Matthew Sweet: Pleasure Is Mine
By Team JamBase Sep 9, 2008 • 3:33 pm PDT
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One quickly picks up an infectious ’60s vibe on Sweet’s tenth album, Sunshine Lies (released August 26 by Shout! Factory), which bursts forth with a spirit of enjoyment and possibility in well assembled little packages full of killer vocals and playful experimentation.
“Everything is getting so demolished in the music industry. It’s kind of a good, free-for-all time, where all kinds of great stuff can happen,” says Sweet, who handled production duties at his home studio. “It’s not cool but I always fantasized about something like Pro-Tools [laughs]. Technology came along and has made it possible for a lot of different kinds of records to be made. It’s a whole different world now. I really got into writing songs and wanting to be an artist through four-track cassette decks. It was right when I was a teenager that you could get an affordable Fostex thing. You put a cassette in and that was your multitrack. You could hear what it was like to play three things and mix them down, or four things if you had something else to mix to. That was huge for me.”
“When I first started to shape this album it was more totally rock. And then it felt like it was just too much, so over time I added some prettier things. It ended up more balanced in the end, though there’s a few rockers left off I hope will surface. One song called ‘Badass’ is really free form and crazy and kind of funny,” says Sweet, a man known for some superb electric guitar abandon in concert. “I’m moody and there’s been times when I’ve been less open and friendly [laughs]. That goes in cycles, and a lot of artists are just, uh, challenged people. I get weird when I don’t do anything creative for a while. Once I do something I feel so much better. After I did The Thorns project [his successful 2002-2003 collaboration with Shawn Mullins and Pete Droge], which we put a lot of work and time into – where we had to sing in harmony all the time and it was restrained, in that way, though really cool when it worked – by the time we were done I really wanted to rock out.”
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“It’s a natural curve. If you’re lucky, you have some sort of commercial success and all that, then afterwards you’re just an artist and it’s up to you,” says Sweet. “In some sense, given how the recording industry has turned out, it’s worked out better for someone like me because I have a history. It’s so hard to get a foothold now. At least I kinda have that thing. Now, I’m doing things the way I wish I’d always done them. Success was hard for me. It wasn’t that I changed anything because of it but it didn’t feel good inside. For me, this is a good time in my life. I still feel the same things but it’s a little more balanced. The time I made Girlfriend is probably closest to now, in that I have nothing to lose and a label wasn’t involved very much. And it’s easier now because we have better technology and I’ve learned a little more. This is probably happening for a lot of artists fortunate enough to get their heads around gear and studios.”
Continue reading for more on Matthew Sweet…
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If the old aphorism about judging someone by the company they keep holds true, then you learn a lot about the depths of Sweet’s talent from the musicians around him. He’s worked with pedal/lap steel sorcerer Greg Leisz, the boys of underground pop greats The Velvet Crush, Television guitarist Richard Lloyd, Lou Reed/Tom Waits guitarist Robert Quine and Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles. One of his earliest recorded appearances is with revered NYC adventure rock-jazz collective The Golden Palominos, and he’s collaborated with Jules Shear, Lloyd Cole and The Jayhawks. What’s apparent in each of these varied settings is a central character and gold standard to his work, the kind of sweat-on-the-brow work ethic that once fueled Lennon, Starr, et al. to make something more than throwaway entertainment. While he’s comfortable holing up in his home studio and banging out tracks alone, there’s a real spirit of collaboration to much of his catalogue, something apparent on Sunshine Lies, where the core group – Sweet, drummer Ric Menck (Velvet Crush, The Tyde, Pernice Brothers), guitarist Ivan Julian (The Voidoids, Osaka Popstar), Greg Leisz and Richard Lloyd – exudes a smoothness and enjoyment at playing together throughout.
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In 2006, Sweet released a record made with Susanna Hoffs called Under The Covers, Vol. 1, which offered sincere, well played and basically charming takes on “Cinnamon Girl,” “Monday, Monday,” “The Kids Are Alright” and “Different Drum,” amongst others.
“I’d never done covers that much. After Girlfriend, people would tell me, ‘You gotta do covers.’ I did covers in bands as a teenager but I played bass so I didn’t learn that many songs. So, it was really cool to do that record because of that. I could really listen to stuff and wonder, ‘Why is it so cool?’ We were pretty traditional on it because so often when people do covers there’s just nothing good about them compared to the original,” observes Sweet. “We’re doing a ’70s covers album right now. We’ve already recorded tons and tons of songs. It’s a little more radical in the choices, things you wouldn’t think we would do. We thought we were so ’60s people but these ’70s songs really connect to when we were 15 or 16. There are guilty pleasures we just had to try.”
Sweet is also working on a new Hoffs solo album with a folk bent. “We’re doing a really acoustic-y record with dulcimer and acoustic guitar. It’ll be pretty cool, I think. It’s really naked,” offers Sweet. “My love of Sue goes back to this record, Rainy Day, where she did something similar. The Dylan song ‘I’ll Keep It With Mine’ is real simple, just her as a folkie. It was always a thing I remembered, and when we talked about working together I suggested we do a whole record like that. The covers record ended up happening first but it’s in the works.”
Talking with Sweet and listening to his latest offering, one comes away with the distinct sense of a man comfortable with himself and his craft. For someone who’s been hitting the bricks hard since the ’80s it’s a happy spot to find himself in, and the dividend for listeners is music made purely for the sake of music – the best reason anyone should do it.
“You get into [this business] and it’s not as mysterious after a while. You’re either going to rediscover what makes you do good music or you’re going to wander off,” says Sweet. “One thing when I was young that confused me was how [artists I admired] got bad. There’d be this great person I loved that did bad stuff later in their career, artists that just became terrible [laughs]. I never wanted to be like that, and I don’t feel that I am. It all comes from the same place it ever did, and in that sense it is like a full circle.”
Here’s a live, acoustic version of “Byrdgirl,” a cut from Sunshine Lies, performed on Sweet’s recent GetBack Session.
He cranks up “The Ugly Truth” backed by The Velvet Crush in Spain.
Sweet is joined by Susanna Hoffs for this live-in-the-studio take on The Beatles’ “Rain.”
One fine Beatles cover deserves another, and here’s “If I Needed Someone” sung as a duet with John Hiatt.
Matthew Sweet tour dates available here.
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