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| 9inety6ix.1 |
Interview with 96.1 FM’s Alex Dean DJ:
KYLE:
We’re having an amazing time man, we enjoy AustraliaPAUL:
Yeah Australia is like a … it’s pretty cool because we were in Europe, and in Europe we’re like, we just came out so it’s like we’ve been playing really really small places, which is fun, but then we come to Australia, it’s a lot like America plain’ bigger places…KYLE:
It feels a lot like home, so…DJ:
What’s the response like for guitar based bands in Europe these daysKYLE:
In Europe? Well, everything’s like you know like technoDJ:
That’s what I was thinking… It’s really dance orientated in Europe now isn’t itPAUL:
They like the dance stuff… all the like boy group thing that’s really big. The whole like Backstreet Boys thing and things like that.DJ:
Well the good thing about Australia is that we like both styles of music, and Matchbox 20 doing particularly well with the album ‘Yourself or Someone Like You’KYLE:
Well, you could say that (laughs)DJ:
Now, you guys have been together, like, since 1996 is that right- when you got together?PAUL:
Yeah we got together um… me and Rob and Brian have been together since, ah, 1993, but our record came out in 1996, yeah.DJ:
Where is Rob by the way? Why isn’t he here? What’s he doing?PAUL:
Rob is… (laughs) he’s…KYLE:
It’s a total mystery, we don’t know ourselves, we just… they tell us to show up and Rob’s not here, we don’t know what’s goin’ onPAUL:
He does his whole pre-show meditation thing where he, ya know, sits there and lights candles and does his vocal warm ups (Kyle laughs) with a bottle of techquilaDJ:
erm... essentially only two years you’ve been together for and over the last 12 months you’ve been incredibly successful, have you gotten used to that fact yet? Are you cool with the whole…KYLE:
I think we’re pretty comfortable with that fact now (laughs) Yeah, our ego’s sort of grow by the dayPAUL:
Our egos are huge!!KYLE:
Yeah that’s what we keep sayin’… um no (!) it’s really cool to be over here and to… actually we get recognised more over here than we do in the States. It’s really odd, people are tapping us on the aeroplanes… on the flights and stuff it’s kinda of odd.PAUL:
There's something about here that's different (?)… Like in the states as we’d be walkin' down the street, I mean like Rob gets recognised a lot, but other members of the band rarely doubt here it’s like "hey, you’re the drummer from Matchbox 20" how’d you know that? It’s a very odd thingKYLE:
We just don’t get that kind of treatment that we usually get. Bbecause I mean like we did the show in Melbourne, and people’d be like chasing the band, and you know we just came from Europe and that just didn’t happen. It was like we did the gig and no one cares any more. But here it’s totally different and it’s nice, it’s a good feel.DJ:
Well let's just play a track from the album 'yourself or someone like you' . Well this is actually a live recording that we have of 'Long Day'PAUL:
AlrightDJ:
So we'll give that a whirl and come back and chat in just a sec.PAUL:
yepKYLE:
okay
(Live recording of Long Day- From Australian Real World single, recorded live in the Tripple M studios, Australia)
DJ:
That’s the live version of Long Day, now make sure you check out the recorded version on ‘Yourself or Someone Like You’. Now you guys…PAUL:
Definitely check out the recorded version.KYLE:
We wanna point that out.DJ:
Now you guys have also been choosing some songs you’d like to hear on the radio…PAUL:
And you have been nice enough to play them for us.DJ:
So what are some of the bands that you guys like hearing when you…PAUL:
There’s all kinds of stuff…KYLE:
…so many of them. We all listen to so many bands that it’s really hard to pinpoint a few. I think your styles just flow through the weeks. You’ll like one thing, and then you’ll be very in to something the next day so…PAUL:
You know what I’m really into now? Really in to, I can not stop listening to the new Regurgitator.KYLE:
The new Regurgitator.DJ:
It’s a good album.PAUL:
It’s an amazing record. It’s so cool. If you wanna play one of those songs .DJ:
let’s do it. Which one do you wanna hear?PAUL:
that would be really goodDJ:
Every day formulae?PAUL:
Yeah, everyday formula would be cool. I could hear anything off that record; every song is just so incredibly good. If everyday formula is what you've got…(song)
DJ:
How was last night by the way? Did you have a good time?PAUL:
Last night was good. It was great when the midgets showed up- it was amazing. And then Rob kept, like, lightin’ himself on fire. That’s something… I mean Rob’s done some crazy things on stage before, but lightin’ himself on fire was definitely weird… yeah, I never thought he’d go off like that.DJ:
Well, I’m going tonight so what can I expect to see?PAUL:
OH! I don’t know- after last night I don’t know if I could top that.DJ:
I’m looking forward to the gig tonight at the Enmore theatre. I thought I’d talk about the song 3am, which is yet another hit from ‘Yourself or Someone Like You’. And I was reading a story because Paul used to be in the band Tabitha’s Secret before MB20 with RobPAUL:
Yes. Me, Rob and Brian our bass playerDJ:
And that was about ’95 is that rightPAUL:
Yeah it was around that- it was around ’93 to ’95DJ:
There’s a bit of a story about 3am…PAUL:
3am was actually the oldest one of Rob’s song that I’ve been playing. I mean that’s one of the first songs of his I ever heard so I’ve been playing that song for over 5 years now. Yeah, it’s kinda like the intro to Rob’s song writing - 3am intro one. Rob’s song writing- level one. Yeah, and it was a song we did with Tabitha's Secret, and it’s the only song we left over from those days and… as far as the difference between the two is… Tabitha’s secret is like a much janglier band, we weren’t as rockin' as MB20 is and we also weren’t as good. So that’s about itDJ:
A bit of controversy too about the song… do you want to talk about that at all? Or is that not a …PAUL:
No it’s ah… it’s not really surrounding the song, it’s surrounding, well, everything that’s going on really. It’s basically you get… when you do really well, people you’ve been associated with in the past, either fortunate or unfortunate, they kind of sometimes want a piece of that.KYLE:
It’s called jealousyPAUL:
Yeah, it’s called jealousy, and it’s called… people are bitter that things go well for one person and not another. So it’s a time old story, and it’s happened to so many bands, and now it's just our turn you know? But it’s not a thing that’s keeping us up at night that’s for sureDJ:
We won’t talk about Tabitha’s Secret any more then (laughs)PAUL:
Yeah.DJ:
What about the song itself, 3am… to me Rob’s song writing is pretty much a bit of a story in most casesPAUL:
Yeah. He’s definitely… he writes in a way that he’ll take experiences sometimes personal, sometimes things that he sees other people go through and he’ll basically make a story around that, just to bring out the actual feeling that’s going on. And it’s kinda like his talent you know as a writer.KYLE:
One thing I can say about the song in particular was that I was actually the last person to join this band and I met the producer up in Atlanta, and he had handed me the demo tape which was actually Tabitha’s Secret and 3 am was on it. And that’s really the reason I joined the band it’s really what awakened me to Rob’s talent as a real (mumble) singer and overall songwriter. I mean that what mass production takes away (?) from songs. That was the package deal. That was the song that (mumble).(they play 3am)
DJ:
We are backstage with Matchbox 20, with Paul and Kyle just having a cup of coffee getting set for the gig tonight.PAUL:
that’s what we often drink before we go on- coffeeKYLE:
jumpyPAUL:
jumpyDJ:
it’s part of the psyching up processPAUL:
we do our meditating, we drink our coffee. And then we do seven shouts of tequila!! (Kyle laughs) and we’re ready to goDJ:
OK… we’re just going to play another track, because you guys have chosen some songs you want to hear on the on the radio…PAUL:
(laughing) we’re like sitting here stirring our coffee and not paying attention to this (and it’s like) Oh yeah we’re on the radio!DJ:
I’m actually listening to you stir the coffee to be quite honest. You can keep going… Can you play a song with the spoons?PAUL:
Yeah, I can actually (sings and taps spoons) spoon man….PAUL:
Yeah…KYLE:
That was kinda exciting wasn’t it…DJ:
What are we playing?KYLE:
Actually this a song called Beetle Bum which is off the new Blur record which is really reminiscent of the Beetles which kind of attracted it to me so it’s one of my favourite songs of the last year. It’s a song called Beetle Bum by Lurb, or Blur- whichever one you wanna call it.(they play track)
DJ: …and we are backstage with Paul and Kyle, this is the worlds longest cup of coffee…(Kyle: it is) and the biggest biscuit you’ve ever seen in your life (Kyle: oh my God) getting ready…
PAUL:
…it’ll bring you hours and hours of enjoyment thoughDJ:
getting ready for gig number two at the Enmore theatre tonight, you’re playing four shows in Sydney, that’s pretty cool…PAUL:
Five showsDJ:
Five shows is it? I thought it was only four… wow…KYLE:
They tried to pull the old four on us…PAUL: But we said no!
KYLE:
We said what the heck.PAUL:
This is actually… we’ve been looking forward to this more than anything because we’re in a band that plays all the time every so we like travel constantly and now we can spend a large amount of time in one city. And we don’t have to reset up the show again every night.KYLE:
Yeah, cos that’s kind of a depressing thing, when you fly through these cities, and there’s just this blur of culture and you never get to see anything. It’s nice when we actually get to stay here and talk about doing surfing, and people talking about golfing… you almost get to do stuff (?)PAUL:
It’s like a vacation.KYLE:
Yeah, it’s almost like a vacation.DJ:
Do you guys surf?KYLE:
No, but I really want to, I was talking to some people about giving it a shot maybe today or tomorrow. I’m frightened… I’m a little frightened but…DJ:
It’s pretty rare that a new band can come out and sell out five shows like that, because Sydney fans are pretty particular when it comes to live music.PAUL:
We’re pretty damn surprised that because last time we were here was not very long ago. We played like one place that was for 500 people. And now we’re doing five sold out shows, in a theatreDJ:
It’s good to see you’ve still got your feet on the groundPAUL:
They’re not. We're working on it anyway (?)DJ:
With the amounts of cups of coffee you’ve had I think I’d be jumping on the ceiling in just a secKYLE:
We’ve had so many drugs (?) it’s amazing we’re still on the ground (in a weird voice)DJ:
We’re going to play another track off the album, which I might say, is one of my favourites at the momentPAUL:
Why thank you!DJ:
By the way, can I ask you where’d you find this picture of my dad, can I just ask.PAUL:
Oh that’s your dad?KYLE:
That’s everyone’s father.DJ:
…Father…KYLE:
Yourself or someone like your father (laughs out loud)PAUL:
Yeah well, your dad’s a pretty photographed guy…DJ:
YeahPAUL:
There’s like pictures of him everywhere so we just picked one.KYLE:
I think that at some time we really want to meet this guy, wouldn’t you say?PAUL:
We’d love to meet this guy. I wonder how he feels to know that his face plastered everywhereKYLE:
I wonder who he is.DJ:
He’ll be asking for royalty cheques pretty soon.PAUL:
I’ve been wondering about that. "Where’s my cut. I got paid like a hundred bucks for that shoot".DJ:
We’re going to play another track off the album. The one I’ve chosen to do is track six, Back 2 GoodPAUL:
Oh, alrightKYLE:
Should be the last single off the record. That’s my…PAUL:
Killer track... That’s my favourite song to put on.KYLE:
I think we're all very fond of the song. It's one of Rob’s favourites.PAUL:
Definitely Rob’s favourite song. I, like, go through ones it’s like "okay, right now this is my favourite." Right now Back 2 good is my favourite.(they play Back 2 Good)
DJ:
… getting set for gig number two tonight… getting closerPAUL:
Yeah, getting closer now. The anticipation is crawling. From my feet… right now it’s about my kneesDJ:
They’re still raving about last night actually, so anyone’s who’s going tonight is in for a good night.PAUL:
It’s surprising really…KYLE:
We’ll rock them thoroughlyPAUL:
Rock you’re soaking in it… right nowKYLE:
Rock you’re soaking in it right nowDJ:
You’ve been choosing some of your favourite songs while we’ve been chatting here…PAUL:
yeahDJ:
What’s the next one we’re gonna play?PAUL:
We just want to… there’s a band that you guys have here, that I understand are getting ready to come out in the States pretty soon, called the Superjesus, which I’m sure you’ve all heard of. And we have a common bond with the Superjesus in the fact that our producer, our sixth member of Matchbox 20, produced that record. The name’s Matt Serletic, and this is our little dedication to our brother(they play Saturation by the Superjesus)
DJ:
…Now guys, I’ve go to ask the question, how do you plan to follow up this great album, 'yourself or someone like you' . how are you going to do it…PAUL:
Do the second one?DJ:
…does it bother you much?PAUL:
We're going to avoid the whole problem by not doing a second record.KYLE:
It’s really odd though…DJ:
Just release singles from now on? (joking)KYLE:
I’d actually say the opposite though. I think it’s kind of a rarity for a debut album to do well. I mean, usually… I mean you see a number of bands who have moderate success with the 1st album, and then kind of build success…PAUL:
Yeah.KYLE:
I think we were actually kind of lucky.PAUL:
You get a lot of inspiration though, when it’s like your 1st album just does so well. And people are like- "well your next album’s got to do better than that", because most people expect the next record to be much better. And um, we’re not really going to go in and make the next record, you know, trying to make a record that’s going to sell better than this one did. But we’re going to make a record that we feel is a better record. We weren’t really a band for that long, we’d played one show and then we went in to make this record. We’ve been a band for almost three years longer now, so it’s like the next record is definitely going to be a step up musically, without a doubt. And everyone’s growing as songwriters everyone’s growing at their individual instruments, so it’s going to go way further.KYLE:
We’re a lot more intuitive as players and I think when we all play together, we understand each other a lot more then we did in the beginning, so I think that’ll help make the second record. It’ll be more mature, and we want it to be a more mature record, and a lot more adventurous and creative.PAUL:
The cool thing about Matt, who I was talking about earlier, our producer, is that he’s our age. And so we… he was pretty young at his career when he produced our record. He’d done only one other… one or two other rock records since then, rather til then. So he grows with us as well. So we’re not going to be like, have the producer say "okay now, we’re going to make the record that sounds like this cos this is my sound" no. it’s going to be like "let’s go in there and create something… you know, take it as far as we can go. Something that people have never heard before." There’s been a lot of writing going on. I mean we could go in right now and probably make two records, if we wanted to…KYLE:
Yeah, that’s a problem that we don’t have that a lot of bands, I think, do have, is that you kind of have to rush and do the second record, kinda rush to put the material together. We have so much material that’s really completed, or semi completed that I don’t think it’ll be a struggle to get a play list together.PAUL:
Plus a lot of bands you know work their whole careers until they make their first record and they have these bunch of songs. And they make the record with those bunch of songs. Where in the case with us, every song in this record, with the exception of 3am was written six months before the record was made. So it was kind of like this was our second record in a way there’s like a whole catalogue of songs that Rob had with, another band… that other band…DJ:
That we can’t say any more about…(laughs)PAUL:
So that’s actually our first record that we just didn’t do…and we just went straight to the second one.DJ:
Well lets talk about the big hit from the album that really shot you guys to stardom, if you like using that word…PAUL:
what’s it called?DJ:
Yeah… was it ‘kick’ or ‘fall over’. Push, that’s the onePAUL:
It pushed us to stardom.DJ:
Don’t you hate that word?PAUL:
Yeah, we’re funny, it’s like no one in this band can be the one to say "damn it’s been a long day"DJ:
Yeah.PAUL:
You can’t be that guy you can’t says "quit pushing me!" You can’t use words any moreKYLE:
You know it’s funny, I’ve always been made aware of how brilliant the title is every time I’m walking around a mall or something, where like every door has little "push" sign on it.PAUL:
Yeah!KYLE:
You can’t help forget the damn song!DJ:
So that’s what it’s about! I knew it was something meaningful .PAUL:
Yes… see, we’re thinking! You see, our next big song is going to be called pull.(they play Push)
DJ:
We are backstage with Matchbox 20PAUL:
Isn’t it crazy what goes on back stage?DJ:
yeahPAUL:
It’s so loudKYLE:
Everybody shut up!DJ:
(laughs) We’ve got a pretty quite room out the back here actually, it’s great.PAUL:
Yeah, we’re giving people the wrong impression of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyleDJ:
Yeah absolutely.PAUL:
We keep sitting around here and talking.DJ:
The countdown is well and truly on to the second gig at the Enmore theatre tonight. And that is still the world’s longest cup of coffee.PAUL:
No this is my second cupDJ:
It is a second cup is it?PAUL:
This is my second cup of longest coffeeDJ:
We just played push, and just about that song, also I was reading all these bits I found out about you guys,PAUL:
ooDJ:
…about a friend of Robs who heard the song, and decided that…PAUL:
Oh that. That thing, again, power of media. That thing got so blown way out of proportion. Because someone says something to the wrong person at the wrong time in the wrong place, you know. It wasn’t meant like that you know. Realistically, in America you can definitely sue people, cos I know that suing down here isn’t a very popular thing.DJ:
oh it’s getting that way thoughPAUL:
: Is it?DJ:
: yeahPAUL:
I feel bad for youKYLE:
It’s pretty sad when suing’s popularPAUL:
Yeah I know, it’s popular in America, but realistically you can not sue someone for thatDJ:
Yeah. For anyone who doesn’t know the story, there was this girl apparentlyPAUL:
Yeah she… this girl, supposedly, the story goes that this girl on of Rob’s ex-girlfriends, heard the song, and it was about her, so she decided she was going to sue him, for writing a song about her. And that’s not really what happened. I mean the girl just said something to somebody, and it was a joke.KYLE:
Had it been true, even if it was it was it’s so ridiculous to think that someone could actually ask for royalties. I mean it’s not like it says "I wanna push you around Jennifer" You know?PAUL:
Yeah, it’s like there was no first and last name involved in the songPAUL:
It actually tells you how everything was. I think it was somebody elseDJ:
: Alright guys, well thanks for talking to us this eveningPAUL:
thanks for talking to USKYLE:
Thanks for playing some songs, it was cool.PAUL:
it was very cool. Yeah, usually people come out and play our songs, and we’ve heard those enoughDJ:
you’ve had incredible success all over the world with your first album 'YOURSELF OR SOMEONE LIKE YOU' congratulationsPAUL:
thankyouDJ:
well let’s finish things off with your new single, the brand new one, Real WorldPAUL:
Real World, it’s funny. Real World’s the song about, it written about, basically everything, like Rob wrote it right before , like we’d got a record deal and all these people were like "okay now, you’ve got to go in and you’ve got to make this record" and there’s all these expectations, all this attention, put on us by all these other people. And we were like wait a minute, if I was you know, working at a McDonalds or something, no one would really care. So it was like, what if I did something else, would people still even think of me the same way. That’s basically what the song’s about.DJ:
Here it is, Matchbox 20 Real World, on 96.1, the best of the new stuff.
THE END
I'm really sorry that is took me so long to get this posted. If you have ever tried to dictate words exactly, you can understand how long it takes- at least 3 or four times longer. The interview (minus music) went for about 25 or so minutes. This was actually done on the night before the concert I went to, and believe me "they rocked them thoroughly". This interview was actually replayed again on Saturday night I think, the day of their final concert in Australia. The station that did this interview is a Sydney station, and is quite new. Unfortunately the quality of the sound of the interview was bad because of the bad reception. I tried very hard to get every thing down, but I wasn't able to hear some of the things said (they were either said too fast of to soft).
I omitted the part that the DJ said after each song (as that wasn't too important, and was basically "Alex Dean here live backstage at the Enmore Theatre with Paul and Kyle from Matchbox 20")
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