Buddyhead.com interview with Matt Sharp - November 1999: Difference between revisions

{{Matt|Some of the songs are right on. It depends on the song I guess. A lot of them were written truly in the moment of when things were going on. I would just write whenever I thought about it. In a club, in a taxi, in a bathroom, wherever. I had a tape recorder with me most of the time, so I'd just record the ideas and not get back to them for months and months. And I was never thinking,  

'Oh, I'll make something nice from this.' More like 'Oh cool, here is an idea. And here's another one,' and just letting it flow, just not editing yourself.}}

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{{Interviewer|BH|What was the time frame that this record was recorded in? When did it start or was there even a definite start?}}

{{Matt|I dunno. It's hard to say. It started somewhere on our last tour for the first record, while we were in Europe. We started writing it then and it ended about a year ago.}}

{{Interviewer|BH|What did you want your listeners to get out of this record? And what does it mean to you?}}

{{Matt|We just got back from Japan, and that was the first time we actually got to play the songs in front of an audience. It seems to me that was the purpose of the whole thing in the first place, is to have an excuse to get together with your friends and just get off your heads and have a great time. We had such a freak out over there. We were our own opening band while we were there. We came out and did about 45 minutes of music. Really mellow music, piano, and I played acoustic. It was really subdued. They were all really quiet, so quiet that at times all you could hear was the air conditioning on the other side of the venue. There is the most incredible amount of tension in the room when you have a thousand people being that quiet, then we'd leave and come out about fifteen minutes later and play about an hours worth of the most aggressive stuff. It was amazing - everybody sang along to everything. Lots of crowd participation, we just put on as big of show as we could. We unleashed our inner David Lee Roth.}}  

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{{Interviewer|BH|Was there a big contrast from the shows in Japan to the shows you've played in L.A.? The Opium Den show was a fun show, people were singing along and stuff, but I meant like typical L.A., where the kids are scared to dance and not sure if they want to sing out loud.}}

{{Matt|That last show at the Opium Den was awesome. Really fun. But Japan was a different league, the shows were unreal. Then after the shows, we'd go out to these big raves. And once we got there it was almost like putting on another show because I knew all the DJs and they would announce we were there and they would all follow our lead. We'd get 'em to get down really low and get up. Tokyo was a definite dream. For the shows we were trying to do, it was the only place the crowds would get that quiet when we wanted to get quite and that loud when we wanted to get loud. It worked out much better than I ever could have imagined it.}}

{{Interviewer|BH|How were you able to detach yourself from basically everything over here that has anything to do with the record industry, travel overseas and become so nomadic and free? And was your label, Maverick, supportive the whole time you were over there writing and recording this record?}}

{{Matt|Probably up until the last couple months they were. They let me do whatever I want to do. They are really good about that. I'm used to just working on my own and then handing it over to people. That's how I did the first Rentals record. We did it, made the video, the artwork, and gave it to them, so I'm used to having complete control over everything. I really like Maverick, but I really dislike red tape. You wanna go do one thing for a day and you have to swim through an incredible amount of bullshit to get the simplest thing done. And this isn't just with them. We just gave a b-side to ''Heal the Bay'', a compilation record, and it took so long for them to complete that. From the record company to the publishing company to the record company that is doing the comp. I just said, 'Yeah take the song, whatever, use it.' Then a week later I get another letter saying, "We need you to sign so we can clear this." "OK. Cool." Then a week later I have to sign something else. It's just an enormous amount of paperwork for a benefit record. But Maverick knew what they were signing when they signed me. I just want to do things the way I want to do them. but if they have something to say about it I don't mind. Their involvement is welcome. But they were cool about me just leaving. They knew what they were getting into. It was the only way I could have made this record.}}

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{{Interviewer|BH|Did the success of the first Rentals record take you by surprise at all? Where did that record take you that you had never imagined it would?}}

{{Matt|It definitely got us some interesting places, in the literal sense. Got us to parts of the world we hadn't been to before, and engaged us in adventures. It was in the midst of that whole Weezer thing, which was so surreal anyways. I don't know if I can separate the Weezer thing from that, it seems to just be one big period of time to me.}}