Listen to Matt Costa's "Cold December" while you read:
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By Forrest Reda
Matt Costa |
Matt Costa is in Europe for the first time as a traveling musician, on tour with Jack Johnson and Animal Liberation Orchestra (ALO). It's 4:30 in the afternoon in London but 7:30 a.m. in Malibu, so when the phone rings, I'm still sleeping. When his publicist offered me a 10:30 a.m. interview, I didn't ask what time zone. Apparently, all clocks in the media world are set to New York time. Luckily, Costa is a resident of Huntington Beach, CA and understands my plight. He even apologizes. When Costa tells me he's in London, I think of a perfect starting point for my interview, but my groggy brain trips me up and I can't think of the name of D.A. Pennebaker's landmark documentary about Bob Dylan's first trip to England, so I tell Costa he's like Bob Dylan, in that old documentary...
Costa bails me out, "Don't Look Back?" His tone is so reverent that I can't tell if I've committed blasphemy by being tired or if it's one of Costa's favorites, or both. "I do feel like [Dylan] here. There are some parallels, like the venues that we are playing, at least tonight, are very similar to the ones that he played. And on this trip I got to meet Donavon as well."
"I know it sounds pretty crazy," he says with a laugh. "In the documentary, Dylan's like, 'Who is this Donavon character?' When he finally meets him, they play some songs together. I've been a big Donovan fan for a long time, and I'm really glad we were in the same hotel. I bumped into him coming out of an elevator and had this great little talk with him."
Matt Costa by Josh Miller |
Costa sounded sincere, and I believed the synchronicity. If anyone is going to run into Donovan on his first trip to London, it's Costa. After breaking his leg skateboarding, Costa turned an 18-month rehabilitation period into a crash course in guitar and songwriting. Eventually, Costa recorded a demo that he passed to his friends, who passed to their friends, with a copy eventually finding its way into the hands of No Doubt guitarist Tom Dumont.
Later, Dumont would record a demo for Costa and introduce his music to Jack Johnson, who invited Costa on his first US tour in the summer of 2005. Those who missed him on that tour were exposed to Costa sitting in with Johnson on the DVD Jack Johnson and Friends: A Weekend at the Greek, or perhaps on Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies, the soundtrack to Curious George.
The 23-year-old troubadour is a wiry mop-top, perpetually in need of a shave with an intense presence that pales only in comparison to his huge voice. Costa is a throwback to the substance-over-style days of old, when songs were about the lyrics.
When I asked Costa about his musical influences, he mentioned not only songwriters like Tim Hardin and Sandy Denny, but John Steinbeck's books and the coastline of Central California. "That area has really been an inspiration to me," he said. His song "The Ballad of Miss Kate" is loosely based on the character of the same name from Steinbeck's East of Eden.
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I only started writing songs about four years ago. Every time I write songs, I'm discovering. I always learn new songs, and I always learn new techniques and things like that.
-Matt Costa
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"I draw from the past a lot to get my inspiration. There are good contemporary artists, but the good ones that I enjoy, like Belle & Sebastian, they are students of the past. You've got to dig deep to find where the good stuff is at, and even on the 60's albums that I really like, I know that I have to delve deeper than that to find out who they're influenced by and then you get back to the folk roots, and blues roots, and Americana. I'm really into the whole Carter Family and Mississippi John Hurt."
Matt Costa |
That's the essence of Matt Costa; he realizes that the good stuff isn't what the TV gods are pushing on you.
"People and bands today become influenced by TV and all these things. They are not out there experiencing life, and I don't know if that's necessarily their fault. I think that media pushes a lot of things on people. The reason why people like Bob Dylan and Neil Young - by the way Neil Young has a new record out and it's amazing. The reason why they are so good is because they are out there living life and having those experiences to write those great songs."
"It's interesting for me. It's crazy to see the kinds of lives that these people lived. Their songs were one thing, but it's their lives that made the songs so good."
Costa is thirsty for experience, hungry to make more music. "I only started writing songs about four years ago. Every time I write songs, I'm discovering. I always learn new songs, and I always learn new techniques and things like that. I never had vocal training or anything like that. I'm still learning how to take care of my voice ya know? I get sick. I should think of it more like an instrument instead of this thing that I do."
Matt Costa by Josh Miller |
"This thing" is about to get a whole lot bigger. The 23-year-old has played exactly one festival (2004's Moonshine Festival in Laguna Beach, a bike ride away from his home base of Huntington Beach), but he is slated to play Coachella, Wakarusa, 10,000 Lakes, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza this summer. Before his first major US festival, he will have completed a tour of Europe opening for Jack Johnson as well as a solo date in Japan.
"I've always played music, but when I was in high school, I never thought about ever playing music in front of anyone or even writing my own songs. I was in a band, actually. I played electric guitar. We did Gorilla Biscuits covers and stuff. I wasn't really involved in the music selection, I was just so excited to be playing guitar. They were like, 'Here, learn new songs, so I did.' We played one show, and then the cops kicked us out of the house. And that was my rock band experience in high school. I never thought I'd be performing or writing songs or anything like that, so I'm excited because music has always been such an amazing thing to me, ya know? It meant so much to me, and now, to be able to create it and to get that feeling from my own music, to be able to share that feeling with others, it's the best feeling ever."
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