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

''After a few weeks of playing phone tag with some record company big-wigs at Maverick, and waiting fro the band to return from their short trip to Japan, we managed to finally catch up with The Rentals' indescribable Matt Sharp. As I drove out of Hollywood and up the hill into Laurel Canyon (which is only a few blocks north of Sunset Blvd.), I noticed how secluded it was up there. No wonder everyone wants to live here. It's only a short distance from the hustle and bustle known as Hollywood, yet you can barely hear the traffic through the trees. I felt like I was at some mountain resort as I sat down with Matt over some orange juice at the "country market", where we discussed Japanese freak outs, fights with Weezer, and the new Rentals record.''

{{Interviewer|Buddyhead|What do you think inspired the evolution of The Rentals from the first record, which gives off one basic vibe, to ''Seven More Minutes'' which is very much eclectic and diverse?}}

{{Interviewer|BH|How did the song "We Have a Technical" with Damon from blur come about?}}

{{Matt|That was a long time ago. While we were doing the Weezer shows in Europe for the first record, we used to open the shows with an instrumental Gary Newman song. And this guy who put the compilation together was at one of the shows and he asked me about it. He later became a fan of The Rentals and asked me if we'd do it. The Rentals couldn't do it because everyone was split up all over the place. So while I was in England, I called Damon to see if he would come down and do it with me. We're old friends from tour.}}

{{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.}}

{{Matt|Well Pat was on the record, so he was pretty supportive of it. I don't remember, we argued about a lot of stuff back then. I'm not really sure what was in the arguments. It was very up and down with us, every day was either we got along really well or it was just plain shitty.}}

{{Matt|Yes, it was like that every other week. Every week was a different guy. Somebody was the fall person more often than not as to why things weren't working. It just switched every week, somebody else got the blame. I probably got it more than most people. But then there was the last three months - that was the most amazing time of touring for me there ever was with those guys. Then we did this whole opening for No Doubt thing, we went to Japan and Thailand. Every show was an amazing experience, and we were all getting along great. So it wasn't all shitty at all.}}

{{Interviewer|BH|How did the song "My Head Is in the Sun" with Rivers come about?}}

This Japanese guy just gave me this CD called ''The Voices of Harlem'' which is some collection of gospel funk. It's just amazing sounding vocally. Talk about having a lot of freedom in expression of music - it's really amazing. I've been listening to that the last few days, and it flipped me out. I've been in a really mellow headspace lately, so I've also been listening to a lot of Nick Drake. I saw Spike Jonze's new film. That was great. I went to see it in a room full of suits, some special screening thing, a couple weeks ago. You kind of always hold Spike to this incredibly high standard, so it's tough to be him I think. He's very inspirational.}}

{{Matt|Possibly shows in January or February. We will most likely record sometime in there too. There is so much I want to do right now. I'm gonna be doing a solo record at some point, something really subdued. And a new Rentals sometime around February. We played one of the songs at the show you were at in L.A. One of the new ones. All the songs that we've been working on for the new record I just improvise all the words. I've just been really enjoying making up everything on the spot except for like a couple key words. And it's been getting worse. When we started out, we were improvising shit and it was just perfectly landing every night, everything was coming together. Then the more we did it the improving got worse, I actually rhymed "rad" with "bad" the other night. If you aren't in the right headspace to make things up, it's just gonna get messy.}}