Interview With Eric Matthews from The Big Takeover
by Jack Rabid
Note: The following is a truncated version of a comprehensive interview that appeared in issue 42 of The Big Takeover, an excellent bi-annual indie music publication whose website can be found at www.bigtakeover.com. Back issues are still available. Do yourselves a favor and check one out. (-Webmaster)
JR: What I'd like to know is how you get such a warmth in your recordings, which I associate with music of 20, 25 years ago? Are you really conscious of avoiding the sterile modern recording techniques?
ERIC: Actually, it's a great combination of modern techniques and old techniques, with lots of old vintage gear. Most of the recording goes to 2-inch tape. Tony Lash and I keep everything in mind as far as getting things as warm and fat and real sounding.
JR: Recently, I was trying to explain to some people who aren't too familiar with the recording process how it could be that recording has actually devolved in the last 20 years. Most people think that progress is forever upwards. They have the hardest time grasping it.
ERIC: It's really strange. I'm not sure why it's happened. It's as if this whole new generation of producers and engineers making records forgot or never knew the way you get sounds onto tape. Most of the major-label records that I hear, even if it's just walls of distorted guitar, bass and drums , a lot of it just doesn't sound as good as it could. I think everybody should be using the line, the signalchain like I'm doing.
JR: Of course, their recordings probably cost 15 times what yours do, as well.
ERIC: That's another thing. My records sound a lot better than most of the records that have been put out in the '90s and at just a slight percentage of the cost. This last one came in at $65,000, which is not a small amount of money, per se, but because of the personnel I have and the gear we had the foresight to choose, everything sounds great.
JR: That's not a great deal of money for a major-sounding record, particularly with all that instrumentation.
ERIC: Yeah, that's one of the major expenses---working with the orchestra. A couple days of rehearsal, that'll run you a thousand dollars or so, and you haven't even recorded anything yet. And then you look forward to the 16 hours of recording that you have to pay these people $75-$100 an hour. It really adds up quickly. But again, another reason why I turn in these records for so cheap is because I'm doing them in Portland. Everything is cheaper there. The studios are about half to a third the cost of a comparable studio in L.A. The symphony musicians work for cheaper. Had I done the record in L.A., and for it to sound the way it does, it would've cost $130,000.
JR: Two months ago, I interviewed Jeremy Enigk. I'm not sure if you're an acquaintance of his.
ERIC: We've only met. He sure is good. He has a very competent and professional musical director who does all that orchestration (Mark Nichols). That helps. He claims that Jeremy is really coming along, and he predicts that Jeremy will be doing his own orchestrations some time soon.
JR: Whereas you do your own arrangements, don't you? I can imagine it must be hell sitting there with charts all over the place.
ERIC: (sighs) Oh god. And I do have a computer, but I don't use it for music. I don't own a MIDI port. That's my goal, to die without having a MIDI chord ever entering my house.
JR: Good! Good for you!
ERIC: I write everything by hand. First, I work in a manuscript book, and then I have to copy each part out. It ended up being like 70 pages. There's not even that much orchestration on this record. I just shreik in horror at the amount of work it would take to do a symphony. The amount of hours it takes me to do that stuff...the hand cramping...the general insanity of it all. Little dots! (laughs) Little dots and lines, they sometimes win.
JR: It seemed that for a brief moment two years ago, "Fanfare" was going to be really ubiquitous. You has this great recording that people were talking about, and then it just sort of disappeared. Did you notice that?
ERIC: Oh, surely! It had a great run! For a few weeks, it was spinning hundreds and hundreds of times a day across the country. Once KROQ added it to their playlist in L.A., all the alternative stations played it into the ground. We're talking about March of '96, that was the big month. That spurred some decent sales at that point. The next step would be getting that beautiful video I made on TV all the time. But MTV claims they need the story on someone built up first. I'd understand if I wasn't in heavy rotation, if I'd never gotten any press or the press was bad, but something just went wrong there.
JR: Were you tempted to put together some sort of small road tour for the last record?
ERIC: My mindset for the last record was, "I'm a recording artist, and that's all." And I still have that mindset. But as a matter of fact, I'm going to start rehearsals in a couple of weeks for a little group. I'm making some concessions.
JR: To whom, the label?
ERIC: No, to myself. Against my own will, I'm making myself do it. I don't have any desire to play live, A large part of this is that I consider it dwelling on the past. I really cannot believe or understand how artists go out for 16 months touring. How can they remain productive? How can they grow? I couldn't, I know that. So I don't know, it's a difficult position I'm in because of that.
JR: I'd forgotten though, you didn't tour with Cardinal either, did you?
ERIC: No, we didn't. We played one show in Boston. We sounded really bad. It was hilarious. We played for abour 20 minutes. It was me and Richard Davies and Bob Fay on drums before he joined Sebadoh permanently. The 20 people that were there to hear us actually all claim that we were great, but I think Richard and I were mortified with the way it sounded. Richard's changed a lot; he's out there playing all the time now.
JR: I like his solo records, but I have to say I prefer yours.
ERIC: Well...he wanders a lot musically. Sometimes I think his musical vision is so personal and often outside the understanding of other people. I don't understand some of the stuff he's got on some of his albums. But that said, I think Richard is the best. I think he's one of the best things I've ever heard. Very powerful. Terrifyingly beautiful.
JR: Richard was in the Moles before Cardinal, but what were you doing before that?
ERIC: I was just hangin' out for about two years before that. There was a two-year period before Cardinal started up where I had quit trumpet. Previously, I was at conservatory playing in orchestras--doing a lot of chamber music, playing jazz, doing studio work, that sort of thing. When I got to Boston, I quit trumpet, and in those two years before Cardinal, I decided to attempt songwriting and playing guitar. There was a little stint where me and Lou Barlow and Bob Fay made a little record called Belt Buckle on the Sonic Bubblegum label. It wasn't entirely serious, but it was still good. Very shortly after that was released, Bob, Richard and I then made that Toy BellEP, the first Cardinal release--the first Flydaddy product.
(Originally printed in issue 42 of The Big Takeover.)