Mix Online, May 1, 2004
By Craig Dalton
Tucked away in the Hollywood Hills, surrounded by the sites of countless hit movie location shoots, is the home and personal studio of Matthew Sweet. Prolific crafter of acclaimed and successful albums such as Girlfriend and Altered Beast, along with being one-third of The Thorns, Sweet's warm, distortion-drenched guitars, lyrical voice and rock-pop songwriting talents have been a part of radio, film and concert tours since the mid-'80s. Having worked with top-level production vets such as Richard Dashut (Fleetwood Mac), Brendan O'Brien (Aerosmith, Train and Bruce Springsteen) and Fred Maher (Lou Reed, Korn), Sweet now has all of the knowledge needed to create new songs in his own Pro Tools|HD3-centered personal studio.
"I was always doing a lot of home recording," says Sweet. "For me, it was kind of how I got into writing songs." Surrounded by a growing collection of '60s art (he and wife Lisa are in the middle of writing a book on the subject), Sweet has created an inspiring environment that perfectly fits his musical history. With a great selection of vintage amps, original Electro-Harmonix processors, classic keyboards and an eclectic selection of guitars, there is no lack of unusual equipment. Taking a look into the small room that houses his drum setup, Sweet says that the lack of acoustic treatment and angles of the room help him track some "crazy, trashy drum sounds." All other tracking is done directly in the main room, which also houses his amps, keyboards and recording gear.
Sweet uses an Apple G4 OS X for his HD system and a Yamaha 02R for stereo playback through Event powered monitors. "We used Pro Tools for a few mixing things on Girlfriend [1991], my first breakthrough record, even though it's thought of as a real analog record. We used it to sequence the record and do little backward things; just the stereo [version] was available then. HD made me think I could make a record at home, and - even though it's funky because I engineered it and everything - it would be viable." Although Sweet often uses plug-ins such as the McDSP Filter Bank ("I can't say enough good things about it"), Chrome Tone and some of the Bomb Factory Pultec and Fairchilds, his basic technique also involves Tube-Tech, Neve 1066 and Ampex tube mixers in the input signal chain for instruments. He adds, however, "The beauty of Pro Tools is that you aren't stuck with one sound going in; you can change the plug-ins anytime."
Sweet doesn't see the need for bringing in outside engineers, but confides that most engineers would be aghast at his setup, although it works best for him. He credits Maher with helping him learn Pro Tools. Playing most of the instruments himself, and using some longtime accomplices such as guitarist Greg Leisz and drummer Ric Menck, Sweet doesn't need to track using a lot of different inputs. "Mike Clark from Southern Tracks [O'Brien's Atlanta facility] has been incredibly helpful to me," he adds. Clark advised Sweet on what serious gear to obtain and helped him choose some of his classic mics, including a Neumann U49 that he uses for both drums and vocals. Other microphones include a Lawson M51 for "all kinds of things" and a selection of various Shure and Sennheisers. He records his guitars by miking amps and going direct to get "that nice Lindsay Buckingham sound."
Like Buckingham, Sweet prides himself on his self-reliance; in fact, he views it as essential in the current musical climate. "The fact that you can do [production, marketing and distribution] yourself makes for more chance of success. There is so much more out there that is not being covered well by the majors. It feels like there is kind of a critical mass of stuff waiting to happen."
Although he's still able to go to the majors for new projects, Sweet is exploring different release routes for his two completed personal studio projects. Kimi Ga Suki, which he describes as a "love letter to Japan," has been in limited release there through a Japanese distributor and in the U.S. on Amazon.com. Also coming soon is Living Things, which includes keyboard contributions from the legendary Van Dyke Parks. Both of these new collections should be available in wider distribution this summer and perhaps supported by a tour.
"In a way, for me, the art of doing music is really a lot about the home demo studio," Sweet offers. "Early on in my career, and even in the middle of my career, friends who I know really well have always kind of liked my demos better [than the finished albums]. Even with the successful records, there's something about the demos; they're just more personal, they're a little more artistic. They just have that ‘painter on his own’ kind of thing about them."
Rolling Stone, July 27, 2004
By Andrew Dansby
"At the major label, they always wanted to get all involved," Matthew Sweet explains. "'Who are you going to work with?' and, 'What are you going to do?' and, 'Is it the right record?' I just got so sick of hearing that. What's the right record? Does that exist? [Laughs] I want to make the wrong record." On October 19th, Sweet will release Kimi Ga Suki * Raifu and Living Things, two of the most enjoyably wrong records of his career.
Both albums hint at previous Sweet touchstones, but not necessarily as rehashed versions of old classics. And both benefit from a newfound enthusiasm, as Sweet found himself a free agent after more than a decade on a major label. Kimi was the first recorded, and, for a lucky few, the first released. Sweet recorded the album in 2002 and released it in Japan last year as a "thank you" to his Japanese fans. The record also marked a reunion of many of the players from his landmark 1991 power pop album Girlfriend, including Television guitarist Richard Lloyd, drummer Ric Menck and multi-instrumentalist Greg Leisz. "It was a fantasy situation," he says. "The industry had always made me feel so pressurized. I felt like I was always failing, which was a drag. But Japan represented this mystical, far-off place to me, and I just felt free and without pressure to record this record at my own home studio, which is something I'd wanted to do for years."
Kimi crackles with Girlfriend's familiar (and almost familial) energy, as Lloyd and Sweet's guitars provide antagonistic foils as they did more than a decade before on cuts like "Tonight We Ride." And tasteful country flourishes on "I Don't Want to Know" hint at Girlfriend's "Winona."
As for Living Things, recorded just two months after Kimi, Sweet likens its creation to the process behind 1993's Altered Beast, a record with which it shares little sonically. Altered Beast was the sound of a not-so-sugary Sweet -- he calls it "the Quine record," referencing late punk guitarist Robert Quine whose inimitable style provided some of Beast's bite -- with barbed lyrics and slashing guitars. He also fesses that Beast's production was difficult, as he had trouble communicating with other musicians and his label what it was he wanted to record. Sweet says Living Things was recorded "with much more clarity than I had then," but he admits that the sessions shared with those of Beast a similar manic energy and some extended outros.
Still, a glaring difference is immediately detectable, as Living Things was recorded almost completely without an electric guitar in sight. For that reason alone, Living Things sounds like nothing else in Sweet's catalog. In some respects, it shares the lush, layered production of his last record, 1999's In Reverse. But if In Reverse suggested ELO, Living Things shares some DNA with the Beach Boys and Bread, pairing fragile, sad melodies of the latter with the broad-based instrumentation and sound effects of the former.
The record wastes no time hiding its surprising palette, opening with a deliciously peculiar steel drum on the odd and engaging "The Big Cats of Shambala," a song inspired by some close encounters with lions and tigers at actress-turned-activist Tippi Hedren's preserve in Southern California. "The sound of a lion roaring is an awesome thing," he says. "It shakes the whole ground."
Living Things marries Menck's drums with Sweet's acoustic guitar as the organic backbone for its eleven songs. Leisz returns to add a hodgepodge of instrumental embellishment (including various slide guitars, mandolins and mandolas), as does Brian Wilson's reliable foil Van Dyke Parks, who provides all sorts of keys and serves as "something kind of like a guru," by Sweet's account. Parks also helped Sweet put a pop sheen on some of his sadder songs.
"I do love those melancholy kinds of melodies -- my love of Brian Wilson comes from that -- and I tried to get that into the record," he says. "I also left in a lot of those long endings. Those ended up being some of my favorite parts of the record, the instruments were so delicately plucked that I liked being able to hear them. There was a hypnotic magic to it. The interesting thing, though, is that I still think the record rocks."
The record is also one of his most dynamic vocally, as though energy of the late-Sixties influence has loosened him up as a singer, with echoes of David Gates' sad textures on "You're Not Sorry," and a falsetto on "Push the Feelings" that somehow hearkens to both Brian Wilson's untethered, childlike voice and Robert Plant's primal roar.
The dual releases also end a five-year drought for new material. He's hardly been MIA during that spell, though. Since releasing In Reverse in 1999, he issued a career retrospective in 2000, a collection of early recordings in 2002 and an album of acoustic pop with Pete Droge and Shawn Mullins (as the Thorns) last year. He's also made a few appearances on recordings for others, including writing with Hanson for their latest album.
And while Living Things sounds like a new side of Matthew Sweet, it's not an entirely unexpected one. In a way, the biggest thing that has changed over the past five years is his creative comfort level. He jokes that his manager recently told him, "You've never let anybody tell you what album to make." Indeed, when people expected Girlfriend 2, he gave them an angrier Beast. There have been returns to straightforward power pop (1995's 100 % Fun), as well as slight detours like the conceptual In Reverse.
From a strictly financial standpoint, he's optimistic these days, as he's crunched the numbers and realized it takes a far more modest sales goal to make a living independently than it did recording for a major. "It's been my dream," he says, "to be able to put out music more often and not wait for somebody's input on how it should be worked."
Excited about the possibilities of making unfettered music at his own pace, Sweet is already looking ahead to the next record. Between Quine's passing and the woody textures of Living Things, he sounds poised to plug things in. "I feel real refreshed on electric guitar," he says. "My intention is to do something really rocking. There is a monster guitar record out there ... maybe not necessarily a monster in terms of being great [laughs]. But a big scary guitar monster of some sort, nonetheless."
Billboard.com, July 30, 2004
Power-pop maestro Matthew Sweet is returning to North American audiences after a five-year hiatus between solo releases with two new albums. Kimi Ga Suki * Raifu, a 12-track album released last year in Japan, is due Sept. 7 on Superdeformed/RCAM Records. A separate album, Living Things will arrive from the label Oct. 19.
Both albums - the first all-new U.S. releases under Sweet's name since 1999's In Reverse (Volcano) - were recorded in short order at the artist's house in 2002. But Kimi Ga Suki was earmarked for Japanese-only release, and the release of Living Things was delayed as well, due to Sweet's promotional efforts with the Thorns, the group he formed with Pete Droge and Shawn Mullins.
While the pair of albums will be released right after one another in the United States, sonically they represent two very distinct aspects of Sweet's work. Kimi Ga Suki has a raw, electric sound based around the raucous drumming of collaborator Ric Menck, Sweet's bass and guitar work by Greg Leisz and Television alum Richard Lloyd. The songs were written in about a week and recorded without demos, a stripped-down method of album-making that the artist found exciting.
"That process turned out to be really satisfying and fun for me," Sweet tells Billboard.com. "As hard as it was to accept it the album was done [without extensive studio tinkering], at least I made a record that I can say is a record, out of my house."
Living Things followed a similarly organic path to creation, its songs having been written while Sweet was staying with Droge and Mullins at a ranch in Santa Ynez, Calif., working on Thorns material. Again, Sweet and Menck recorded the basic tracks at the former's home. But then Sweet and Leisz added more layers of extensive instrumentation - all acoustic - with the help of a pop iconoclast Van Dyke Parks.
A meeting at Brian Wilson's surprise 60th birthday led to the collaboration with former Beach Boys consort and Sweet's idol Parks, who ended up adding accordion, organ and piano to the album's 11 lush tracks. Sweet says building that album was a very organic process, and a good deal of the final material on Living Things is culled from improvisational first takes.
"My interest at this point is how to break the mold," he says. "I wanna do unbridled, cool, weird things when I feel like it. That's the exciting thing to me about these records - they represent that I can do whatever."
Sweet hopes his freedom from having a major-label deal, coupled with his newfound ability to make full-sounding records at home, will lead to a new phase in his career.
"I'd like to get to a point where I could be more like I was a painter or a potter," he says, "where I just make my thing and I put it out, and it doesn't have to be everyone in the world that wants it, you know? If enough people want it that I can survive and actually make money from it, I'd be happy."
The artist has three Japanese tour dates on his docket - Aug. 21 and 23 in Tokyo and Aug. 24 in Osaka - and he plans to tour North America in support of the two new releases starting in October.
liveDaily, September 22, 2004
By Don Zulaica
For guitarist/songwriter Matthew Sweet, it evidently wasn't enough to put together last year's critically-acclaimed The Thorns with Pete Droge and Shawn Mullins.
While on a Santa Ynez, CA, ranch recording that project, Sweet experienced "a spontaneous explosion" of inspiration, which led to a few early morning lyric-writing sessions under a tree. In a scant few days, the entire Living Things album - which hit stores in early September - was written.
When it was time to add instrumentation to Things, Sweet and drummer Ric Menck laid down basic tracks - the initial guide-vocal recordings ended up on the final product - followed by layers of guitars and bass from Greg Leisz, various keyboards and stylistics by the enigmatic Van Dyke Parks, and other bass (Tony Marisco), guitar (Pete Phillips), steel drums (Doug Lacy) and harmonica (Roger Handy) tracks.
But even that album isn't enough, as Sweet has released Kimi Ga Suki - originally issued in Japan in 2003 - and Living Things simultaneously.
liveDaily: What was the overlap between recording with The Thorns and the first writing nuggets of Living Things?
Matthew Sweet: We were at the end of these couple of weeks, and I think we were sort of getting burned out. It's intense to have to be diplomatic all day with two people you don't really know [laughs], and trying to write songs. We did really well, I think, but, toward the end, everybody got kind of cranky. I think one of those days we sort of knocked off early, and I was in my room, and I spouted out all these ideas. I think it was a lot of built up frustration, and a bunch of things just kind of popped out. Then, I think we had a day or two left there, and I got up early for a couple of mornings and worked on writing the words for those songs. And that's about three-fourths of Living Things. There's maybe two or three songs that didn't originate from that time. It's kind of funny; the basic ideas for the songs came really fast. A couple of hours, and then I worked on the words a little bit afterwards.
Q: Is songwriting always that easy for you?
A: It kind of is, in a weird way. It's funny you ask that. I haven't
been doing a whole lot of writing lately, because I've been traveling and
doing other stuff, not really in that mode too much. Yesterday, I had done
an interview for some magazine earlier in the day, and we were talking,
(and the interviewer asked) 'How do you get inspired to write songs?' And
I said, 'I have to have a certain kind of feeling, or urge, or whatever.
And then it pops out.' Then, later on in the day, I got that feeling, and
made up a song really fast. And it is really fast. In fact, it always bugged
me; people do reviews and think that you've really carefully crafted this
thing - and to
some degree you do - but I would always feel kind of weird about it, because
it always felt like ... nothing, you know? It's really intangible, doing
music, because it's not like a solid object.
I've really thought about this lately, because I've been learning how to do pottery. I've been throwing pottery on a wheel. It's really fun, but it's so different, because I have the object. It's sort of problematic, because they build up and then you have all these objects that you couldn't give away to your family! [laughs] Music is really ethereal; it's hard to get a grasp on. So you always have a sense--and this is when it's the most fun for me--you have those moments of, "Where did that come from?" You just get into the mode, and it's hard to imagine how that happened, exactly.
Q: The skeletons of Living Things came together with your drummer Ric Menck, and you used a lot of the original guide vocals on the final product. Why?
A: I had it in my mind to fix the vocals up and re-do all this stuff, and when I tried to go back, I just didn't want to mess with any of it. I didn't know where to begin. I felt like I was too far from it and that I might just mess it up.
Q: Do you feel that many albums today are over-produced? Too much Pro Tools?
A: Oh yeah, totally. Although, I don't know, because probably the records that aren't that way, I don't hear. I'm more likely to hear new stuff if it's piped in somewhere, because I don't keep up on new music. If I'm working on music of my own, which is a lot of the time, I don't listen to music in my free time--I enjoy silence. [laughs] So I'm sure there are lots of groups that don't use Pro Tools. But it's not the Pro Tools, it's what you do with it. I mean, I liked Kraftwerk, but for the kind of music I do, that feeling of being human and not being perfectly synched-up, I like that. To me now, it makes more sense than ever, because it will immediately make something feel wild compared to everything else.
Songwriting addict Matthew Sweet releases two albums, rehab imminent
By Don Zulaica
Matthew Sweet loves to write songs. How much, you ask? It wasn’t enough to collaborate with two other pre-eminent songwriters – Pete Droge and Shawn Mullins – and make the critically-acclaimed 2003 album The Thorns, oh no. While recording that record on a Santa Ynez, California ranch, Sweet experienced “a spontaneous explosion” of inspiration, which led to a few early morning lyric-writing sessions under a tree. In only a few days, his entire new album, Living Things, was written. And even that’s not enough, as Sweet has unveiled yet another disc – Kimi Ga Suki, originally released in Japan in 2003 – simultaneously with Things. No wonder he sounds under the weather.
The Wave: The voice is sounding kind of raw… everything okay?
Matthew Sweet: I’m getting over the flu. A couple weeks ago I was on this whirlwind tour – from Spain to England to Ireland and back home – over the course of four or five days. So it was kind of insane, flying all the time and not really sleeping. I left England fine on Tuesday morning, and arrived here in Los Angeles with a terrible sore throat.
TW: When you travel, do you even bother to set your watch anymore?
MS: I have to say, although we did some crazy long distances with The Thorns last year – we opened for the Dixie Chicks in Australia, New Zealand and Europe – we went to Japan for 10 days at the end of August. [It was] just long enough to get on their time, which is pretty difficult. And then I was back in Los Angeles for five or six days, and then went the other way, to Spain, England and Ireland. By the end, I wasn’t really keeping track. What really worked out best was coming back – I was sort of finally normal here, at home. The two kind of balanced each other out.
TW: How did the impetus for writing Living Things come about? You were working with The Thorns…
MS: We were nearing the end of these couple of weeks, and I think we were sort of getting burned out. It’s intense to have to be diplomatic all day with two people you don’t really know and try to write songs. We did really well, I think, but toward the end everybody got kind of cranky. I think one of those days we sort of knocked off early, and I think I was in my room, and I spouted out all these ideas. A lot of it was built up frustration, I think. And a bunch of things just kind of popped out. Then I think we had a day or two left there, and I got up early for a couple of mornings and worked on writing the words for those songs. That’s about 3/4 of Living Things. There’s maybe two or three songs that didn’t originate from that time. It’s kind of funny, the basic ideas for the songs came really fast. A couple of hours, and then I worked on the words a little bit afterwards.
TW: Is songwriting always that easy for you?
MS: It kind of is, in a weird way. Yesterday, I had done an interview for some magazine, then later on in the day I got that feeling, and made up a song really fast. And it is really fast. In fact, it always bugged me: People do reviews and think that you’ve really carefully crafted this thing – and to some degree you do – but I would always feel weird about it, because it always felt like… nothing, you know? It’s really intangible, doing music, because it’s not like a solid object.
TW: You released Kimi Ga Suki in Japan in 2003. What are the Japanese fans like?
MS: They appreciate a really wide range of music. Last time I toured – after In Reverse came out – it was great. Anywhere I played, the clubs were packed. It’s not a huge amount of people, but the fans are manic. Three of the four hundred are really insane; they’re really intense about it. And I’ve always bonded with that, because I’m that way. When I’m interested in something, I get really intensely into it.
Pulse of the Twin Cities, November 4, 2004
Matthew Sweet: Lone Wolf
By Rob van Alstyne
Matthew Sweet was born too late. Had he entered the world in 1945, not 1965, then perhaps his ear for melodic pop would have been properly appreciated, lauded alongside Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney as an arranger/songwriter with skills of unquestionable magnitude and a permanent place in pop music history.
Instead, Sweet's been forced to live his music career as a man out of time, a melancholic, angelically voiced classicist attempting to forge a career in the commercial era of grunge, and now, pure crap. He's done a bang-up job of it anyway, even if still known by much of the listening public for his lone bona fide radio hit "Girlfriend" back in 1991.
Sweet spent the rest of the '90s slugging it out in the major label trenches of an increasingly artistically antagonistic and tunnel vision oriented industry that kept the pressure to crank out another "Girlfriend" high even as the airwaves moved ever further from substantive pop of any kind. Working with a wide array of collaborators (among them legendary Television lead guitarist Richard Lloyd, Velvet Crush drummer Ric Menck and mega-producer Brendan O'Brien) over a series of albums that explored skewed solo-heavy classic-rock (Altered Beast), pure power-pop (100% Fun), studio-heavy new wave (Blue Sky On Mars) and classic "wall of sound" retro-pop (In Reverse), Sweet proved adept at contorting his melodic muse into any number of exciting new poses, but never delivered the mega-hit his superiors so greatly desired.
"Working with the labels was always hard because even if I felt successful, it never seemed to be successful enough for the label," explains Sweet via telephone from his Southern California home. "I felt like I was constantly bending over backwards to make things work, which is funny because my management always laughs and tells me that I fought every step of the way. Just the feeling of that pressure I think affects you and how much you're able to let go when creating though. I'm excited right now because I have this kind of freedom that's really personal."
Sweet's new found freedom is evident all over his two new self-released independent records-his first solo albums in five years-the hard-rockin' Kimi Ga Suki Rafi and more experimental sonic pastiche Living Things. Rafi, originally released solely in Japan where he has a rabid fan base, is an edgy collection of home-recorded rockers, reuniting the same core players from Girlfriend (Lloyd, Menck) for a rapidly written and recorded session (the whole album was completed in one week in January of 2002).
Living Things was similarly birthed, but with far different results. Also recorded at home with relative swiftness over two months in the summer of 2002, Living Things presents the mirror opposite of Rafi's rawly recorded short bursts of power-pop. Prominently featuring the contributions of longtime recording companion Greg Leisz on a number of various slide guitars and hybrid mandolins (such as the heretofore unknown to me "electric mando-guitar"). Living Things "rocks" unconventionally, with famed Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks getting in on the action as well, handling various keyboard duties and piling on even more unconventional textures (anyone up for a little electric harpsichord or marxophone solo?). These are lavish songs with extended jams, the closest Sweet's coming to revisiting Altered Beast's unhinged and frenzied approach.
"The big difference with these two records is that I made them without any label affiliation. In the past I would always make a lot of demos before I made a real recording. But with these records the songs on the record are the demos. I was just inspired and excited while in the process of making these records so it all happened quickly. I'm really interested in doing things now that are very immediate. Even in my writing now I'm trying to get towards the place where I'm working on pure momentary inspiration and not doing a lot of thinking about it. One of the things that kind of going independent has enabled me to let go of is that whole worry of 'What is this for?,' and 'Does it have what anyone wants?,' that whole kind of thing."
The other factors uniting these vastly different records are Sweet's unerring ear for melody and stacked vocal harmonies (the usual choir of backing Sweet voices are present on both albums) and ability to utilize his fellow musicians to the fullest. Unlike so many solo artists, Sweet's work benefits from the energy of true collaborative interplay. As a result, these albums sound more like the work of two intuitively gifted bands with very different approaches than the sound of a solo singer/songwriter with a revolving cast of characters. Sweet is quick to agree that it's his willingness to bring others into the mix that frequently takes the music to another level.
"In the beginning I came out of this whole port-a-studio generation where I did things in my bedroom and just played all of the instruments myself-although I didn't really ever learn how to play the drums decently," admits Sweet stifling a laugh. "That was a pretty lonely way to work, just writing and recording in a vacuum. I never got to share anything with anybody. So when I got to the point of being able to hire other people to play on my records that was always really fun because they would surprise me and bring new aspects to what was happening. I would never really tell other people what to play, if there was something I really wanted a specific way I would probably just play it myself. The kinds of people I got to work with have sort of taught me how to be more expressive and improvise. Players like Greg Leisz and Richard Lloyd are masters of that. They'll just go for it with each take and play something wildly different every time. So it's great because I can just record a bunch of different takes and then wade through it to find the bits that mean the most to me and use those."
On the verge of 40, Sweet is finally making music on his own terms with no one to please other than himself-and is clearly excited about the prospect of his first crack at life as an independent musician. "To be in a world where I don't have to fight to do my stupid ideas, where I can put a weird picture of a bee on my album cover [like Living Things has] if I want to, is just a better situation to me," explains Sweet audibly enthused. "I'm just hoping enough people find out about the records and care about them that I can really get things going independently. When I had my biggest success it was so small compared to what a lot of people go through by today's standards and still it was an overwhelming freaky time and kind of a drag for me. So I sort of feel like a more natural and functional level for me is to sell more in the neighborhood of 50 to 100,000 records and still have a life, that would be great. The reality is that if I were eventually able to do that on my own I'd be making more money than when I sold even half a million records on the majors."