The 1975 frontman speaks his mind ahead of Calgary show
Matthew Healy is having a busy couple of weeks.
Or, rather, he’s having a notable couple of weeks, making headlines back in his U.K. homeland and also in North America where he and his band The 1975 are currently touring.
From leading the nominees for this year’s Q Awards and getting fans frothing with a Twitter tease of new music to offering a hearty profanity-capped message to Donald Trump during a show in L.A., it’s all been eagerly disseminated and discussed online.
That’s what happens when you’re arguably one of the biggest alternative pop acts in the world, which is what The 1975 have become over the past few years.
From their 2013 self-titled debut to this year’s chart-topping I Like It When You Sleep, for You
Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It the quartet — and particularly the infinitely quotable, convivial and charismatic frontman — have struck a chord with their honest, sometimes overly earnest canny pop tunes.
Prior to The 1975’s Sunday night show at the Grey Eagle Resort Centre, Healy spoke with the Herald about all of these subjects and more.
On whether or not awards or nominations mean anything to him:
“Um, kind of. I mean, it means kind of less to me than I thought it would. I think the best way to explain it is that on the first record the band becoming successful was kind of imbued also with me becoming known. You know like, when nobody knows who you are you don’t have these kinds of things, you don’t have any perspective and you think certain things are going to make you happy. I desired that on the first record. And it’s not like we didn’t do well on the first record, it was great, but I think this record was such a personal statement … And now when these things come along it’s just nice but it doesn’t really affect what I’m doing or how I feel about the music.”
On the worry about being too personal with his lyrics:
“Not really because at the end of the day I’m in control of that and as much as I have set a precedent of being brutally honest at times, I know that if there’s something that I don’t want out there I don’t have to put it in there — I’m not a walking poem. But the interesting thing is how far do I go? Because I think one of the things that I find cathartic, comforting is that I talk about things about my personality that I genuinely don’t like. It’s not like, ‘Oh, God, I’m a bit mad aren’t I? I’m a bit wacky,’ do you know what I mean? The things that I talk about sometimes are things that I really have a profound distaste for, but there’s a weird catharsis in that because I know just me being a person that when somebody is brutally honest that’s quite endearing and I like that in people … When people reveal their fragility everybody can relate to that.”
On teasing new music from The 1975
“Very seldom do I go onto social media anymore, it’s more to do with keeping people in touch with The 1975 and knowing what’s going on with that. It’s not really a personal vehicle for me anymore. And I think I got on there at two o’clock in the morn- ing and I was excitedly working on something with George (Daniel, the band’s drummer), so I was like, ‘ Yeah! New music, 2017.’
“There will be. I don’t have a long attention span, so I can’t imagine going through all next year without putting out any new music. So, I’m sure it will happen. It won’t be an album because albums take me a long time … but we’ll definitely put out something.”