This is a lengthy interview of Matthew Sweet by Jud Cost. It was published
in a issue of The BOB magazine in September 1993 (Issue No. 46)
Matthew Sweet, sunburned and with three-day stubble, ushers me into his
Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, rental house-cautiously upscale evidence of
the heady success enjoyed by his breakthrough 1991 album, Girlfriend.
"It was really hard to find something in Laurel Canyon in our price
range," Sweet says. We gingerly step through an art project that Lisa,
Sweets wife, has laid out on the living room carpet and, toting a six-pack
of Newcastle Brown Ale, head for the back yard, all overgrown elegance,
like a miniature replica of Gloria Swanson's pad in "Sunset Boulevard."
Sweet is shagged out from three days of video shooting under the broiling
sun of the Palmdale desert for Altered Beast , his new album, so
he's changed our meeting place from Zoo offices in Hollywood to his digs.
" Newcastle Brown is Robert Quines favourite beer in the whole world,"
Sweet chuckles, referring to ex-Voidoids guitar slinger featured along with
Television's Richard Lloyd on both Girlfriend and Altered Beast.
" He'd die if somebody showed up with it. I always have a lucky feeling
when I drink Newcastle Brown," he adds, as we plop down on rickety
wrought iron chairs, shaded from the sun by a tatty bistro table umbrella,
and snapping open two brews. As a small army of finches twitters in the
background, we discuss the meteoric success" of a guy who's been in
the indie or major label record scene for almost a decade.
The BOB: Well to paraphrase Dorothy , "I've the feeling we're
not in Nebraska anymore."
Sweet : When Lisa and I first moved here, during the session for
the new album, I didn't really think of the implications : getting ready
to do interviews, and now I live in LA. So that's been the standard interview
opener . "So, you're in LA now, eh ?" [laughs ]. I'd been
living in Princeton, New Jersey for a couple of years, but it had become
a bit of a grind being so far from the central city, so we knew we had to
move to either New York or LA. Since both of us grew up in Nebraska, it
was more of a exciting thought to move into unknown territory like LA. It's
exotic here, kind of like going to Hawaii, and not as brutally hot as I
thought it might be.
The BOB:What was it like growing up in Nebraska ?
Sweet: It was great. It was a safe, middle-of-the-road place. I'm
from Lincoln, which is a college town and the capitol city, with a fairly
liberal viewpoint, and they had cool record stores that got in lots of imports.
I wish I could say that I grew up on a farm, but I was just your average
mid-American, middle-class kind of kid. The summers and winters in Lincoln
are harsh, but I got a real sense of the seasons, as a kid it was always
something you'd look forward to, the changing times of the year. Now I joke
with my New York friends on the phone, "It's still sunny today."
The BOB: Were your parents musical ?
Sweet: All my aunts played the piano and had really good voices.
I inherited their musical instincts if not their voices [laughs ].
I had an uncle, Bud Day, who looked a lot like me in photos, who played
trombone in the University of Nebraska ten-piece orchestra. I would listen
to my parents' sound-track albums, like What's New Pussy cat?, Help and
A Hard Days Night. Those were the first records I ever heard. My
parents listened to a lot of Irish folk music, some classical and, a little
later, Willie Nelson, which drove me crazy. I hated country music because
my parents played it all the time [laughs ]. Later on, after I'd
moved to Athens, Georgia, I got into Gram Parsons but to me it wasn't country-rock
- it was country.
I read lots of interviews where people remember their parents playing these
really cool roots records from the age of eight. But I was a late bloomer.
I didn't buy my first record until I was 12- New World Record by
Electric Light Orchestra. I played the violin and was jut getting interseted
in electric guitar. I thought I could make my violin electric, just like
ELO, and then I'd be, like, cool. For about a minute I thought that [laughs
]. Then in the seventh grade I got an electric bass and listened only
to Yes records for a couple of years, learning all the bass lines exactly.
The BOB: Was the violin your first instrument ?
Sweet : I started out playing the recorder in the third grade. There
was a girl who I liked who also played the recorder, and I liked to watch
her. My brothers and sisters and I had been forced to take piano lessons,
which we hated. I was an especially sensitive young person, so it really
tormented me. I wanted to be free from an early age. So I didn't really
enjoy the piano, but I always had an ear for music and could figure out
a tune off the television. The best I ever got technically as a musician
was learning those incredibly complicated bass lines off Yes records by
playing them for five hours after school.
The BOB: Did you loosen up in the late '70's and get into the punk/new
wave stuff ?
Sweet : Right I went straight out of Yes into the new British Invasion
thing. That was the first time I'd listened to records for any other reason
other than being this muso bass-head, not because it had a great
bass player, but because it was music that meant something to me. Things
like Generation X, the Bazzcocks, the early Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe
made me want to write songs. They made me think the melodic thing I felt
could make sense in a edgy world.
The BOB : Any high school bands you were still in Lincoln ?
Sweet : By the ninth grade I was so proficient technically - abnormlly
so for a kid as young as I was that I met some older college kids when I'd
hang around hotdogging at music stores. I started playing in a band that
had been called Spectrum and covered the Top-40 before the new wave hit.
Then they changed their name to the Specs, and we played tunes by the Jam
and the Vibrators alongside older '60s things by the Yardbirds and the Who.
I was always more into the melodic side of the new wave - like early XTC.
I could appreciate the over-the-top aspect of punk, but if it didn't have
song sensibility the stuff didn't hold my attention for long.
The BOB : You met up with R.E.M. while you were still in Lincoln ?
Sweet : I used to read a paper called the New York Rocker all
the time, and I was really into the dB's, the Individuals, and the Bongos.
I had this compilation album that had Richard Hell and Peter Holsapple tracks
on it,and there was some stuff on it by Mitch Easter that really intrigued
me. I'd read a mini-article about him in Rolling Stone that said
he had his own studio and did his own stuff. So I sent away for a single
he'd just produced by this band called R.E.M. on the Hib-Tone label, because
I'd read a review which suggested I'd like it.
I'd gotten into Big Star at that point and Chris Stamey and the dB's, thanks
to this guy I worked with at a record store in Lincoln. I played him my
first bedroom 4-track tapes of songs I had written. He immediately thought
of other pop band with weird voices, which gave me hope thatmaybe I could
sing too. So I was really on an American kick, I sought out the Sneakers
stuff, "I Am the Cosmos" by Chris Bell, and one of my all-time
favourites, "The Summer Sun" by Chris Stamey - all singles I really
loved.
When I got the R.E.M. single in the mail I didn't like the "Radio Free
Europe" side - I thought it was to Britishie - but the other side ,
"Sitting Still" gave me this little chill. I became convinced
that there was something really great about them. They came to Lincoln,
and there were maybe 10 or 12 people there. I went up to them and asked
to sign my 45, and they couldn't believe I had it. I met Jefferson [Holt,
R.E.M's manager] and Michael [Stipe], and we went out to dinner at a Mexican
restaurant next dorr to the little club they were playing, the Drumstick.
I said "Tell me about Mitch Easter," and they loved that I knew
who Mitch was. They were so nice to me. "Mitch will be so excited that
you know who he is," they said.
The BOB : R.E.M. really did it one brick at a time, a truly populist
band.
Sweet : It was really grass-roots. They went to every town and made
friends with people, and grew in a really organic way. I don`t think am
the only one woth a story like that. They were great guys. So they said,
"You've got to write Mitch. He'd love it and send you tapes of Let's
Active stuff." I gave them my four track song demos, they said I should
come down to Athens to visit. So I wrote Mitch, and he'd send back these
ten-page letters. This was really exciting because it was my private thing.
No-one in Nebraska cared about these obscure records.
The BOB : What finally convicned you to move to Athens?
Sweet : I'd always planned to go away from college. My sister went
to school in Mssachusetts. Finally Micheal wrote a postcard and said,"I
really like your tape. You should come down to Athens and play the 40 Watt
Club."
And I started to get postcards from the girls in Oh-OK. So I told my parents
I wanted to go to the University of Georgina. Eventually my dad flew down
with me to check it out, and they agreed I could try it for the summer and
see how I liked it. Of course I moved dowwn there and promptly blew off
school.
I always feel funny talking about that period. There's a lot of weird feeling.
The Oh-OK people still really hold a grudge against me for quitting, to
this day. Linda Hopper, now in Magnapop,goes around trashing me, but there
was a time when I'd get postcards from her saying "Lynda (Stipe, Michael's
sister) and I want you to come and play with us." Unbeknownst to Lynda
Stipe-now the truth can be told-Linda Hopper was secretly having rehearsals
with David Pierce and me to join our band, Buzz Of Delight.
The BOB : You were in two bands down there, Buzz Of Delight and Oh-OK,
at the same time?
Sweet : Well, it looked like Oh-OK was just going to break up, and
they had some really good songs that were going to be unrecorded, so I went
to Hopper and told her I'd join Oh-OK and line up Mitch to produce. So I
did all the work of making the record, and they just thought they'd get
big, just like R.E.M. Murmur had just come out when I moved down there. It was a magic
time for R.E.M. was starting to snowball. It took me months to realise after
I'd moved to Athens that everything wasn't as happy as they'd acted. I felt
kind of back-stabbed in that town. I was a sensitive person and sort of
hidden about how I did my music-Ikind of with-drew from the scene-so as
soon as I got my deal (with Columbia Records) I jetted out of there as fast
as I could. I made a point when I went to CBS of never claiming to have
anything to do with Athens, so they couldn't say I tried to use Athens.
The BOB : Did things change much while you were in Athens?
Sweet : Things really turned dark there when R.E.M. got famous,
because everyone wanted that fame so bad. Maybe I wanted it too, but I had
this musical goal all of my own and wasn't going along with the way it was
done there. There was this book "Out of Bounds" by Roger Brown
that accused me of being a bandwagon jumper. Funny, because I didn't think
I had a beef with him, but he got together with David (Pierce, of Buzz of
Delight). After it came out he called me and said he didn't say that stuff.
All it was was sour grapes. Unfortunetly I got a deal, and it happened so
fast, and I was young and didn't know what I as doing, and was hated for
it.
The BOB : Before you left Athens, the Buzz of Delight stuff came out,
didn't it?
Sweet : We did a EP with Don Dixon instead of Mitch Easter. They
were my first demos done in a real studio, Dixon's place in Charlotte. Peter
Dyer of DB Records called and said he wanted to put it out-biggest that
ever happened oin my life-which was totally unexpected. I never thought
anyone would believe me as a singer. Immediately am thinking, "If they'll
put that out, then I can do a 10-Record opus" (laughs) - really
out of control. So I borrowed money from my dad and went into a studio in
Atlanta the summer 1984 and recorded 14 new songs. It actually got to the
point of being a test pressing for DB-the Buzz of Delight-but it was just
left hanging there without a lot of interest. And I started feeling bad
about it, like it wasn't good and I was terrible. Then I made a second version
of the album with Dixon-two versions of an album that never ame out.
The BOB : With so liitle material actually released, how did you get
the deal with CBS?
Sweet : Jefferson Holt told me that this guy he knew at EMI, Steve
Ralbovsky, an A&R guy there, really liked the Buzz of Delight EP and
wanted to hear more. So I sent him a package with my new stuff on a cassette.
Within a couple of months Steve moved to Columbia and set up a meeting with
the guy who'd just done the Cinda Lauper record, Girls just want to have
fun, Rick Chertoff. I had no idea what they were going to say-no conception
they'd want me to be a solo atrist. I thought they maybe wanted some songs
for Cindy lauper.
The BOB : You didn't have to think it all over too long, I suppose?
Sweet : I knew my parents wouldn't give me money to live if I quit
school-they'd tell me to get a job-but I wasn't going anywhere. And Columbia
said they'd pay me money to live on because they thought I could sell millions
of records once I found my way as a songwriter. They said they'd buy me
an eight-track on this development prototype deal where they had the option
to people's work without really signing them yet. This was my dream.All
I wanted to do was make demos. "You can do the only thing you really
love in your life,we'll pay you to do it, and you can tell people you're
signed to a major label." There was bitterness around Athens about
that. It was just too easy. People came up to me and said, "You're
not really going to sign to Columbia. You should have a band and tour and
build up your folloing, like R.E.M.". I immediately did 30 songs on
my new gear and turned them in before I even signed the contract in the
spring of 1985.
The BOB : Your Columbia album, Inside, featured lots of different
producers,studios, and song writing partners.
Sweet : I moved to New York and co-wrote some stuff with Jules Shear.
I tried all these things for Steve. A lot of what I did- people thought
I was being manipulated- it was just my reaction to the way of thinking
that had frustrated me in Athens: that everything had to sound like an old
song and be four guys. I was hearing things the new Scritti Politti record,
which at least sounded very futuristic, and I really wanted to live in my
own time. I felt, "How can I matter when everything great's been done
?" So I was trying to find this whole othe path. The most important
thing about Inside was that it was a total learning experience for
me. I worked with every kind of producer. At that time if you wanted to
work with a name producer they'd get as much as they could for a couple
of tracks and not be tied down for an entire album. I got three records
worth of knowledge from that one album.
The BOB : I take it your partners mostly contributedl yrics to the
arrangement.
Sweet : That's how I met Pal Shazar, Jules Shear's wife now. She
had an LA band called Slow Children and had more of an urge to write lyrics
than anything else. And often-times that's the hardest thing for me. I was
moving at such a fast rate - experimenting and learning - that I never spent
long enough with one song to find where the bit of lyric that I had would
fit in. I had this big backlog of melodic things with no lyrics, so Pal
would take home tapes of me humming tunes and add words. I felt that I was
on a personal quest : too commercial for college radio and not normal enough
for real radio.
The BOB : Hooking up with Richard Lloyd was a brilliant stroke. How
did that happen ?
Sweet : In the spring of 1987 I toured as bass player for
the Golden Palominos, and Jody Harris [ex-Raybeats] was the lead guitar
player. When he couldn't make it to do some shows they hired Richard Lloyd
to fill in. I was totally excited. Television was one of the bands that
had given my life purpose. And we really hit it off. He liked my songs.
I hadn't heard his solo stuff-a real poppy thing he got going. So he could
take the pop side of my music and understand that I wanted edgier stuff.
I me Robert Quine through Fred Maher, who'd played with him in Lou Reed's
band and the latter-day Voidoids. Oh, and of course I met Fred Maher when
he was hired by one of my Inside producers, Francois Kevorkian, to
do the same kind of drum programming he'd done for Scritti Politti.
The BOB : So the next stop was A&M for the Earth album.
Sweet : Ralbovsky wanted to go to A&M, but A&M's
laywers weren't quite as clever as they thought, and couldn't get him out
of his Columbia contract. So he wound up as the lame duck in a breach-of-contract
battle, the end result being that all his Columbia acts, including me, were
screwed. But he did get them to pass my option, so he could eventually take
me with him to A&M. But things really dragged on and on, and it began
to look like Ralbovsky would never be free to go. So I began to shop demos
for what would become my next album, Earth, to other labels, and
I went back to Nebraska. Eventually of course it did come out on A&M.
In retrospect I think that if it were recorded more organically, like Girlfriend,
it would sound pretty good. There are some good songs in there. But it had
this Clearmountain-era slick mix, done by a third party, which gives it
this high-tech thing that bugs people.
The BOB : You used Trip Shakespeare for backup vocals on Earth.
Sweet : Ric Menck touted them to me. I first met Ric when he wrote me
a fan letter for Buzz Of Delight. He had the Reverbs at the time and sent
me the record. We like a lot of the same things. He was one of the first
people, maybe the first person who really believed in and supported
my music. I know he was the first person who ever told me, " You're
going to be really big someday." I rely on Ric to tell me what's out
there - anything that's a threat. If there's anything good, I have to hear
it and think it's terrible [laughs ].
He came down to Athens to stay with me, but it was a long time before I
found out how good a drummer he really was. He'd tell me, " People
come up to me and say I'm really good." He visited me back in Nebraska
when I was programming for Earth , and we jammed, and that's when
I realised he'd be great to tour with. That first tour under my own name,
to support Earth , was Ric, Paul Chastain on bass, and Eric Peterson
on lead guitar. The Velvet Crush album with Ric and Paul that I "produced
later, was some demos they recorded at my house. really all I did was turn
on the gear. Anyway, Ric found me Trip Shakespeare to do backup vocals.
It's ironic really, because the key to finally getting my sound on Girlfriend
later was to do them all myself. But these guys were powerful, almost operatic,
singers with amazing harmonies. I'd just hired Leah Kunkle, Mama Cass's
sister, for the album, so I started getting this perverse idea that I'd
put the three Trip Shakepeare guys with her and reform the Mamas and the
Papas [laughs ]. Fred Maher produced two albums for them on A&M
after they dropped me, so obviously they had more faith in Trip Shakepeare
than they did in me [laughs ].
He came down to Athens and stayed with me, but it was a long time before
I found ou6t how good a drummer he really was. He'd tell me, "People
come up to me and say I'm really good." He visited me back in Nebraska
when I was programming Earth , and we jammed, and that's when I realised
he'd be great to tourt with. That first tour under my own name, to support,
was Ric, Paul Chastian on bass, and Eric Peterson on lead guitar. The Velvet
Crush album with Ric and Paul that I "produced" later, was some
demos they recorded at my house. Really all I did was turn on the gear.
Anyway, Ric found me trip Shakespeare to do backup vocals.
It's ironic really, because the key to finally getting my sound on Girlfriend
later was to do them all myself. But these guys were powerful, almost
operatic, singers with amazing harmonies. I'd just hired Leah Kunkle, Mama
Cass's sister, for the album, so I started getting this preverse idea that
I'd put the three Trip Shakespeare guys and re-form the Mamas and Papas
(laughs) . Fred Maher produced to albums for them on A&M after
they dropped me, so obviously they had more faith in the Trip Shakespeare
than they did in me (laughs).
The BOB : Did you plunge right into Girlfriend after Earth
failed to make a dent?
Sweet : Soon as I got back back from that tour to support Earth
- I'd just split up with my first wife - I set up a drum kit in the living
room, and that was the seeds of Girlfriends . I finished on my own
after Ralbovsky left A&M, and they acted like they liked it, but nothing
happened. I knew that this was my last chance, major labelwise, if I didn't
get the next one happening. So A&M gave the tape to their young radio
guys, they said this would not get on the radio. It would be a hard sell.
It took eight months of everybody rejecting it - including Zoo-to get me
thinking of going back to school and maybe doing little independant records
if I could find somebody who'd be interested. But eventually Zoo bought
the album from A&M for 40 grand, which turned out to be 150 grand because
it did so well. Girlfriend took off and changed my life entirely.
The BOB : Whose idea was it to put Tuesday Weld in the cover?
Sweet : Lisa and I started collecting stuff on Jean Seberg after
watching "Breathless." We got into this collecting binge. During
that time I found these little square photos of Tuesday Weld, who I knew
nothing about. When Girlfriend was in limbo I began to fantasize
what I'd do for a cover if I could buy the masters from A&M. I realised
that these square photos would fit the CD box exactly, and when Zoo picked
it up, theu were totally into the idea. I'd always had the scene that these
pictures were taken up in the hills on Mulholland Drive, and one day we
found the exact spot.
The BOB : Goodfriend, your acoustic and live promo-only album, was
a pretty meaty release all by itself, did you have any input into that?
Sweet : Zoo put that together because we'd been getting lots of
in-store play of Girlfriend that sold records for us, and they thought
this would do more of the same thing over the holidays. I didn't have as
much input as I'd have liked. For instance, the Zuma cover rip-off
- I'd never do that kind of thing. It's never been my intention to make
people think of Neil Young when my record's playing. I'm really not as big
into Neil Young as people want me to be. I hate live recordings so I never
listen to it. And the acoustic stuff I did one morning at home. It's funny
though, a lot of people have gotten into my music because of the promo -
Cameron Crowe, the guy who wrote "Fast Times at Ridgemont High,"
for instance - he loved it. And now he and I have worked together on a treatment
for the video of "The Ugly Truth" for the new album.
The BOB : Tell us a little bit about the new album, Altered Beast.
First of all , what's the name mean?
Sweet : Well, I stole the title for a video game. I went to video
arcades a lot back in Nebraska. When I was sequencing the album I began
to think that some of the songs have this mnstrous vibe. In the game you
have to find these power-ups that change the little guy into a half man/
half beast to defeat his enemies. I thought it was an ominous and edgy title,
although I worried for a while it might be a litttle to metal-y. Halfway
through the album, as a break between the two segments we used a sampling
from the Penthouse movie "Caligula." It's where Malcolm Mc Dowell
is snapping and goes before the senate to declare himself god. It even began
to make sense to me-man's desperate attempt to be a god.
The same people who played guitar on Girlfriend do it again this
time: Richard Lloyd, Robert Quine, and Ivan Julian. And Nicky Hopkins plays
piano. I knew he played with the stones, but I had no idea he'd played on
John Lennon's Imagine album. He was great, wonderful. I got Jody
Stephens from Big Star to play drums on one track. When I was doing showcases
for Girlfriend he played with me on a Big Star cover I was doing,
"Don't Lie to Me." I kept bugging him that one day he'd get out
his drums and play on one of my records.
The BOB : Have you finally come to terms with your own voice? As a
simplistic way of looking at it, I see your voice as a synthesis of Micheal
Stipe and Neil Young. Does that sort of thing bug you?
Sweet : That wouldn't bug me so much. I used to get bits of comparsion
to Micheal Stipe, which I could never see. I wished I sounded like Micheal
Stipe - he has a really cool voice. Maybe I was more influenced by him than
I know, just being friends and being around him. But it was only for a few
months, because once Murmur took off they were gone forever. Plus,
after that i never listened to R.E.M. really. By the time I left Athens
I was so anxiety-ridden I tried to block it all out. R.E.M. was a big part
of that. I'd just be generally jealous of them and how they did in their
career. I just felt that I was this limited moron who would never make it.
It's all part of this competitive jealously thing. After you know someone,
their records never sound the same to you.
The BOB : There's a track on Earth called "Children of Time (Forever)"
that sounds about as close to Neil as you;ve ever come?
Sweet : (laughing) That's because am really stretching my voice
up there on that one - way too high. I always thought my voice was too rotten,
and I'd never make it because of it. Neil Young was someone I should have
listened to more carefully a lot earlier in my career to understand why
he was so great, and it didn't matter if his voice had imperfections. It
would have saved me a lot of worry. As time passed I felt kind of lucky
that I was still getting away with my voice. I'd stop and think, "What
if I had some slick awful kind of voice?" And then I am glad I have
this wretched little voice. I'm obviously limited. I do what I can. I can
hear the way I wish it sounded, but my little voice just doesn't do it.
I've come to appreciate singers with unconventional voices: Lou Reed, Ray
Davis, Bob Dylan, even Nick Lowe and Alex Chilton.
The BOB : It seems to me that each successive release of yours has
gotten less slick, with more rough edges to act as toe-holds.
Sweet : Yeah, well I prefer magnetictape to digital, but I'm not
like people might think I am-being totally retro in that way. What I'm trying
to get across you might see best in the role of production. The world looks
at my record and a Lennie Kravitz record. Lennie really cares about re-creating
an era exactly, so he'll get the same board the Beatles played through.
Really, I don't care about that sort of thig that much. I'm not any kind
of purist. I like living in a modern era. I'd rather live now in a time
with high-tech. I think video games and computers are really cool, you know.
The hard thing for me with my music was that I though I could blend that-my
modern age-into my music, and still communicate. But what I found out was
that until I went fully organic with my music, the impact of songs wasn't
felt as fully as it could be.
Finally i realised the rest of my life I can be into high-tech stuff, but
music should be played raw. It was also a lot easier and more fun. Aitered
Beast was a hundred times easier to make more than Earth . It
was just haphazard and quick.
