I'm very well. Thank you. Nice to be here. You can call me Matt, Matt column if you like. Save time.
Keith Jopling:Well, what about selling you Matt? Do you live in the States? Where are you at the minute.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:I used to live in the States. I was there for a good while and now we're back in the UK in the in the southwest.
Keith Jopling:In that case, I hope you're sharing a beer with me. Because in the evening we're recording this and it's great to chat to you. So first, I have to start off with with dead letters, not just because this is any kind promotion for a new record, I heard it. So it came up on my Spotify release radar. I know your music have followed you for for a couple of decades anyway. Listen, I love it. And I That's why I invited you on to the show. I mean, congratulations on
Matt Hales, Aqualung:it. Thank you. Yeah, well, I also love it. And I feel like maybe I'm not supposed to say that. But I do. You know, I mean, the funny thing about all this, about making music at all, sometimes artists like to say, and maybe it's true that they never listen to their music. But for me, like the the magic of it since I was a kid was you could make like your perfect music. If you could make the music that you wanted to hear? Why wouldn't you want to listen to it? So I also think it's pretty good. And I very much enjoyed listening to it myself, I must say, Great.
Keith Jopling:Yeah, it's a wonderful record. So tell me a little bit about it. So how it came about, I know you've spent quite a while making it, who and what has been important to you, in the making of dead letters.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:I think the most significant factor is is coming home coming back to the UK after almost 10 years away. Coming Home, sort of in inverted commas, turns out to be quite a lot less straightforward than I think we thought it might be. It's very easy to, to imagine that changing everything and moving to a new place that we do and move to California 10 years before that, that's the big adventure. And that's all the unknowns and that sort of fear. And that's all the risk. It's true. But actually, what you have to feel that is is that is that in intrepid energy coming home, you don't get that, it turns out, you just come home and expect everything to be easy in the coming home turns out to require exactly as much if not more energy than it took to leave home. But you're not ready for it that can be quite dispiriting or disorientating or confusing. And whilst I was delighted in many ways to be back, the family and old friends, I found myself really kind of reaching for some landmarks, kind of internal landmarks. And I got very lucky because I was reunited with my old piano, which had been a friend of mine I've been looking after for the in the UK whilst we've been away. And this cello, which is the sort of Kallo of strange, beautiful in the cabinet of many songs before that, and kind of many songs since that, which is my specialist writing, and you will hear from a lot of musicians, sometimes they have his magical instruments that come into their lives. They feel like they arrive, kind of with some songs in them already. And this piano is like that for me. And so I was back with my piano, I was back in the UK feeling confused and needing to calibrate myself to my new location. And that just know that my in my whole life has always been my response, my response to feeling discombobulated or confused or lost or questioning, or is to try and write it right out in songs. So that was just a very natural response to go down to the creaky upright and start writing. But that was four years ago, maybe. So I started that process really, like in the aftermath of moving back to the UK, knowing what I was going to do, because I mean, it isn't as if the world is screaming out for my music. Also, I have a sort of other life as a musician in a different context, which is in in which I've already busy. So it was a question of just trying to follow my nose, start writing and just wonder what it might be in. The thread that takes you all the way through is that is the homecoming thing because once I had a couple of songs, that I realized I had some old friends who I who I talked with for years, we've made other records with faculty student who I now live near, again for the first time in many years. And in fact, live around the corner from the studio where we recorded much of my second record. And so the next step in that in the homecoming story was to see who those guys might be up for meeting at that self, same studio and see if we can record some of these little canary sketches and see what that where that might take us. And that was the sort of beginnings of the process. There was still two more years of fiddling, but that was that was where it started.
Keith Jopling:All right, yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Because it feels like a very personal record. And it's it's quite intimate. And yeah, that's good context that it's a homecoming record. I hadn't appreciated that. So yeah, thank you. So where had that piano just been sitting here in the UK all the time that you were in the US or?
Matt Hales, Aqualung:Yeah, yeah, we shipped a lot of stuff but because I taught in the states a long time I had loads of musical equipment in various sort of storage units in the US. And there was a piano one of those so I didn't need this one was really so expensive to get this one to which I'm looking at right now, by the way, so I'm saying this one to get that all the way over to California would have been crazy expensive. So I made use for local power. But yeah, so it was just it was just looked after by an old school friend of mine who is whose kids were young when we left and who all kind of learned to play kannaway And one of them when we got it back it had one kind of corner of it was completely covered in ancient dried rom it should dry drive what grommet
Keith Jopling:Okay, so there's been like a few knees up around that. Yeah,
Matt Hales, Aqualung:I don't know whether it was like, yeah boozy kind of toddler vomits
Keith Jopling:oh my gosh, oh, no mom,
Matt Hales, Aqualung:obviously helped had taken it was quite nice if it played a part in another family's life for a time. But it was time for it to come home.
Keith Jopling:Yeah, no thanks. It does make a lot more sense. Well, it also just will add a bit of flavor to my next listening. Yeah, encourage everybody to listen to the record. I did want to stop off at a couple of songs. We want to get on with the rest of your career and the whole backdrop, but I love the opening track here. And now because it's a real epic opener. So you know, you've you've really gone for it, here's seven minutes. You know, when it feels like it's come to a natural end, it's sort of resurgence again, with a kind of Pink Floyd style guitar eltra, which I, which I loved, just tell me a little bit about that track.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:And what happened was, we went to the studio and we recorded these kind of six or seven sketches, and had a lovely time and drank wine and got got to know each other again, at the lobby, it was just a, that was a real, a real settling experience. But I came back this year with these kind of proto, just this sort of, like essay sketches that beautifully recorded sketches, and one of which was the beginnings of that song, which was just a sort of the sort of core see sort of atmospheric things and nice chords and didn't know what it was supposed to be. And that song actually ended up becoming the sort of testbed for the whole record, I think in the end that has given me a sound quite obsessive, which I don't think is really my thing, but maybe it is. I ended up doing I think 104 versions of that song. No, my God. Partly because I knew that if I could work out how that song should operate, I would know what to do first the record, partly because I was teaching myself some new studio stuff. I bought some new gear, I started experimenting with vintage, old old crackly gear, and I wanted to learn it. And this became my kind of Workbench song. So there's so many different versions. There's a two minute version. There's a 20 minute version. There's a lot more Gil Gilmore guitar, let me tell you, Well,
Keith Jopling:okay, but we live in a world of streaming now. So maybe we can expect to hear a few alternatives. Maybe, but
Matt Hales, Aqualung:funnily enough, and as a sort of thumbing my nose at the world is streaming, once I had realized that I what I really wanted was for the song to sort of reprise itself because it for a long time, I just finished where you'd expect it to finish. And I just, I just sort of thought one thing I had in my mind with this record was that it would be interesting to just allow there to be sections of instrumental music, something that I haven't done a great deal Oh, it was when we would play live and rearrange things, they said, really liked that no stretch sections out. And we'd really luxuriate in a little bit of a kind of, sort of floating widescreen nests. And that would have been nice to get that on a record for one. So yeah, when I when I decided to kind of copy the last bit, it's just sort of it's the bridge of the song that kind of just copied and pasted four times and stuck it on the end, and then arrange that into this bill. That felt great. But also I thought it'd be funny to have that as track one because it's sort of almost an eight minute first track. Is that the opposite of what the current thinking on? Streaming is? So take that.
Keith Jopling:Yeah, it's contrary to trends. Yeah, absolutely. But it does set the tone for the records as perfect in that respect. And then actually, what comes next is champion of the world. So I think you've released this as a single if we can still call them singles, but this is aqualung doing. Yup, rockers and the Doobie Brothers bounce.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:Oh, yeah. I mean, sure. Exactly. I mean, one of the wonders of 20 years in on a project, which is my own, where I'm the only member is that I mean, as is probably fairly clear from the discography, you know, I do whatever I want. I one of the things I'm I allowed myself when I started writing the songs was If it was going to be okay sometimes I'm a bit maybe some of the oversensitive to leaning on my influences to verbally I sort of work quite hard not to do that. I probably fail by I don't like I hate the idea of pastiche, I find pastiche so boring. So I'm getting nervous when I when I get too close to feeling like I'm sounding like a thing. However, that song house was irresistible I felt like irresistible kind of elderness and I just I was just making me so happy because the song then that subject to the song just came from the from the kind of bounce that is there, it's kind of waving goodbye song with the fingers crossed as our son was coming of age, which is just thought that will happen at the same time. I just thought Fuck it. I'm very wary about these things too much. And, and just went went with it. And it was a real treat a real treat to let it be that way. And I can like course I love that stuff. And the other thing about 70 of the songs is, is these are this is a record where I am paying homage to my to the record collection that I was raised on. You know, there is lots of Elton and there's lots of stevia, and there's lots of the band and there's lots of bread and there's lots of toto and there's lots of all that stuff. Kind of that's the muesli I was raised on as a young musician along with you know, for a Pet Sounds and all the rest so I just thought you know, perhaps part of the Homecoming this of it is actually also I thought I allowed myself a kind of quotient of nostalgia. Yeah,
Keith Jopling:and it works brilliantly. I have to say Amash is better than pastiche. So that's probably where you got it. Right. But I mean, yeah, to me, this is a radio so whether the radio is going to pick it up on who knows that's that's the radios problem. But it's it's one of those things you'd expect to hear on in a parallel universe on radio to from that perspective, it works really great as a single. Yeah,
Matt Hales, Aqualung:but in some universe somewhere, someone is driving down the sort of pch, with their top down listening to that song real loud.
Keith Jopling:The art of longevity is presented with Bowers and Wilkins, the revered British Premium Audio brands, Bowers and Wilkins make some of the world's finest audio products from the iconic 800 series loudspeakers trusted by Abbey Road Studios for over 14 years. So the flagship px eight wireless headphones. This is music as the artist intended you to hear it's Okay, last one for me. And then by all means it's your album. So if you have a favorite, tell us about it, but I also love the closer but dreams. I'm going to raise another comparison again here because this for me was David Sylvian esque. It's got the timpani and the banjo, I think was part of it sort of took me back to the brilliant trees era of David Sylvian, and you know, it's a beautiful album closer, so just tell me a little bit about where that song came from and how you decided to arrange it that
Matt Hales, Aqualung:way. It's funny, David Sylvian in Japan, it is a band that comes up quite often people talk to me about him and then I'm presumed that I'm an aficionado. And actually, I don't know any of their music. So which is just an oversight on my part. But I felt like that was a talk talk song, much more than a Japan song, I suppose. But I mean, actually, that song came. I mean, this the song itself, as opposed as this part from the way it ended up being arranged, is a there's a few songs on this album, which are spaced in the experience of fatherhood, you know, my got two kids when I was 18, one's 15. And so I've done a fair bit of fathering, I suppose now. And one thing that happened that happened to me quickly, pretty soon after they came into my life with I started to have these extraordinarily horrible, brutal nightmares, in which all the worst, unimaginable, horrible things would happen. And I eventually came to some understanding that there was some sort of psychic building that I would suffer the dreams. That was how I came to understand how just this is my real life. Obviously, it's very soggy, but actually, this is just a truth. And it continues, it seemed to me some weird deal that I would just I would, I would have those dreams. I would get through those nights. And in return for me suffering like that in my own little way. That was somehow spare my kids for many of those. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Which I hope works, obviously, would
Keith Jopling:be nice if it did work that Wait for all the wonders and delights of parenthood, like one of the not so perfect elements is that whole dimension of worry that you have
Matt Hales, Aqualung:before? Oh, yeah, of course. Well, that's the flip the flip side of having something so precious. So that's that's the subject of the song, it was really interesting challenges to have to sort of render that. That nightmarish tension of that story. And sort of set it in a way that that underscored all that and when we were in studio, one of the things that I favorite things is just drones, I like a good drone. I love the way that setting, something kind of undulating in the far distance behind the recording gives you a kind of Horizon, a far backdrop for whatever happens in front. And I think that can have a wonderful effect. Internationally, you can make really intimate recording, close in detail, but in the set this far away thing like a constellation twinkling in the back, and you've got this range from the listening point of view. And I really like that effect. And so I thought when the why needed to do is have a claustrophobic reading of the study internal kind of tension in the song close up. But with the sort of the sort of lifeline, the big picture, kind of sort of ticking away in the back. But actually in the studio, I just got me in the band just improvised a drone, we recorded all about five minutes at once on different instruments for 10 minutes, or 20 minutes, about how long, it was late, and we might have been slightly medicated. But we just found this one pitch that and you would work through the whole song MC made this kind of shifting horizon feeling or kind of like a lifeline or something. But we knew that we have to also kind of have a there's a nightmare of songs about nightmares. And so aspects of it, there was feedback, there were things that drifted in our pitch, we deliberately allowed the drone to sometimes get quite ugly and then coalesce back to the pitch. And this made this thing but the notion of kind of tension and release and nightmares and awaking in our heads. And it was just an experiment made this thing. And then over the course of assembling the song, I then just kind of edited that drone so that it kind of can tell the story of the song, then we kind of improvise along sections to the drum, just to sort of around the changes in the music and just sort of found this sort of spirit lead me kind of texture. That felt very full, very Dawn ish.
Keith Jopling:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:So I ended up finding a way, having told the story of these kind of sweaty nights, then we kind of moved into this section where we played this kind of Dornish music and then by chance, there was a piece of the drone at the end where it kind of went very well fell apart and then kind of came through this really pure tone. Improvising over that there was one place where I just resolved the music on a sort of a very kind of cautiously optimistic harmonic resolution and it made sense to me to endless truthful to how my experience the kind of in that story on a hesitantly peaceful or optimistic sort of the sun came up again, thank god note. And once I've found that end in then there was no way it could be anything other than the last song. Yeah,
Unknown:came the perfect album closer at that point. Yeah, it worked. I think we've got to correct that blind spot in your listing of David Sylvian. I can help with that. We'll come on to that later.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:Okay, fine. I'm open. I'm ready.
Keith Jopling:All right. Yeah, no, it'd be a good experience, I can guarantee that you will see one on one about basically, remember that we could go through the whole record seriously from start to finish, but we've got the rest of your career to just flat out. It's gone. And if you don't mind, it's your you know, I know it takes you a while between records. You're on a rich vein of form, in a sense, because your last two albums were actually fantastic. I mean, 10 futures back in 2015, a long time ago was great magnetic north. I really liked that album. It feels like and you alluded to this earlier a little bit. You're deep in this territory, and you're not the only artist by any means to occupy this territory with your best work creatively. And you could easily argue over those three albums that you're creatively still progressing and getting better, doesn't necessarily equate to your most successful work commercially. I just was interested in your perspective on this, because you've been in the game now for a long time, and you've probably philosophical. But it sort of frustrates me, does it frustrate you as the creator,
Matt Hales, Aqualung:no, fully, I could see how it could drive a different sort of person. Crazy craps. I mean, one of the great things about my career and the last 20 years is, in addition to my own private music making, I've got to work in with lots of other people on their projects. And, and that's been a great education, in the value of putting great music into the world. Regardless of the metrics, regardless of the quick the immediate feedback, or Chart positions, or wherever else. I mean, I've so many times now had the experience with my own records and other people's I've worked on of, you know, track three, nine years later, you know, becoming something very important to someone, as a musician, you only ever wanted to, to my ambition from when I was young, I would listen to music and be terribly moved by it. Because I just saw, of course through me, like I saw that I could kind of weird wave of pure emotion was the thought that I had some inkling of it and might have it in me to make something one day that could conceivably live in someone else's life like that. And if you manage that even once, then you're shoulder to shoulder with all of your heroes. You know, you're part of the story of the of the music that touch someone. And what that's the that's the goal. That's the most noble sort of pursuit that could be I think, as a musician, songwriter, record maker. And so this sounds very highfalutin, but that is what I think. So I know now that regardless of whether it's no smash or whatever, there's still a real, there's definitely an undeniably a value in contributing to the story of heartfelt music in the world. There is value in that for sure. And that's no longer in question for me. So it doesn't, so it doesn't, I'm very lucky, obviously, I'm extremely lucky that things, a few things have worked. And I have this whole other life with with other people's stuff, which also works out from time to time. And so you could say that I'm just a sort of spoiled bastard. I can, I can afford to be all philosophical, because you know, I get paid for things. But the fact is from for, it's not just for my own music, I'm often talking this way to the often with young artists, I'm working with new people coming through who are getting in, they're new to it, and they're excited. And they get very caught up in that in whether they're busting through and whether it's all the right. Is it the right look, and I'm looking at the numbers, and they're so beset by statistics and feedback these days, poor bastards and it and I do find myself trying to comfort them to say, look, that's fine. And that's your job and a bit of that. And you should be across that stuff. And anything needs to be you need to be an entrepreneur and you need to be smart, but trust me, what if we, if we can, if you look yourself in the eye, and you know that you've made work of theirs, that is as a value that you feel that a question represents you as an artist, and it's gone into the world, and this is a good thing to happen. And yeah, so I can't remember what the question was now. But basically, it doesn't bother me. We
Keith Jopling:skipped around a bit here because you mentioned the fact that you've become at some point your career shifted. So sometimes sort of shortly after your debut back on go back 2002 So you know 20 years and then still life which we might come on to both of those but then you kind of became six successful sought after writer producer, right. And then you collaborated with Leon Mahabis. Bat for lashes, Tom Chaplin, but a bunch of people don't want to get on this show in the future. You know, put on the faith disclosure many others. I'm interested in how that happened.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:The bit of the sort of biography that you're that you're missing because it happened far away was after still at second record What looks like a kind of black hole is just it was that then suddenly, I did a deal in the States, which we didn't because without getting too tedious contractual chat. When I started, I probably had never signed for North America, we get the rest of the world, North America to be dealt with as a separate case. And there was a sort of lag we've got, we were very busy, got very lucky, it all kind of kicked off. And we're busy and UK and Europe for the first couple of articles. And then it was time to look at the US and there was a lot of interest. And we signed a deal into the US just after still love came out in Europe. And then that, then we became a success. Because Brighton and sunshine, that sort of single for a second language became a sort of, like, get a hit in America. And that took us and this America is even faster, whole fashion market and everything takes a long time. And so they're really tight the next two or three years, we just spent there the whole time. Just working on that record and having that experience which was which was fabulous in many ways. And then Memory Man, which was my third record. And at that point, I started to basically burn out, I had my son who just had been born in 2004, America was wonderful, and maybe everything a lot of British musicians dream about having success in America, there's some sort of kind of exotic rubber stamp, and it was brilliant. So it was a real thrill to be driving they took us down to Kansas, you know, and, and so on. These things are brilliant things to experience, but it was tough being away. And Memory Man is a record, which I think it's character is, is very, very strongly informed by the kind of strung out nature of me at that point. And when there was kind of shenanigans at my label, Columbia, and we were dropped off just after that we are there why call it really hits me. I was dropped, Rubin came into Columbia, and lost people got caught. Thanks, Rick. It was actually very good news. Because I was kind of in mental. I remember that
Keith Jopling:they made Rick Rubin like the CEO, so into like a record producer. But I didn't know whether it's a you know, made sense, or it was completely the opposite. But it certainly sort of shook things up.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:Yes, I mean, in very interesting characters, but there was a kind of crushing it with the American majors around that time to have creatives in executive roles, which is seemed like it might be cool, but mostly seemed to be the chaotic or.
Keith Jopling:Yeah, definitely was the chaotic, I think,
Matt Hales, Aqualung:yeah. Anyway, all this meant was I got dropped and free from my client responsibilities. And that was good, actually very good news. For me personally, I've got to come home, reconnect with my little kid and with my partner and with home, which is still in the UK at this point. And I had already started to think about a kind of plan B, because I couldn't I could see that artists life and family life going to claim me in capacity. Also, I just, I was just it's very intense business day. And I've been very lucky to have at that point, five or six years of success internationally, but I was burnt out. So I needed to make a change. I've always hoped there might be a kind of second back for me, which was around working with other artists on their records because I've always produced my own stuff as aqualung and receive written songs and people some some of the songs had been to put like themselves or okay, maybe someone else might live if you write them a song, perhaps. And so yeah, 2007 2008 was when I started to kind of go write music business and interest in the dude from aqualung, right in any one song or producing anyone's record. And initially, there was none.
Keith Jopling:You stopped by the phone and waited for it to ring. Yeah. Yeah,
Matt Hales, Aqualung:kind of. Yeah, but Okay, good news, good news, music business. I'm here I'm available. And partly because I was back in the UK and my we've been so focus on us in the previous few years that my I was just the sort of that guy from the card but really as far as most UK label and our people because my stock was a bit more freshly high in the US, but nevertheless, I wanted to work in the UK because I wanted to be with my family. So it was it was a little dispiriting to start when I started wondering exactly what I was going to do with myself. But I had a few experiences which showed knew that I wasn't really built to be a sort of hack songwriter, I tried it a bit. And I just couldn't do it. I couldn't write songs for X Factor winners. And I just my sensibility wasn't really in tune with that sort of thing. And I just kept thinking, If only I could just be like, just join someone else's band, or just be with another artist and try and do something brilliant. That's what I want. And then I got very lucky because I was introduced to layout lab as at that point, when she was just starting a team and we met. And she bought strangely a bit when she was six or something. And it was her first ever co writer, and it was my first ever writing session with other artists really, and, and then we just clicked. And it was, it was exactly what I've been hoping for. It was pure creativity, really thrilling. It was so exciting to have that her talent and be able to, to be a part of contributing to it. And we the way we played together was just naturally lovely. And things get to happen, because that happens. So once I had that experience, I thought, okay, maybe there is a way for me to be able to have a role in this part of business, which isn't just soul destroying, which is actually what I do best, which is, like feeling strongly about music, and wanting to try and be part of something exceptional if I possibly can. Yeah, and then very, very fortunate with lots of twists and turns. We're very fortunately, we got she got cited, we got we were able to make that first record that did really well. And I
Keith Jopling:had no idea that you were involved in that first record, would you say? It's just it's it's a world of discovery for me to find these things out? But yeah, it was a great first record. I mean, she's an amazing talent. So I guess with that success that led you on to yeah, as you say, the the second career almost,
Matt Hales, Aqualung:absolutely, um, for the best on the best possible basis. And I was very, very lucky. That went down. But one of the things that my artists life has shown as taught me and I can credibly privileged thing to happen to someone, but is that you can, and I can I find myself saying this young artist who I work with a lot, you can make uncompromising music that you love, and also have it succeed. This can happen. It isn't always a handshake with Satan. It isn't always a compromise, you have to pinch yourself out. From
Unknown:that perspective, you work with some really interesting artists because Leanne Okay, that was her debut, but by the time I guess she worked with bat for lashes. And with Tom Chaplin, they'd actually been experience some of that stuff that you'd experience, which is, the industry hypes you up and then kind of sets you up for a fall. And you've got to know where to go from there.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:Yeah, well, this is work. The other great piece of good fortunate for me, and this is the sort of second act of mine, or third act, or how many acts I've had is that I came into that conversation always from the point of view of being an artist, not a platinum producer, not a kind of songwriter to hire, I'm an artist. And so I'm in a room with another artists, we can talk to each other because we were all the same. We care about, try these really, really good and we and we were in a kind of battle with a very conventional goal oriented business to try to get our fragile little kind of our babies into the world unscathed. And I understand that because that's what I do for myself. And so when I when I get asked to get involved in a project like Tom's or the cashiers or whoever else is, then that's the that's the angle I'm coming in on, which sometimes gives me an advantage in the conversation because I think people artists, certain certain sorts of artists would much rather be in a room with a fellow artist than with some kind of golden somewhere as a child, because I think they could trust with just me to be protective of the things they are themselves protected on.
Keith Jopling:Thanks for listening to the art of longevity. I hope you're enjoying the conversations so far. Please take a moment to rate the show. leave a review on Apple podcasts if that's where you listen and do spread the word. Also, you can sign up via the songs familiar web page for our newsletter, artwork, and much more. Back to the conversation. That's already interesting perspective. You know, because as you say that I don't think many people certainly the fans and listeners don't realize this but the channel I'm sure a lot of those artists and you know those people you work with names that we recognize is they want to get, as you say, there aren't babies through a whole bunch of hurdles that, you know, are designed to kind of shape what they make into a, I guess, for want of a better word, a more commercial product, but they all want to make a statement. I did happen to notice that on the day you released their lessons, so it's been out. By the time we get the show out be a couple of weeks, but it was the same day Tom Odell released his new album, best day of my life. And he's probably been through this process on a major scale, right? I mean, he's been with a major for years, it's kind of been pushed up the chart, and he's released an album that is, there's sort of a leaf out of your book really is very, very independent, very intimate, and very alternative. And a lot of artists want to make that music and get it out there. So I guess from that perspective, as you say, you've kind of ended up doing quite well, because you've never really compromised I've you
Matt Hales, Aqualung:know, I mean, the funny thing is that because I mean, the other part of my story is I had the whole decade before I belong of being in the band, trying and trying and trying to get get somewhere and getting tantalizingly close the inside game job getting signed again. And by the end of that process, as I got put into my 20s I definitely did. I tried to compromise. And basically, I thought, I don't know what I haven't tried to compromise. That's the answer. And so I did, I don't know, I tried to try and write like, some hit songs, you know, I could try to listen to it the a&r guy wanted and I listened to what I thought the enemy wanted. And I tried to do it. And, and it just made me so unhappy. In there, and the massive irony was that the music that I made, after that, in response to that unhappiness, which was just like, fuck it, I'm just gonna make the quietest, most minimal music, I can, because that's really what I want to do this, I want to make the music that feels like what I've always loved the most, which is the Adagio, is the Requiem is the music is a quiet Spitz of Pet Sounds, this is what I want to make, then fuck it, no one's ever gonna hear it, but this is what I want. And then that turned out to be so much more successful than a cynical attempt to write smashes.
Keith Jopling:Yeah, but you know, on the other hand, you know, if you look at we talked about champion of the world, and that's, it's a hit single. And, yeah, when you release be beautiful, beautiful was from 10 futures, right? So that's not, that's quite recent in your timeframe. And again, it's sort of a hit single minute parallel universe. So when you're not forced to, you would write accessible commercial, for want of a better word music anyway, it's just that it's that whole kind of weirdness of the industry, which forces you into, as you said, it, it forces you down a route or puts you into a lane at a time when, you know, doesn't necessarily suit you as an artist, and that just fascinated by that. Because occasionally, the creative peak and the commercial peak will hit at once. And that's, that's the sweet spot. Everybody's happy, then.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:Yeah, and those are miraculous moments. And if you get one of those in your life, you're extremely lucky. One of the wonders of my of my other career as a collaborator Is that you, you get to have those experiences sometimes the sort of vicariously or in partnership with other people actually had it actually, quite significantly increases your odds of having more than one in your life if you if you also collaborate with other people. So yeah, I've been I've been really lucky to be able to be to participate in several of those moments. I mean, I've been lucky to have couple for myself, but also, it turns out to be almost sweet to have it sort of quietly in the sidelines with an artist that you come good friends with and have to participate in their moment. And that's also to be that's a really beautiful thing too.
Keith Jopling:Yeah, no, I can absolutely see that is precarious but actually, it's not really it's just that good you you were helping them create what they wanted to create.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:I'm just as proud of that, that those moments and those those pieces of work as as mine stuff for sure, there's no real distinction.
Keith Jopling:And you've been a pop star anyway, so
Unknown:you did have that experience. You mentioned in the early days you had those first two bands you went through the being signed being dropped labels shenanigans, what have you so when you form that go along that was an eyes wide open thing, I guess and that but then you had this instance success, the classic that's an overnight success, which was strange and beautiful. How do you reflect on that? year or two? I guess you'd The however long it lasted as a as a pupster.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:What did it sort of teach you? Well, I mean, it taught me that there is a giant quotient in success, which is basically random, that you just have to be lucky that because you can't tell, when the luck might hit you, you better try and be good all the time. Because what if the luck hit you on a bad day? And you did that the shittiest thing you've ever done, and that became successful, because Black doesn't have any very good taste. It simply is random. Just like the pluck people out of their basements from time to time. So they could pluck you out on a shitty day. Now the the funniest thing about that magical week, where were we made strangely beautiful, and then it and then it turned out to be on the car. And that changed everything was that same week, I also did some music for a chewing gum. I was like, Yeah, which was like a kind of folk country sort of had to play the harmonica on it. It was a kind of a jolly piece of cod country music, right? And what if the Hand of Fate had missed strange musical? And come down a couple of days later and found music? And that had been what took off? And that was what I have to be doing. Now. 20 years?
Keith Jopling:Yeah, absolutely. Could have happened. And you know, I think the the interesting thing about looking back on your experiences is that actually that some the VW Beetle sink. So so strange and beautiful was it was part of a bigger thing at the time as well, when those sync slots became a real thing in the industry, like a couple of years before. Moby had done the same thing with play, right. So every track from that was was sent somewhere. And then, you know, Feist had 1234, which was the Applehead. Grey's Anatomy, you got to think on Grey's Anatomy a couple of years after that. So it became sort of a big thing to have your song on a show, or on a John Lewis advert or whatever it was, and you were right at the top of that trend.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:Yeah, so that just goes to show the how significant timing slash luck part of it is. The luckiest thing of all is the piece of music that ended up changing lives, also, is a piece of music that I love. And stand by, you know, it could have been, like I said, it could have been something else. I at that point. Now what happened, I was struggling, you know, the band was phased out, I had no any money I was I was sort of flailing around trying to find ways to continue being a musician when not have to just pack it all in and work down Denmark. So as a working in music shop, not as a rent boy, just to clear that up.
Keith Jopling:Well, I thought he meant as a sort of as a Tin Pan Alley songwriter, but yeah, I guess.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:Time by then. Yeah, maybe. So that's the luckiest thing of all, is that this moment happened. And people can draw their conclusions and speculate as to who this intriguing song was by. And everything that they thought I might be, was what I wanted to be. That's just luck, you know. And that music that I was, I wanted to make so badly because it just needed to write the kind of write the kind of creative ship after the straining succeed that I've been doing for the last couple of years doing sort of second division, new wave of new wave, sub strokes, music, and wearing tight trousers and pointing a lot. It was just it was like, it's just for me, just to just turn it all down, please. Turn it all down. And let me just be make this private music for myself. And then the most beautiful of ironies that turns out to be the thing that the world is interested in listening to.
Keith Jopling:Yeah, again, I think that was part of your success in the States, wasn't it? Because, you know, it happened at the time when? I guess it was it was the era of the strokes and the New York scene and everything else, and you were kept sort of counter to that. It was really back to some previous interviews you did at the time. And you I think you said you'd become inadvertently cool, which I think is, but the lesson you mentioned is, is sort of just try and stay good. You know, in creating your own luck. You just got to keep on doing your best work and not get distracted in that sense.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:You There's a terrible chance whenever you make something that it might be the thing that changes your life. So you'd better make sure it's good. You're going to make sure it's true. And you better make sure that if you have to see it twice a week for the next 25 years, you don't mind. And you can be and be proud of it. I mean, the thing I think I've said more often than anything else, to people who I've worked with now, who are other artists is, don't put any music out that you're not proud of, you know, just just as a basic rule of thumb, you can't tell if it'll fail or succeed. But you can be certain that if you're not proud of it, and it succeeds, you're fine. And that's really all you all we have, you know, we have our own private story want to tell. And I do suspect that what people who listen to me you're gonna love me is they're going to looking for new music to fall in love with what they want more than anything else, is to discover a new mind, a new heart and soul that they want to spend time with. That's our mission. And the rest happens, what doesn't happen? Yeah,
Keith Jopling:I think that's a great philosophy. I mean, the concept behind the show, I don't necessarily talk this out every time, but it's based on a quote by Brett Anderson of suede. So it's, essentially it's a roller coaster ride. And again, I was sort of looking back at some previous interviews, and I think there was one you did mid career. So this probably around the time of memory, man, you described your own career as it's been a plunging recklessly, driven, badly designed, and poorly thought out roller coaster, the kind of thing that might tear a child's ear off.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:I mean, it's worked out pretty well considering. Yeah, I mean, there's been a bit of, you know, having to have your ear sewn back on. And there's been a little bit of sort of gasping for breath. And going under, one of the advantages of 20 years on is, if you're lucky this time around, then you maybe you've managed to kind of get back to you back to your depth again, or go get bears swimming, or wherever the right metaphor is. The fact is it when when the mysterious Hand of Fate does kind of pluck you out of your basement, you just have to hang on because I mean, there's no preparing for that craziness. Some people rehearse it all their lives, and think that they built the stars. I mean, imagine themselves to be rock stars or whatever, and then it comes and they just can't, they can't, they just can't do it is so weird. It's so I never fantasize about being a pop star, but only ever fantasize but someone turning over an LP, and it's same produced by my house on the back. That was my dream, you know, and I just inadvertently find myself in the role of the kind of successful person and all the oddness that that brings with it. So yes, it is lurchy is sickening, is exhilarating and fabulous, as of course, as well, I may have overstated the shittiness I might have been having a bad day when I said that particular thing, but I'm at this point, I have to say that I guess it's the roller coaster continues it seems to have either I've got used to it. Or they've made some adjustments to the basic roller coaster technology. And now there's like a cushion in the thing and the little bar that holds you in places isn't trying to break your pelvis and there's like a patisserie built in.
Keith Jopling:Yeah, yeah. If you stick with it over 20 years, they make it a more comfortable ride somehow. Maybe
Matt Hales, Aqualung:I don't know. I don't know what that is. But I certainly I appreciate it is very fortunate, but it has become significantly less lurchy and Iraqi sensation in recent years.
Keith Jopling:I think that's absolutely something for up and coming artists and and younger creators maybe to just take away to sort of stay on the ride and in a sense, keep making good music. The art of longevity is brought to you by the song simile that's me. Working with Project melody and audio culture. It's recorded at the cube. London's first member studio for content creators, currently based in West London cube will be opening a second site in Canary Wharf in January 2023. Our cover art is by Nick Clark, and original music for the podcast is by the neoclassical composer and artist Andrew James Johnson.
Unknown:I don't we don't have too much time left. So I really appreciate you coming on but it's been great to talk to you but I've got maybe just one or two questions. So you've been compared with so many artists over the years. I compared you learning with David Sylvian, you mentioned Elton John, you can't help it right. But you know, often Radiohead comes up Coldplay comes up whoever I'm just interested in who are your role models? Who have you kind of looked at over your career and thought, yeah, they're the people that are really inspiring me.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:Well, boringly, I think most people end up saying, I will say that early musical experiences tend to be foundational. No, I mean, I had a extremely foundational music experience with my mom decided when she was pregnant with me that she wanted to grow musician. And so she played me her record. throughout the pregnancy, her favorite record was pet town. So I was just kind of grown in a soup of Brian Wilson's genius. That record and him at his best is my, that's like, most of me, really. I would say, I can't, I'll never I'll never be able to do any music doesn't have a company. It's not not about literally sounding like, it's about that thing that he did at that time, particularly, which was this music that had a kind of surface that was so inviting, and so naive, almost, and so charming, and so easy to fall in love with, with this infinite depth and complexity, supporting that combination. That's like, okay, that's what you does. That's the best of pop music and my favorite artists to my life, whether it's Paul Simon or Stevie, or Cleese, or everyone else, Blue Nile, Radiohead, of course, you know, wilco, all these people, that what they have in common is a sort of this kind of magic trick of something very appealing. And this just creative depth. Yeah, I think that's, that's what it is. And then yeah, you know, and then the other thing got a big part of my life music growing up was was classical music, not other kind of particularly learned, but they were just my mum. She had this thing she would always refer to your new music, her word that she invented, which is basically what I've tried to make most of my life. Yearning music is the slightest the slow movement you any music is that is that is the Agnus days that is the part is God as Adagio, you know, it's those bits of music which just wreck you know, I have often come and I've said this before, but it's true. I come into the front room when I was younger, find my mom crying whilst listening to music. And I would think she was having a terrible I worry about her. What was what happened what her while she's so sad. And she was sort of through her tears explained that he wasn't sad. It was just the music. The yearning, so that music was just so moving. And that's just something that I I just always have felt. But yeah, the only means that
Keith Jopling:I've given you instilled you with that kind of musicality, and then that's where it comes. I think the classical influence just gives you just a broader palette of options, especially if you want to make any music. So what about career advice? Because you pass this on to, you know, a lot of the younger artists that you've collaborated with in your second career, but what's the best bit of career advice that you you've ever been given? Say, No,
Matt Hales, Aqualung:that's a good one. Yeah, that takes some take some balls to do it. But I found it to be tremendously powerful thing to remember to do from time to time. I mean, you do have to fight. There's a kind of, by I used to think that the artists life the ideal artists, life was just a sort of wealthy, kind of living like a hidden cloud of just ideas and just kind of just the kind of golden cloud of light. That isn't the reality of artists life that we probably never was and never could be. Actually, if you wish to pull off this magic trick of a lifetime of just doing what you love most in the world and getting paid for it. You need to fight for that. You need to be ready to work so hard and to be strong. Sometimes even the strongest and the most Ignatius moments for me have been in order to protect the fragility of them Music I want to make. Sometimes there's a site almost like that if you want to make delicate, private, candid, personal, uncompromising music, and have that have a place in the world and perhaps touch other people's lives, you're probably going to have to get pretty good. Standing up for that. It's like having a kind of having a little chick that you're trying to keep alive. You just have to fight. And be smart about that. Or you have to try and run, kind of run two cells in parallel. One is two artists, someone who just wants to do the best possible work. That's true for them at that moment. And it's all about candor, and craft, and ambition, beauty, courage, all those things. And simultaneous with that, you need to be an entrepreneur, and you need to be very smart, I need to understand the business you're in and you need to be strong willed, and any to fight. In order to get approved. You need both of those things. And that's not necessarily a combination everyone has.
Keith Jopling:It doesn't make it easy, but I guess that's the thing. It's not an easy career choice as
Matt Hales, Aqualung:well. Why? Why would it be easy? I mean, what the fuck you I mean, you want you want to do what you want to just write songs every day, and that'd be your job.
Keith Jopling:I guess from the you even sort of stating that as a career. And these days, it would have a different title, it would be, you know, be a content creator or whatever. But you know, someone's going to start saying no, straight from the author, they're going to keep on kind of closing you down or putting you into names. And I guess it's just that the self belief and the courage does what comes out of of what you've just said. So for you, what's next? You're dead letters on tell everybody about it. I'll make it my mission to make everybody listening. But I mean, what's on the horizon for you, Matt?
Matt Hales, Aqualung:One, I'm in the midst of a project right now producing an out of British artist. Excellent. We've been writing songs to go for a year or so. I love what we've been making. She's just a very interesting time to go. Actually, she does have that thing. She has the combination of the dedication, ambition to her creative craft and massive balls in intelligence. This is an article Olivia Dean. Okay. She's Yeah, she's already doing pretty well, but yet she's about to be. She's great. So that's, I'm we're sort of halfway through making that record right now. And that's been, that's lovely. So I'm doing that I'm, me and Tom are talking about trying to make an APA record next year?
Keith Jopling:This is Tom Chaplin. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. You can make an Abba record.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:I think so.
Keith Jopling:I know. A few people might have something to say about this.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:Good. Well, I mean, I just gonna say yes, please.
Keith Jopling:Say go for it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:So we're chatting about that we're going to start. I don't know where that will lead us. But it's an exciting idea. Yeah, there's a few other few other new projects that I'm working on. I'm going to do a gig. A world tour of one show. Yeah,
Keith Jopling:I see that. Bush. All right. Yeah, yeah. Which
Matt Hales, Aqualung:will be lovely, though. I think I've got a few offers, that I might maybe next year in the spring do four or five shows in the States. And I've also got offered to go back to Tokyo, which would be lovely to do. So I might do a slightly less miniaturized little tour, but not equated of that, but it'd be considered a bit and beyond that, God knows, you know, I'm just as usual, just kind of the other thing you've got to get good at in this life is sort of keeping keep being okay with some some gaps in your diary. You totally leave those spaces for the for the unexpected thing to fall in.
Keith Jopling:If it does, you have availability? So there you go.
Matt Hales, Aqualung:Yeah, yeah. The people I work with are so frustrated with me because I was so often don't, I'm so often not busy. Now. They'd like why you could be you could be working in a week, every week. I'm sure I maybe I could, but it's not what I want. I want to do things that I love. And in between times I want to be doing living my life and being ready for the next great thing. And that for me is success. But to have that choice to say no. And that's the best possible thing about things going well. And so far, it seems to have worked. My part time approach seems to be working. All right.
Keith Jopling:Yeah, I think it's worked out. Okay. Well, I mean, it's been really great to talk to you, Matt, and thanks for dead letters and don't give up on it. Do take it on the road and keep plugging away at it because I know what musicians are like it's sort of once you get something out, you've been working on it for a long time. You can move on to the next thing but I think it's a really special record. So I really do appreciate About Thank you. And yeah, good luck. Whatever you decide to do next. We'll keep watching and yeah, thanks for coming on. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you. Thank you. My
Matt Hales, Aqualung:pleasure. Thanks very much.