BACK TO GOOD
Rocker revisits Beautiful Midnight and lets music grow organically, Lynn Saxberg writes.
The latest recording by Vancouver-based rocker Matthew Good is an EP that takes another look at some of the songs from his hit 1999 album, Beautiful Midnight. In this conversation, the singersongwriter talks about the evolution of his music, why he avoids touring the States and the golden age of Canadian rock.
Q What prompted the idea to revisit songs from Beautiful Midnight?
A Well, to be honest with you, it was my manager’s idea. We’d been talking for some time about doing a tour, and revisiting the record. I’d always been hesitant about it. I didn’t want it to be one of those things where bands say they’re going to go out and play a record from beginning to end. If we were going to do it, I wanted to go back in the studio and grab five or six songs, and kinda retool them all a bit. That was the impetus.
Q How was the recording process?
A Warne Livesey produced it. He produced the original, too. What I did was instead of letting my guys listen to the tracks, I sat at home and played them acoustically and that’s all they could listen to. So we did a lot of the main instrumental parts live off the floor, and as we did that, we came up with different ideas for things, and just let them grow organically.
Q You’ve been playing with your current band for almost 10 years, longer than the Matthew Good Band lasted. Do they bring a fresh energy to the songs?
A Yeah, they do. It’s obviously a lot different than going in writing and recording something that’s fresh for an album at a certain time, and especially at a certain age. To revisit something that you wrote in your 20s and now you’re in your mid-40s, to look at it again, you approach things a lot differently.
Q How would you say your music has evolved?
A Oh, I think I’ve written much better records. At the time, commercially, the album did exceedingly well. It’s triple platinum or more now. But throw it against the wall with something like Lights of Endangered Species from 2011, and I think that record is vastly superior. I think the older you get as a songwriter, you cover a lot of ground. I’ve done a lot of different things on different records. In reality, all that was possible because of the band’s success.
Q What do you recall about what was going on around you when you made Beautiful Midnight?
A I was in a band with guys who hated each other. It was pretty simple. Everyone was jockeying for this, that and the next thing. Being in the band wasn’t a pleasant experience. The whole thing had repercussions that lasted, not so much for me, because I’ve carried on doing what I do, and have had success since. There was a lot of monkey business around it all that didn’t need to be there. In the final days of the whole thing falling apart, I was bizarrely trying to keep it together. As soon as I knew it was fait accompli, I started writing Avalanche.
Q You’re working on a new album. What’s your mission this time?
A It kinda hearkens back to original New Wave, bands like Television and the Police and people like that. A lot of what people think of as New Wave, there’s a bit of a misconception. A lot of people are stuck in the typical mid-’80s definition of it. People forget it started with bands like Talking Heads. I guess I find it interesting if you listen to a lot of bands, they try for that mid-’80s vibe and they don’t really do it right.
Q Any hopes or dreams to tour in the U.S.?
A No.
Q How come?
A Because I don’t make any money. At this point in my career, I’m not going to mince words with you. I’ll be 46 in June. Why would I go to America? There are certain places I can go in the United States and play 1,200 in a room. But that doesn’t facilitate doing a whole tour. If I’m not making money for my family, I could be home with my kids. I’m away from them enough as it is.
Q There are a bunch of Canadian bands from the ’90s popping up again. How does that sit with you?
A They’re cashing in on it. I’ve always continued to make albums. I haven’t left. A lot of those bands went by the wayside and I guess they’re trying to get back together and capitalize on it. I guess that’s cool. Hopefully they’ll release new material.
Q Do you think there’s some nostalgia driving it, too, at least for a certain demographic of fans?
A Oh, sure. There’s a lot of people in that age bracket that remember the ’90s, remember how prolific Canadian music was, and kinda long for that. There was a purity at that time. It’s something to be able to grow up in a country where there are Canadian bands headlining arena tours. And not just two of them, a bunch of them. I don’t think we’ll ever see that happen again. It was a massively golden age for Canadian music.