about today. So check that out. Additionally. We want to know what you think. Please leave us a comment. We'll try to respond to them. We love hearing from you. The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host, Alex Gadd. And until next time, remember that life is short, so get those concert tickets.