By Brian Remick
Matthew Sweet is a talented musician with a strong cult following. So why are KROQ and MTV ignoring him?
Matthew Sweet must be frustrated.
With an incredibly loyal cult following, six solo albums, and a songwriting ability few can match, you'd think he'd be able get a hit on MTV.
Recently, the closest Matthew Sweet has come to primetime exposure has been background music for the credits of Melrose Place - and it wasn't even one of his well-known songs.
To put it mildly, Sweet's fans don't exactly span the globe. Like most bands who don't receive much radio play, he has a small but loyal following, especially here in Southern California.
"That's my weakest area in the country - the West Coast," Sweet says from Memphis, Tenn., taking a short break from the Eastern leg of his tour. "We don't get a lot of support generally from KROQ or the big alternative stations around there."
This is disappointing but true. Sweet's February release, 100% Fun, is on its third single, two of which have received little airplay in Los Angeles. The first single, "Sick of Myself," was the only song that made a dent in the alternative charts - and it was a small dent.
Despite his lack of large-scale commercial success, at least Sweet hasn't lost his sense of humor. "I thought it was amusing having a song called `Sick of Myself' opening my record," says Sweet. "You do get sick of yourself being a solo artist like me. It can get kind of old."
Written about a simple infatuation, "Sick of Myself" is a strange but brilliant way of complimenting a person. You wouldn't normally think of insulting yourself to make someone else feel special.
"People misperceive that it's supposed to be about me," Sweet says as if people are supposed to think otherwise. "They're like, `Are you sick of yourself, Matthew? Why are you so sick of yourself?'"
Sick of himself or not, Sweet has to be pleased that 100% Fun went gold last week. His previous album, Girlfriend, waited until this spring to do the same. A sign of increasing popularity? Well, maybe - considering Girlfriend received virtually no airplay at all.
But Matthew Sweet seems indifferent about his success. He just does what is natural, as is evident from why he chose the title 100% Fun. "On a certain level it was stupid and sarcastic and so obnoxious that I couldn't resist it," says Sweet. "On another level I almost thought of it as being sad and wistful."
Ironically, the original idea stemmed from a sarcastic remark. Sweet mentioned that he should just call his next album 100% Fun because so many people said that Girlfriend was dark and depressing.
The facetious title and the picture of Sweet as a little boy on the cover certainly gives the album an impression that is entirely different from its content.
"They're always bugging me to put a photo of myself on my records and I'm always resisting as much as I can." Sweet says. "I thought `Maybe I'll put this picture on the front. I always thought it was amusing. I was kind of smiling - I looked kind of happy - I had on the big headphones. I was so skinny. It was fairly flattering."
"Then, of course, they tried to fight me on that - it's like you can never win."
100% Fun isn't exactly the gigantic party it appears to be. Although the melodies on the album might be a little catchier than Altered Beast, the strange and depressing motif remains.
"I felt that it was pretty solid, which is what I really wanted it to be - a simple, direct record," says Sweet. "I felt good about it when I finished it."
While singles from 100% Fun continue to find their way onto alternative radio stations (everywhere except in Southern California), Matthew Sweet appears on a number of current soundtracks, including a song called "My Pet" for the upcoming Ace Ventura sequel, as well as a remake of the Scooby Doo theme for an alternative compilation of Saturday morning cartoon theme songs.
And then there's "Ultrasuede," which regrettably appears on the soundtrack of National Lampoon's Senior Trip. "I was like, `Make sure this happens. It's a National Lampoon movie!" Sweet said when he first heard of the opportunity. Little did he know ...
"It sure is an awful movie. I really love bad teen movies, but that one has little to keep you awake in it," says Sweet. The song itself is one of the best on the album, however.
Film endeavors aside, Sweet hasn't been too concerned about rushing to write any new material. "I collect a lot of ideas while I'm on the road and record little bits of things. They're usually not very flushed out and (don't have) a lot of words yet," Sweet says. "I probably have 40 or 50 ideas - if I'm lucky maybe 10 or 15 of them will be decent."
"I guess I'll believe it when I see it as to whether or not we get to four or five singles (on 100% Fun)," Sweet says. "They may give it a shot - you never know."
By Joe Silva
Lately, when you're more prone to landing the cover of Rolling Stone by reinflating a legend and dusting it off for a nationwide tour, or by being the dysfunctional wife of one (you fill in the blanks...), Matthew Sweet figures in as something of a rare bird. The point was better illustrated at a recent Chinese New Year throwdown given by Atlanta's "modern" rock station. Matthew had been square pegged in third on a four act bill that also included one requisite alterna-pop metal band, some post-Tull blues/folk thing, and a top five adult contemporary (shudder shudder...) group who recently rang in the western calendar New Year with Dick Clark. But no matter how many dozens of spins Matthew's epic pop LP Girlfriend have gotten at mainstream frat parties since it's release a few years ago, your garden variety radio listeners were still largely just filing into their seats when Matthew walked out under the indigo veil of the house lights.
But then again, it's still a fairly dicey business these days trying to fashion a career by trafficking in pop songs, whether they're as pretty flawless as Matthew's are or not. You have to work harder than the CandleJamPilotGarden's of the world and there are long distances between pre-album release outings like this one and the MTV Buzz Bin. The last time Matthew was circumnavigating the halls and bars of the collegiate circuit, I accidently taped part of a conversation with him trying to persuade his record company people to let him have a break from the string of interviews he was doing on the road. Still caught in the popularity wake of Girlfriend, his publicity folk were having him do cellular press conferences from his tour bus with seven journalists at a time. Even though the somewhat moodier follow-up record (Altered Beast) wasn't quite doing the in-store business of its predecessor, Matthew was still hot, and everybody wanted to ask him why he wasn't he wasn't happy anymore. The joke became that the next record was going to be called something like 100% Fun, and as it turned out he wasn't kidding.
"You know, I would never bend my music because of pressure like that, although I will admit that I did have a sort of feeling like '...I'm gonna make a record and you will not be able to say it doesn't sound good...' so I'd be sure I'd never have to hear that again." Matthew says from his manager's office before the evening's show. He's more or less just walked in, still a little hoarse from the warm-up date the night before in a smaller Atlanta club. "People have come around a lot to it (Altered Beast) but it's still like this difficult record that's weird and sprawling."
But Matthew would agree that beneath the surface plastic of 100% Fun (Zoo), there are probably just as many minor chord sentiments etched onto the new album as the last.
"Yeah, now it's just that everyone will be fooled because of that title. It's got this photo on the cover from like 1974 of me with big headphones on blissfully listening to my King Kong soundtrack album wearing a smile you'd never get out of me these days"
Discounting the smirk factor, 100% Fun, plays like a well negotiated merger between the two works that pre-date it. It still has manages the semi-manicured, unbridled guitar rock moments of one with the high sheen tunefulness of the other. And with noted Black Crowes/Pearl Jam producer Brendan O'Brien enlisted to help the shape the project, the equation balances nicely. Onstage there's no clunky overlap between songs new and old. Having just motored in from LA (long-standing guitar contributor Richard Lloyd not being able to fly due to an recent auto accident) and only a few crashes rehearsals later, new material like "Super Baby" is seamlessly pulled off alongside the numbers they've played over and over. Freshly plucked from the Love Jones combo, drummer Stuart Johnson rattles away like a smiling, twenty-something version of Costello stickman Pete Thomas. During the more heated moments of their set, where Lloyd looks like someone more apt to fiercely snap the neck of his guitar during a wrenching solo than someone who just spent a week recovering in a hospital from a car wreck, Matthew and company have just as much bare naked aggression as the hair band that came on before them.
What's bundled in with the Beach Boy vocal windup of "Not When I Need It," the blissfully swirling sonic muddle of "Lost My Mind," and the straightforward Peter Buck/Byrdsian hook of "Walk Out" is a more lyrically disassembled version of Sweet than we saw last time round. There's a tone of resolution to moments like "...everything changes/it's hard not to tell/like a bird you'd sooner fly away." or "...the reflection that you see/is a shell of what you were/it's not who you want to be." There are similar points like this littered throughout the record, where you seem to be getting clued into someone's concern for the passing of time. Although he won't let necessarily commit to it outright, you get the notion that you're privy to Sweet trying to verbally reconcile an inevitable shift in his nature.
"I think for most people they don't really deal with that issue, thinking about whether they're going to die and what it all means. They're trying to forget. And for me, I couldn't stand it. I had to dig into and examine my entire youth." he says tossing in a few non-binding laughs. "I guess when I got into my young adulthood, I started thinking 'Do I really believe in God?' and that made me start thinking more about the reality of things. "Get Older" is kind of like the song I wrote to make myself feel better about it."
Which leaves you to wonder that after two outright guitar ridden discs where he might be developing the scope of his verse, will he step away from the rock combo ethic that he initially shunned on his earlier records (Earth, Inside). Having a musical coming of age that was obliquely associated with (but not actually a part of) the Athens, Georgia scene of the early eighties, Matthew didn't appear primarily interested in miming the guitar, bass and drum success of his neighbors. There were keyboards and electronic percussion incorporated, but very little of that is mustered into his current makeup.
"There's was a little monophonic synth sitting around at Brendan's when I was doing the vocals to "Super Baby" that I play in one section and people are horrified by it. They say it sounds like The Cars! Although the first Cars album is sounding pretty good these days. As it goes for programmed music now, I recently got a Kraftwerk record again so I'm into that electronic aesthetic, but as to how that would apply in my own music, I wouldn't expect me to make an electronic record. And as more and more bands come around to doing things with like string sections and stuff, although I really like The Left Bank and certain things with strings on them, it's kind of made me feel more against doing it."
So while we apparently shouldn't look to Sweet hiring on a slew of semi-exotic Eygptian flute players for "his" next project, you're left to wonder what someone so firmly esconsced in the dwindling power pop bortherhood will do in the future. After applying a fresh face to any genre, the artist usually seeks to warp the parameters if not for the sake of the art at hand, then for sheer amusement. On occasion it's worked for Neil Young, but considering his recent return to Crazy Horse form, perhaps they were uneccessary forays for the listeners who bothered to follow along.
"You know back at the time (of Inside), I wanted to be someone of my own time, doing things with keyboards and stuff. Then I heard Pet Sounds and I got so depressed because it had been done so perfectly already."
Point well taken.
Matthew's new release, 100% Fun, will be issued on vinyl by Zoo on February 28. The cassette and compact disc format will be serviced on March 14.
People Weekly, March 27, 1995 v43 n12 p20(1)
The key beneath the Sweet surface
By Eric Levin
When the smoke of sudden stardom cleared for Matthew Sweet in 1993, he and
his second wife, Lisa, found themselves in L.A. Both Nebraska natives, they
had been living near Princeton, N.J., until Sweet's 1991 Girlfriend
(his third album, recorded in '90) belatedly ignited his career. One week
after the Girlfriend tour, he dived into the studio to "get
out my demons" on the warped and driven follow-up, Altered Beast.
To finish it, he and Lisa moved to L.A.
"It was kind of a crazy thing to do," Sweet admits. "But my label is based there. And it turns out we've really liked being there. I'm very interested in movies, and I've met people involved in that." Lisa is tutoring kids on the Warner Bros. lot, and the expatriate Husker ("In Scottsbluff, where Lisa's from, you can still see the ruts where the wagon wheels dug into the stone of the Oregon Trail") seems at home.
"This album felt more direct, spontaneous and even effortless than
Altered Beast," says Sweet, 30. "It's a good time for concise,
melodic, pop-y songs. And I was in a good mood for that." Sweet laughs.
"Lisa and I have been together since before Girlfriend,"
he says. "Even when my first marriage wasn't going to hell, I could
write all kinds of relationship songs. People meet me, and because of my
lyrics, they say, `I can't believe you're so cheerful.' But I don't want
to be a drag when I'm meeting people. In my work I'm more likely to tackle
an issue that's difficult for me than to simply proclaim my happiness. I'm
still drawn to a more melancholy and introspective song. I like melody,
but with that tug in it. That turning of a key inside you."
Top
iMPACT, Volume 2 Number 10, July/August 1995
By Jennie Punter
There's no mistaking the fact that the cherub-faced, tow-headed kid listening to the headphones on the cover of 100% Fun is Matthew Sweet himself. So before proceeding with any questions about his 100% enjoyable new album, touring, living in L.A., working with producer Brendan O'Brien and his continuing musical relationship with guitar maestros Richard Lloyd and Robert Quine, I gotta ask: What was the record on your lap that was making you smile so wide?
"Well, that's the soundtrack from the original King Kong," Sweet explains. "I was a big monster movie fan, and I would buy records from movies I liked. I guess there was probably dialogue and music. Yeah, I was having a good time."
And coincidentally enough, it sounds like a good time was had by all in the rendering of 100% Fun, Sweet's sixth solo release, a thoroughly bubbling, energetic album packed with indelible melodies, lush vocal harmonies, impeccable instrumental embellishments--in short, very Sweet. And the good times will no doubt continue when Sweet hooks up with The Tragically Hip's big cross-Canada tour, Another Roadside Attraction, this month. Three to one Sweet has never played High River, Alberta, before.
From his youthful early records, Inside (1986) and Earth (1989), through his Zoo Records oeuvre--Girlfriend, Altered Beast, its EP accompaniment Son Of... and his latest--Sweet reveals himself as a darn serious musician whose work is firmly rooted in classic popsmithery. Yet there's an edge that has kept his music a college radio staple. And none of that was dulled when Sweet brought bigsound producer Brendan O'Brien on board to make 100% Fun.
"I got interested in using Brendan when I was out touring for Altered Beast," Sweet recalls. "I was listening to the radio a lot and would hear something that made me jealous and think, 'Why can't I get bass sounds like that?' or whatever. And I would always find out that he had engineered or produced or mixed it."
So Matthew called his manager, and the conversation went something like this:
SWEET: I'd really like that guy Brendan O'Brien to work on the album.
MANAGER: Right, you and Aerosmith.
As it turned out, O'Brien and Sweet knew many of the same musical folk from working years ago in Atlanta, Georgia. "He got his start in the big time working on the first Black Crowes record," Sweet explains. "And they insisted he come out and engineer for them when they did their first record for American. And then he got in with American and did stuff with Rick Rubin. He did the Chili Peppers records, which I really liked."
While O'Brien, who has also worked on records by Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden, was into the project, that didn't mean Sweet wasn't a touch nervous going into the studio. "I thought, maybe he's done too many heavy bands, it'll be a crazy combination. As it turned out, we were on the same wavelength. He's probably the fastest guy I've ever worked with, so I've met my match because I like working quickly.
"People said to me, 'You know, Brendan plays on all his records.' And I was a little defensive about that. But he's not at all pushy about that sort of thing. He's very humble--and he's an extremely talented musician, a great guitar and keyboard player."
For 100% Fun, Sweet once again enlisted the guitar power of Robert Lloyd (Television) and Robert Quine (Lou Reed), who have played on most of his previous albums. So how did a boy from Lincoln, Nebraska, manage to hook up with such stellar talents and cult faves in the first place?
"It mostly came from living in New York--I definitely didn't seek them out," Sweet says. "Richard and I met through a Golden Palominos show when I was playing bass with them. He liked my songs and I liked his playing, and I was already a huge Television fan. So we kept in touch and have been playing together since my second record.
"Quine I met through Fred Maher, whom I became friends with after my first record. He and Quine played together with Lou Reed. Fred kept telling me, 'Quine will be good for your stuff 'cause he's really into pop stuff.' "On [100% Fun] Richard ended up playing a lot of the leads," Sweet continues. "But it wasn't because I didn't want Robert to do it. It just turned out that the songs we wanted to use were the ones Richard played on. On Altered Beast, Robert ended up on more songs. I usually send them a bunch of demos and let them decide what they want to take a crack at. It's pretty arbitrary." Sweet also brought in pedal steel guitarist Greg Leisz (k.d. lang, Dave Alvin), and used two drummers, Ric Menck (Velvet Crush) and Stuart Johnson (Love Jones). And naturally Sweet sang and played guitars and... theramin? You mean the eerie electronic instrument which produces sound by someone moving their hands in the space around a sensitive "pole"?
"In fact, on the song 'Lost My Mind' the thing I played isn't a real theramin," Sweet confesses. "It was a cheapo Radio Shack kind of thing that was very hard to control. Actually, Brendan and I both ordered reissues of the original theramin. I just got mine recently, and I plan to use it on my next record."
Not surprisingly, Sweet not only works fast in the studio, but also hammers out tunes furiously when he's in writing mode. "I certainly don't labour over songs," he says. "I think people have this vision of me being really craftsmanlike about it, perfecting everything. Instead of writing a few songs and working them out carefully to make them all real maximized, I write a lot of songs, so all the duds don't get recorded." But even when songs make the cut and get recorded, that doesn't mean they'll land on an album. In fact, one of the finest tunes on 100% Fun, a dark little ditty called "Walk Out," very nearly didn't make the record. All kinds of people were calling for its inclusion, even the king of all mastering dudes, Bob Ludwig. The scene played out a little like this:
BOB: Why aren't you putting "Walk Out" on the album? I so like this song.
MATTHEW: Oh gee, I'm really flattered. But we just didn't like the way it turned out.
BOB: Well are you _sure_ you don't want to put it on?
MATTHEW: OK. You put it in and I'll think about it.
(A few days later)
MATTHEW: (listening and muttering to himself) Hmmm. I just don't think so.....no, no it still doesn't work.
(A few days later)
BRENDAN: I know you're going to hate me, but "Walk Out" is just hanging in my mind. I go to the music store and start playing a guitar and end up playing that song. I think I can make it better. I can do a remix.
MATTHEW: Well, that part in the beginning is bugging me. Why don't you try doubling my harmony backgrounds with a slide part or something to make it different there?
BRENDAN: OK.
(Several weeks later)
MATTHEW: It's, like, one of my favourites. We're playing it live, we've played it on TV a couple of times. It could even become a single.
How could an album called 100% Fun not have a happy ending?
Entertainment Weekly, May 5, 1995 n273 p66
Pop singer Matthew Sweet answers a few questions about his psyche
By Jeff Gordinier
Tiptoe through Matthew Sweet's new album, 100% Fun, and you'll stumble into a psychic minefield. Wielding lyrics like "I'm sick of myself when I look at you" and "You're laughing at everything/that's bringing me down," Sweet laces his juicy pop with themes of self-loathing. In person, he's gregarious and stable - "It's not like I hate myself all the time," he laughs - but just to make sure, the 30-year-old singer agreed to a bout of amateur psychoanalysis:
What do you fear?
I have a mortal fear of flying in airplanes. So bad that I do an insane amount of driving all the time just to get out of it.
When you're in a relationship and things are going wrong, do you want to solve the problem - or run?
I'm an obsessive problem-solver. I would drive the other person crazy by forcing them to confront everything in minute detail.
What makes you sick of yourself?
Just being in a business where part of the deal is that it's public. I have to see what I say, and see what I look like. And sometimes I just go, "Ewww, you're a dork idiot! I hate you!"
What do you wear when you're in a good mood and in a bad mood?
If I'm in a really good mood, I might just wear sweat clothes, because I don't care. If I'm in a really bad mood, I might just where sweat clothes, because I don't care.
Have you ever encountered your inner child?
I'd say I've been sucking up to my inner child for a long time. I tend to be really cynical about things, so my only antidote is having a sense of humor and getting into stuff on a childlike level.
What memory from childhood haunts you?
I was in Estes Park, Colo., with my family. I must've been really young. I wandered by myself into Reptile World and got really deep into looking at the snakes. All of a sudden, from behind came this nasty old guy who said: "It costs money to be in here! Give me the five bucks or leave!" I was so shocked in my reptile bliss, I left. I never wanted to go near there again. I probably moved on to the electric bass from there.
By Christina Kelly
Despite his semi-celebrity, Matthew Sweet is really just a regular guy from Nebraska who dropped out of the University of Georgia in Athens, played in bands, got married real young, moved to Princeton, New Jersey, label-hopped in the late '80s, got divorced, landed at Zoo Entertainment with the hit record Girlfriend, moved to L.A., got married again, freaked out a bit at the pressures of success, and put out Altered Beast, which reflected his post-stardom emotional turmoil. Sweet is what you'd call a pop craftsman- with a cranky, cranked-up twist- and he manages to sell records despite the current craze for "punks" like the Offspring. His fabulous single "Sick of Myself" (off his third Zoo album, 100% Fun) combines the gleeful melodies of Girlfriend with the pissy mood that permeates Altered Beast. Considering the gist of that song and other lyrics on the album such as "I don't care if I die" and "it makes me hate myself," the title 100% Fun is pretty amusing.
SPIN: Why did you put that picture of the ten-year-old you on the cover of 100% Fun?
Matthew Sweet: Oh, just to be square. For the longest time I've been bugged by everybody to put a picture of myself on the cover of a record. And they always say, 'Why won't you smile or something?' So my sister sent me this picture I thought was kind of cool. I was listening to a King Kong album, and I looked like I was actually happy. I usually hate having my photo taken, so I like the fact that I was off guard and in my little world of King Kong.
SPIN: What were you like at that age?
Matthew Sweet: I was sort of a junior scientist: I was really into ants and reptiles, stuff like that. But at that particular moment my fascination was monsters. I had posters of the Wolfman and Frankenstein in my bedroom. And I used to do monster makeup, like half of my face was a skeleton or something.
SPIN: Do you still like monster movies?
Matthew Sweet: Horror movies these days are usually predictable and hack. They aren't mysterious. I was always more into supernatural ghosts and classic monster things. I got into talking about it when I made Son of Altered Beast [an EP that followed Altered Beast], and it had kind of a horror theme. And Altered Beast got the reputation of being kind of a weird record, so I started talking about monster movies.
SPIN: Did you think Altered Beast was a weird record?
Matthew Sweet: I don't think it's as weird as its reputation. It has a lot of my most poppy things. But it has a real trashy sound and there was a lot going on, so it was hard for people to absorb.
SPIN: Were you surprised by that?
Matthew Sweet: No. I wanted it to be difficult. I really didn't care at the time. I was kind of out of my mind.
SPIN: Why?
Matthew Sweet: Before Girlfriend became successful, I had a lot of time to sit around and wallow in my emotions and write songs. Then it changed, and I had people around all the time and I had to talk about every little thing and analyze everything I'd done that I never thought about before. I drank a lot. It just brought out a deeper, darker side of me. I can't imagine how people who have a big, giant level of success deal with it because it's already driving me crazy at a real moderate level.
SPIN: Were you the altered beast?
Matthew Sweet: "Altered Beast" is supposed to be whatever is inside you that may someday explode, and maybe you don't even know it's there. I actually just saw the name Altered Beast in this stack of Sega games in the studio. The record almost reminded me of the game, because in the game you have to find these little power-up things, and when you eat them you become the Altered Beast, this other creature that's really powerful and violent, and you can fight off all the demons that are trying to kill you.
SPIN: Have you ever been in therapy?
Matthew Sweet: A couple of times, at some crisis points in my life. Between Girlfriend and all through Beast I went for various things. I've never been in real therapy for a long period of time. Usually when I get to the point where I'll go and talk to someone, I'm so deeply wound up with trying to figure out what's wrong with me that they go, 'You're all right, don't worry about it. You have a lot of anxiety, but I think you understand it."
SPIN: Have you written any songs that now irk you?
Matthew Sweet: I guess, if I wanted to get hung up about "Girlfriend." It's those dumber songs that I care about the least. The songs that are a little more melancholy and dark mean more to me personally. But you have to write some lighthearted stuff too, because no one wants to hear the weepy stuff all the time.