Matthew Milia (Frontier Ruckus) On Calibrating His Music and Creativity Through New Phases of Life
Episode Description
Matthew Milia is a critically acclaimed songwriter, best known as the lead singer and guitarist for Frontier Ruckus. He is also a poet and visual artist.
He’s released three solo records as well as five records with his band Frontier Ruckus. His music explores themes of suburbia, nostalgia, mundanity , and his lyrics paint a sprawling landscape of a Michigan that is both here and elsewhere.
We talked with Milia about where he’s at creatively these days, how getting a desk job wasn’t about compromising his music, but calibrating it to a new phase of his life, and more.
Hosted by Phillip Russell and Ben Thorp
Episode Notes
You can follow Matthew Milia here.
You can follow Matthew Milia here.
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Cover art and website design by Melody Hirsch
Origin Story original score by Ryan Hopper
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Ben 0:07
Matthew Millia is a singer songwriter out of Detroit, Michigan, he's released five albums as part of his band frontier ruckus. And two is part of his sci fi self titled solo project alone in St. Hugo and Keego harbor Millia. His latest album Keego harbor was released this year in 2021. Thanks for coming on the show and talking to us.
Matthew 0:30
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Ben 0:32
So, you know, the album circles around memories of the town that you grew up in Kiko harga, Keego, harbor and concludes with a song that imagines returning to Keego harbor and a really, I think, hopeful way, and Keego Harbor, it's all possible, maybe talk about why you are kind of fixated on returning to this almost magical reimagining of your hometown.
Matthew 0:55
I think it's something more than just like, Pat nostalgia, I hope it is. I think I almost use Kiyohara as like a metaphor for something almost like a fantasy for I mean, it does have an aesthetic element to it suddenly pure, something just, you know, anti adulthood. So, so much abrupt and unexpected. complexity comes into life with adulthood. And I don't know, Keego harbor represents to me, I'm just obsessed. I'm obsessed with locality. confinement, the fact that it's a defined place with borders, something about that is less overwhelming to me that, you know, like a town or locality, it contains a finite amount of stuff, where life, in reality contains an infinite amount of scary, often confusing and threatening, threatening sort of elements, if that makes any sense. So that's, I like books like Winesburg, Ohio, where it's just kind of a generational tales, because my parents met in Keego. Harbor. So there's all these the record talks about inheritance of, you know, qualities that we might like about ourselves or not. It's a very honest look at coming to age, and also the things we inherit through age that are outside of our control. Yeah, I'm rambling
Ben 2:32
a bit. No, no, no. And I think you did. So in an interview, I was reading with you with the Detroit Metro times you kind of talked about the ways in which kind of songwriting for you can make memories more manageable. And I think you're kind of saying that in your answer to that there's this way in which like, confining this space and kind of blotting out what we're, what the boundaries look like, it makes it easier to kind of grapple with the thing. And you use this word, agency, and maybe you can talk about that just a little bit more of the way that you're, you know, maybe you it's giving you both agency over your own life now. And your memories.
Matthew 3:09
Yeah, that's why I write songs in the first place to to codify existence and reality. And yeah, no, no. Because you give shaped, it's something that's otherwise amorphous. And like, like you said, with Keego Harbor, I can I feel comfortable investigating its residents and it's emotions and all of its contents thoroughly, because I know that it's kind of something of my own control. Like when I write a song, I define the parameters, so I feel safe exploring it, you know, ad nauseam.
Phil 3:53
That's interesting. I mean, I I, when we were talking to Jeff panky a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned how some of Jeff's songs remind me a bit of people like you, or Andy shauf, who kind of use these very narratively focused or narratively centered, lyrical songs to kind of work through whatever themes are happening. Something that I find kind of interesting, though, that separates you from maybe Andy Shaw, if I were to use, like his latest album, neon skyline, which kind of centers around a bar, and kind of extrapolates outwards. I almost consider like Keego Harbor, it's like, the lyrics are so exacting, and almost maximalist that you're kind of painting, you know, the entire town. I'm curious what the process was like, approaching this record, or maybe your solo projects in general. Is this something where you?
Matthew 4:54
Yeah, well, I'm, yeah, I'm obsessed with specificity. And it's shouldn't be pretty obvious that I write these songs first and foremost for myself as I just fold them chock full of emotional triggers and gratifications from me that so I feel no pressure or incumbents to be minimal or to or to be sparing I write these songs. For myself, there's self therapy. And and frontier rock is incrementally with every record record has become, you know, more laden with specificity. But with my solo work, it's obviously I mean, even more untethered. I have beautiful collaborators in Frenchie raucous, that help balance me and that's why frontier raucous is a very distinct catalogue. Like those, those songs are a friend, Director Song is sort of a different beast than a Matthew Millia song. There is a lot of overlap. I'm writing about, you know, the same geographical places and with very similar tropes and metaphorical devices. But yeah, specificity. I'm I don't know, I'm, I'm trying to convey very universal things. Like I said before, like parental inheritance, the fragility of familial love, domestic spaces and economic disparity, the way you know, one suburb is known as a rich suburb or middle class or like in the way, in Metro Detroit, all these little realms of like, perceived personalities that these townships have are actually you know, they all mingle is one kind of organism. So there's tons of themes, I'm trying to cram into the songs, universal things, but the more specifically I write, the more effective I feel like getting in that direction, I it all, like I guess my, my main tenant as a songwriter is that the universal is housed within the particular and the more, the more specifically, I just beat beat that particular you know, just approach it from every direction. You know, find as many metaphors for it as possible, you know, unabashedly just verbally investigate it, the more I get closer to that universal thing that no one will ever actually harness. I, I don't have any delusions that I will one day, take all the cosmos and put it into a Brian about a bar and grill or something. But it damn feel it felt it feels damn good to try. So if nothing else, it's like a pastime or preoccupation, that fills me with a lot of pleasure. It's like, the writing of the song is my favorite part.
Phil 7:48
I feel like you're getting close, though. You know? Because I mean, I think I think about you know, I went to Michigan State. And Ben and I both did back. I was there from 2012 to 2015. And, you know, that was around the time when eternity of dimming had came out from from from Frontier ruckus. And, you know, as I was saying, before we got on, like, I live in Seattle now. And I find myself listening to that album, and being transported back in a way that's so hyper specific. That it's a really interesting quality. And I think, yeah, just that, you know, again, my words, not yours that maximalist or whatever you want to call it. lyricism, I think lends to, you know, that quality, which I think is different from maybe when somebody's talking about just like a generalized. You know, we're talking about Michigan and I'm transported back to Michigan. That's not what I mean. I mean, I'm, like, transported back to the garbage can outside of you know, what he is or something like that. That's, that's what I feel like when I'm listening to some some tracks on that album.
Matthew 8:58
Thank you. I take that as a huge compliment. Yeah, I think that I mean, there's so much beautiful art in the world that isn't very specific, that's more impressionistic, and broad strokes that leave a lot to interpretation. I love I love art like that. Yeah. When I listen to any given frontier, raucous record or solo record, I know exactly what I was feeling. It doesn't leave any interview like it's it's time traveled. For me, it's teleportation. And sometimes that's very nurturing. It's just a warm feeling to it just helps me gauge where I've been and where I am now and where I'm headed. It's just, it's almost like a very utilitarian practical device for me personally. But that at the same time, like, I've been shocked by how well people in distant places that have never experienced, you know, Keego Harbor, Oakland County or South Eastern Michigan, there's like this beautiful like Have alchemy or like translation that people do like the first time we played in England, people were singing along to the songs as if I was singing about Oxfordshire. You're like, I don't know, it's like that. Is that universal leaking out of the container? I think? Which? Yeah, yeah.
Ben 10:19
And I think you, you said that really well, which is like, when you get more specific, there is a weird way in which it does allow people to engage with it in that specific way to feel the thing that you're getting at, because it is kind of so laser focused, because
Matthew 10:34
everyone, it's impossible to live a life devoid of those specifics. So everyone can kind of shuffle the words around the proper nouns and whatnot. And just, and there's something beautiful about it being someone else's proper nouns. So because it implies this human relation, this kinship, sort of,
Ben 10:55
can you kind of talk about what it was like to write this album? Alongside your wife? I mean, I think a lot of the songs feel in some ways, like they might be love songs, and yeah, kind of grappling with a, I guess your feelings specifically. And so like, what is it like to write a song that's about a person who is like, right there with you writing this album? I guess?
Matthew 11:19
Well, like I said, each record, I can teleport back to exactly what I was. Sorry, I live very loud cars go by my house on a regular basis, but I could I remember exactly what where I was with each writing of each record. And that is certainly true for my romantic state for each record, because other than, you know, geography and family, and all those other themes, obviously, my romantic situation is very predominant with each record. So I'm looking at the record right now, trying to remember the songs that are on here. So I'm in a great place. I mean, I got I met the love of my life and I'm more fulfilled in that regard than I ever had been, you know, ever will be. So I don't know that. I'm trying to other I want to give you a more interesting answer than I'm just in a good place but that it's kind of a novelty for me because I'm I've always you know, sitcom afterlife as a frontier records record that was very bitter it was almost like my blood on the tracks I see it as is very much like a breakup record. And I look back now and like those emotions were so misgiving and like comically exaggerated that I would almost cringe if if I didn't have such empathy for my past self. But I just feel like now I'm in a very honest place because i don't know i when you settle down in the right way, and you just let life happen. I don't know. It's just there's a beautiful natural reality to it and nothing's forced and you feel so supported. And Lauren's voice on this record, the just the aural fulfillment provides as you can hear the balance that I feel emotionally I hope.
Phil 13:25
Yeah, what was um, oh, first off, I think it's like, yeah, I like that answer of just, you know, I'm, I'm in a good place. It's that is an interesting you know, I think something that's interesting about the album's you know, we could say they're their love songs, or whatnot. But what makes them kind of lush, is that it isn't just that fluffy. Like, I'm happy kind of response to how we deal with love. Right?
Matthew 13:50
The lyrics are still full of you know, verging on morose, realistic, unflinching looking into the life's potential for tragedy and disaster. I mean, the lyrics like somehow it doesn't make you cry to know that junk mail you and I will still receive long after we've been both been long dead. I mean, like, it's like I'm but now it's like, I feel like I have a teammate where I'm like, looking at potential disaster in the face and being like, so what like what's the worst you can do? Like life's granted me such beauty and such. I feel like such a rare fulfillment that none of that future grief or potential. Tragedy really brings me down that much anymore. I take such comfort in the beautiful things.
Ben 14:46
I want to ask you specifically about because I think you're saying exactly you're teeing up one of the questions, which is like I was reading the lyrics to me and my sweetheart. And and I felt don't let me put kind of words in your mouth but I felt like there was this this nod towards both kind of the mundanity of or potential mundanity of domestic life but also the idea of Cataclysm, and I was trying to make sense of whether or not because you've got a line about the quarantine. And so I was like, what is the cataclysm about, you know, that there's always this potential of kind of disaster within relationships or was that about the kind of exterior like, Oh, we're, we're also writing this in the midst of a global pandemic.
Matthew 15:29
I think most of the songs are finished before the pandemic really took effect. It was recorded all during the pandemic. But you touched on something very true to my priorities that I'm obsessed with antithetical things mingling. Continuously, like, mundanity and cataclysm. Like the middle like suburbia in the inner city, like these things that people see as disparate entities are actually one part of one organism like and I love domestic mundanity. I love I take such comfort and I don't know, maybe it's, I'm such a product of 90 suburbia, but like, I don't know, it's in my DNA to, to just want to cozy up into the comforts of, for lack of a better word, corporate comfort, like, you know, consumerism, like, I can see from certain I mean, I work in advertising now. And that's part of my, the blueprint of my settling down. And there are definitely shameful aspects of like, I can see it from a, I like to think I can see it from a somewhat objective angle where, and see all the just the injurious aspects of consumerism. But we're so one in the same as a culture I could even agree that it would benefit society to divorce ourselves from a completely I don't see that really as a practical reality, and in the near future. But so, in a poetic aesthetical sense, I own that, that crutch of consumerism and try to look at it in like an aesthetic. In terms of poetry, there's a lot. There's a lot of interesting feelings, a lot of interesting fields in that world. If that makes I don't know if I'm answering your question, but I'm going off on like a socio economic angle. But
Phil 17:31
now well, you're I think you're getting a something that Ben and I are both really interested in. And not only in this album, but you know, it's true and alone at St. Hugo, like, if I were to talk about myself, like I grew up in the suburbs, and Grand Rapids, and ADA. And before that, I lived in Troy, Michigan. And it's interesting, I think, listening to the two solo records in particular, because I think today, a lot of people would view the suburbs or suburban life as a negative or like a, it's a derogatory thing. Yeah, something that's interesting to me about your work is this angle of whether it's imagining or simply presenting suburbia, or suburban spaces, in a positive light, or whatever adjective we want to use there. I mean, I think for me, I have a complicated relationship with the suburbs, like I'm a, I'm a black man, I grew up as, like the only black family in my neighborhood in this fairly affluent neighborhood. And, but at the same time, like I, I look back at that time in the suburbs as like, a time of joy, and I had a lot of a lot of fun. And like, there's a lot of times today where I look at it, I'm like that that was pretty nice. You know, I'm curious, like, how you approach that topic and your own work and like your own relationship to suburbia? Do you find that there's a friction there? Or is it or is it mainly like a positive thing?
Matthew 19:12
Everything you said is so right on I don't see it as positive or pejorative. I see it as the I'm after a certain realism it's like a David Lynch movie, like in blue velvet, like with the slow motion of the fire truck or whatever you see, like the beautiful glistening green lawn, someone's front yard and then like the slow
tension, tension filled zoom into like the worms that are crawling under the side, you know, it's like
it's the pendulum swing of both sides of those. It's the whole there's because none of these landscapes are monolithic. They're, they're so complex, and that's what's interesting and difficult and challenging about them. If you could just label any one way of life is evil or moralistic or healthy, it would be a lot easier to excise ourselves with the ones that aren't working. But there's, there's beauty and evil and you know, inextricably bound up and all of it. But yeah, like alone at St. Hugo, my first record saying he goes, I came from in the scheme of things a very privileged background like, St. He goes, Uh, I went to Catholic school for 13 years, I went to St. Hugo from kindergarten through eighth grade in Bloomfield Hills, which is one of the wealthiest municipalities in the country, I believe. And yeah, you know, and I came from a sturdily middle class upbringing. My family didn't have a ton of money. But I went to school with kids that had a lot of money, like, so like, even in the microcosm, as a kid, you can't see beyond that. And I felt poor as hell like, and I was embarrassed of it. And I was very insecure, that we, that I was dropped off at school and, you know, a Chevy Cavalier that we inherited from my grandparents and like, we had rusted on our cars, and, like, I thought, we were impoverished. So it's funny, like even looking back now, like, like, it still is a major part of my psychology of like a certain victimhood, because you can't see past like, that is your reality. Whatever, however, it's framed in the context of your little bubble, then you grow outside of that. And you see wow, I am so fortunate, I'm so privileged, but it's just an infant, an infinitely nuanced system. And there's a motion, human, the humanity on all sides of it is just endlessly interesting to me. So it's the humanity that is squeezed out of all these really weird systems that have organically sprouted throughout American history.
Ben 21:58
Okay, I want to push you just a little bit just because I think like, you know, when I think about a David Lynch or I think about even, you know, an Arcade Fire suburbs are I think about, like, I think the the balance in some ways is more towards, you know, a kind of negativity or deep skepticism of the facade of the suburbs. And I think, well, you're you're right, that like, your depiction is not pure nostalgia, it is not like there is nuance, and there is complication in there. It does, it does feel unbalanced, more positive than I think a lot of like, I guess, mainstream or, you know, projections of what the suburbs are. And so I guess I want to zero in, zero in on like, what that is for you.
Matthew 22:47
Well, like I I'm a I'm a faulty Narrator In a sense, like, I'm not this I'm not, I'm not, you know, from song to song from verse to verse, I'm not really a cohesive unified subject or whole, like, I and I grant myself that license, you know, it's like, because I hope you can hear the the feeling around in the dark that I'm doing as I'm writing the song, like, I hope that has that quality of like what's the word fallibility? Like, I'm really, I'm not an expert on any of this stuff. And it's, it's so much of it is dealing in memory and I think the the beautiful aspect of memory is it's faultiness actually have lyrics specifically about that like, and different family members looking at one traumatic event in different completely different through completely different lenses. I sing about family trauma a lot, but it's also often through the guys have like a beautiful daydream or have I tried to give it like a dreamlike quality because we're going back to like, polarities mingling disaster and trauma mingling with this like heavenly rose tinted perception. I think we look we look back and we look at all the negative disastrous unhealthy toxic things about the places where we grew up, whether it's the suburbs or through a retelling of history because it makes it more acceptable or so yeah, like I'm a faulty Sorry, I'm trying to there's something else I was trying to say about that.
Ben 24:40
No, you're good. You're good. I guess I was just thinking like, you know, I get I got I got done with the album and especially I think the final track and I'm like, damn, I wish I could go to Kiko harbor sounds like it sounds like a nice place.
Matthew 24:54
Even though the last lyrics are Sunday, I think I'll Back to the ego Harbor, run an upstairs room where the pear trees bloom for the barber. And though they smell like death, it's The Sweetest breath and Kiko harbors, like even that like, and that's a twist from the way that song started. There was no mention of death in the beginning of the song. But like David Lynch, I'm trying to lace all the positive, dreamy iconography with little hints of disaster mortality, and trauma. I really get off on and I think, for the most part, Lynch errs on the side of the dreamy and the positive and the, but that that lacing it with all that darkness is there's something beautiful about that.
Phil 25:43
Now, I'm glad you brought up brought up lunch, I think, you know, there's something to be said about, you know, the over use of like, lynchin or whatever, but something that I was thinking about with with your work is how much it kind of reminds me of Lynch like a lyric that always stands out in my mind and I might butcher the exact part of it but and you know, her eyelashes are like needles or something like that, like this kind of the polarity of like something that's supposed to be beautiful with this kind of this danger that could that could exist. And I'm curious, like, with I'm just I'm interested in like, what you were like, What was your relationship? Like, with music growing up? Were you somebody like even as a kid? I mean, I think it's fair to say you have a prolific catalogue of songs. I'm curious is that like always has been has music always been something that you were fascinated by? Or was there like some kind of moment where the flip the switch flipped?
Matthew 26:47
I fell in love with songwriters through music. My dad played for me, chiefly Dylan, Bob Dylan and Neil Young people that changed from album to album and it's like a journey and the discography becomes, takes on a life of its own, and it's really a journey. And there's no rules. So the singer songwriters of the 70s like Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Paul, Simon, all these people that are in it for the long game, you know, like I I'm obsessed with the format of the album, which is a dying art. I, you know, I, I understand that things changed. It's just the format that I consider myself a purveyor of and I that's the format that I pursue as a writer. I think it's a beautiful novelistic sort of format that is becoming lost.
Phil 27:45
Yeah, no, I mean, that's, it's funny, you bring that up. Because Ben and I were just talking. Last week, we we interviewed cautious clay, who's like alternative r&b artist, and you know, somebody who has like millions of listens every month. But if you look at his album, that album we talked to him about, it's like the, there's a skit, like halfway through the album. And if you look at the amount of listens, or whatever, on Spotify, it's like Each song has a minimum of let's say, 500,000 listens. And then like, the skit has 1000 listens. And it's just like, it's interesting to tell you Yeah, it's interesting to think about, like the album cuz I'm, like you I really love like this listening to an album all the way through. And when I saw that, I was like, Man, that must be like a fair, a pretty depressing kind of feeling, I guess, when you like, kind of make those kind of artistic moves. And then it's like,
Matthew 28:41
it's just a different art form. I mean, those people are approaching music from for different reasons. And there's, it's very valid, I'm not disputing its validity, or what their goals are, it's just not. For me, even even my whole catalogue is an album, it's all interconnected. There are references in our intertextual world. And that gratifies me immensely, there might even be things that only I detect, but there are references to Keego Harbor, to eternity of Deming to the things going all the way back, there are easter eggs, if you want to call them that. It's it's all connected. Because life is I just, it is just a product of the function songwriting plays. It's a mirror of my life. So life is this ongoing text where that amorphous link blends together. So my catalog has to it's there. It's just an extension of that.
Ben 29:39
That actually maybe brings us to a good question, which is like, how do you see the difference between the songs that that go to kind of your solar project versus the ones that are going to end up with Frontier ruckus and like, is there a songwriting phase where you're like, Ah, this belongs with Frontier
Matthew 29:57
or I just write so many damn song songs that I could have, I could use a few new buckets to put them in. And due to that organization, I would say eight years ago I started falling in love more with power pop like 90s very melodic, like tambourine, shaking hand claps harmonies, like teenage fanclub or the Lemonheads, or Matthew sweet like just because I always focus so much on lyrics and chord progressions i I've always I think cord, the art of the chord progression is another dying art. Everything is just so focused on ambiance and texture, texture, which is great. I mean, there's some beautiful records being produced that sound really cool, but like the actual underlying, it goes back to the 70 songwriters like the the progression of the chordal changes is what drives the the emotional import ahead. So Frenchie raucous is, has been increasingly, the songs have become more increasingly, I think, quarterly interesting, but my solo stuff has some of my poppier, I think, I mean, the less people have heard them, which is ironic that the songs are poppier. Frontier rockets tends to be more, I would say, on the whole more minor key more organic, like acoustic instruments. And I it's I love that. I mean, it's such a beautiful thing to return to just banjo Davey and zack, zack, no trumpet musical saw just very tactile, metallic wooden, very natural instruments, and it's very oftentimes recording wise, it's just guys playing in a room without paying any heed to bleed through microphones, like the Orient songbook was all recorded, live in a room and you can hear the drums coming through the guitar mics. And there's something beautiful about that. I mean, it's just, it's very naturalistic. Matthew Millia songs like a lot of aloneness and ego and ego harbor was all recorded to a click track. Initially, every song was played live with me and an acoustic guitar and Ben Collins, who was my collaborator and all that stuff on drums, but then we would do overdubs. It's very much more like a ELO inspired or like Fleetwood Mac, like even IKEA Harbor, all the drums. Even the drum parts were played separately, all the cymbals were played in one pass, and all the snare and the kick and the toms were played in a separate pass. So it was very precise, and more like 70s 80s 70s 90s era like power pop tricks, just to satisfy that sort of like Rembrandt's like the Friends theme song or something like that, where it's just like ear candy. Because I love I love that goes that goes back to mingling polarities because I love a candy drenched kind of just like beautifully melodic Sonic texture paired with like, devastating lyrics about how I'm gonna die. There's some it's kind of like that lynching and thing again, it's just like something beautiful with that brightness in the darkness. layer together.
Phil 33:21
Yeah, that's, that's, that's fascinating. I mean, I think a lot of what you're, you're saying speaks to me in terms of like form and how form influences whatever the product or the content is that we're making. Like, I'm not a musician. I went to school for creative writing and things like that. But yeah, something that I noticed that about a loan at Saint Hugo when I saw that when it came out was that pop focus, I think of like, alive at the same time or abruptly old and caffeinated. Or,
Matthew 33:53
you know, it's a weird thought, like i Those are still like six minute long songs. I don't know how to write like a radio. I never did. So it's almost like it's kind of morbidly fascinating that even when I'm trying to write a pop song, I can't keep it under five minutes, because I just have so much I want to say and, like, why would I not write a fifth verse? Or like, why would I repeat myself in the chorus when I can say, you know, supply new information, but there is like, lingering thought in my head. Like, if I had released a song, like, alive at the same time, or kinda like short from the new record these like really catchy, I think they're catchy songs, like in the heyday of Frontier ruckus when we had like William Morris as an agent or like, high profile managers, like maybe I would have been able to make a living through something like, I don't know, it's it's a weird, it's a weird thought. Not that I would have even wanted that or if my life would ended up in a better place or a happier place, because I very much doubt that it would have but it's just an interesting thought, because that I don't know, I don't even know what the height of Frontier ruckus was. Or maybe it's in the future. But we've had like three managers and several booking agents and publicists, and they're always like, why don't you write like a love song like, art? My first manager said, he's from North Carolina. Very nice guy. But he said, Matthew, I know you're like a poet and stuff, but like, why don't you just try a few last chords and make a few less lyrics?
Write a love song. And well, actually, so, you know, Ryan Adams. He reached out to us during that era to produce our third record, which became a trinity of Deming
through that manager, and I was writing all the demos that became eternity of Deming. And he was like, these are Bryan Adams heard the demos, because he liked demos and nightfalls a lot. Yeah. He's like, these are just so sad. I don't even see the commercial value in them, or something.
Ben 36:03
i Is that Is that fair to ask you about? Like directly? Like, I don't know, how do you think about that, that balance between, I don't know, like guests like being an artist, and expressing yourself but also like, I don't know that at the pole to be kind of commercially viable. And that I guess, so
Matthew 36:19
when that happened. I wrote the song I met Rebecca from eternity dimming, specifically in a bedroom on tour in Indianapolis, when I got that feedback to try to write a more upbeat pop song. And it is not I mean, it's it's a minor key and it's it's like a weird dream sequence in it about like murders and I. That's not why it goes back to the function of songwriting. That is not why I write songs. I, I like using pop music as pastiche. That's why I reference like 90s Power pop in the Sonic palette. It's almost like as if I turned on a radio like a 90s radio like for the effect of it, because it's a poetic device instead of like actually trying to write a hit. Like that's my attraction to powerpop is that it's what I grew up hearing in the minivan on the way to soccer practice there's an there's like a poetic reason for it. It's not have it has nothing to do with success or thinking handclaps are going to make me rich. i i Welcome. I think any artist should welcome all that is humbling and demoralizing. There's something beautiful about the first era of artistic career when you're nothing but an ambition. And that perfect balance of vanity and naivete. We're all you have is you're just you're falling in love with your own artistic voice. And there's you think you can do no wrong and you think everything you do is amazing. And because the sky is the limit, but on the other end of the hill on the way down is where you really get honest with yourself and really discover who you are and what you care about. And when you write those songs. They kind of mean a lot more
Ben 38:13
Yeah, I guess do you see kind of the the place that you are now which sounds like stable and like you have a career and then also music? I mean, is that a is that a compromise? Or is that something where you're like actually I feel more myself this is more holy you know
Matthew 38:31
artists You're welcome compromise I think it does a body good I don't know yeah, like I I tried for a decade to make I did make a living I survived a decade is nothing but a touring musician playing over 200 dates a year and trip you know, going to Europe twice a year, three times a year. And playing a whole gradient of shit like playing mainstage at English festivals with like Belle and Sebastian and Frightened Rabbit and then coming back to you know, Jacksonville, Florida and getting paid nothing but a buck you know, like a case of water because no one came that kept it interesting actually, like never, you know, never being able to put your finger on how well you're doing or like it was very exciting to share it with people who are very much your brothers and a little van and just driving around. I would I feel so fortunate to have spent my 20s doing that. If not for nothing other than just the experiential bounty that I I think that's why I am and I segwayed into advertising as a writer, which I mean that's a whole nother podcast but the only reason I am excelling at this job I'm in advertising as a writer, I think I'm doing pretty well with very, with no experiences because of the experiential, for lack of a better world, word worldly data that I accumulated in just chasing nothing but a dream for a decade and having very little to show for it at the end, except a humble and amazingly dedicated following, you know, it's not, it's not a lot. It's not 1000s and 1000s of people, but the people that, you know, I am regularly contacted by people whose lives tell me that my song has changed. Our lives are like got them through some really unbearable periods, stuff like that. I wouldn't trade for I show business. I mean, I think even even now, like, especially post pandemic, like, show business is unrecognizable, from the MySpace era that I came out of. Our first record came out in 2008. And I would say dead miles and I falls in 2010. Into Eternity Deming, and 2013 was kind of when we had the machinery going full blast in, and then on a birch returned, which was amazing, for sitcom afterlife and into the kingdom. But I mean, enter the kingdom, which is record I'm super proud of came out in 2017. And that is so long ago now.
Phil 41:21
Yeah. Do you remember?
Matthew 41:23
I remember thinking about 20s. I remember thinking about 2017 is like, Oh, that was just a year or two ago? Or like, it's, I don't know, it's, and things are moving so quickly, obviously, like, I don't want to be the geriatric millennial like disparaging technology or whatever. But
Phil 41:38
no, I mean, even even,
Matthew 41:40
I I just don't, I don't miss touring. Like I said, writing songs. Luckily, I'm a sucker for domestic life, because it's only comfortable. But I touring was wonderful. I just really feel like I got it out of my system. And I gleaned so much from it. I just assumed stay inside and keep writing songs for myself. No one else?
Phil 42:05
Well, I think that's interesting. I mean, the whole angle of like, getting into advertising. And I mean, for me, like I after Michigan State, I ended up doing over the course of four years doing two masters degrees and creative nonfiction writing, and like teaching English and things like that, thinking that I would become a professor one day and everything. And, you know, now I work in marketing. It's kind of in its like, in some ways, and I just started doing that, like a year ago. And it's interesting thinking about my own creative process with my own personal work and navigating that with the my day job, and I'm curious, I actually am kind of curious, like, what that is for for you, like if have you found that your process has changed now that you've kind of taken on this role that maybe demand some of that my songwriting process? Yeah, or just Yeah, music in general. Yeah.
Matthew 42:59
Well, like, like you said, been, like, use the word compromise. That's not a bad word. For this. I think it's more like recalibration. And I think that's so healthy, like, you have to constantly keep recalibrating what makes you happy. And it's usually very simple things that make you happy. And it's very easy to be drunk on your own dream and to not stay up to date with an ask yourself if that's even what you still want anymore. Because especially in show business, in show, I feel like I should have a baby. When we lost one manager, he said, Matthew, it's not show. That's why it's not show. That's why it's show business and not show friendship. Oh, Jesus, Jesus Christ. It's understandable why don't miss it so much. It was so many gross aspects. But yeah, I haven't written a song in a long time. But that's not really because I'm in a new lifestyle so much is i? My, my process is like crop rotation, like, I write for, I write for like, two years, and just collect, collect, and then I record it. And then I entered the Pecos laden world of trying to release that music to any sort of, like, I still try like Keego Harbor that just came out is like the record I'm most proud of in my entire life, and I don't, but I'm trying to navigate this post apocalyptic industry where I've, you know, I had a very, I'm coming out of a successful semi successful career where I have lots of, or I believed I had lots of friends, journalists, music writers or publicists, labels, video session, it's all it's all are unrecognizable. And each new record I tried to put out and like it's such the diminishing return aspects of it is you cry if you didn't laugh. And luckily, I'm a sucker for human pathos in my own especially because I kind of get off on it masochistically like, I see myself just making continually better records and lesser and less people hear something about that gratifies me in a morbid way, but I'm looking forward to getting back, I have a whole nother solo record written. So I think for this record, I'm going to go back to just recording it, like a, like even fuckboys get the blues just like really primitive recording, like bedroom demos, because I've done the with thanks to Ben Collins is this amazing, amazing musician, and producer. Him and I made the last two solo records together that they, to me they feel like the zenith of how high file I mean, they were made in a small room in Ypsilanti to a tape machine, but they sound to me, like really well conceived polished documents. Yeah, very thoroughly, very meticulously arranged. And I kind of for this next batch of songs, which are increasingly specific, increasingly encyclopedic and dense, I kind of just want to record them in like kind of a ramshackle way on my bedroom floor. So that's what I'm looking forward to doing. Next up, hopefully, I get to a point where I have no songs left that I need to record and I can write some new ones. Because I, it'll be interesting to see if I still can I always, every time I've gone back to the well, I've been able to create or invent a new era. So I'm hoping that's still the case.
Phil 46:57
Now, I mean, I appreciate that. I think Ben and I have talked a lot lately, especially this, I think, you know, we both are writers and right on the side. But you know, we were collaborating on this podcast where we're talking to folks like you about, like, their creative work. And I think something that Ben and I are navigating a lot right now is like, like you were saying with like releasing a thing. And then like getting people to listen and like that agonizing process of like having to, like shout off on the mountaintop, like, listen to me or whatever. And like figuring out like, you're saying, you know, the tent poles that you need to make it satisfying for you, as opposed to like, hoping for whatever it is the metrics that you make up in your head, right?
Matthew 47:47
I mean, we can say all the obvious things. It's so saturated, everyone with a microphone and Wi Fi connection has a podcast. You know, everyone with a Bandcamp account has a band, and and they're all pretty good. Like, something that this democratization of media has proven is I mean, there's a lot of talented, a lot of talented people out there, like the human race is frickin talented. I mean, everyone's got to, it's almost like everyone has an individualistic voice and something to offer, because that's true. You know, it's like, it's just, everyone has a microphone now. So even in the we were like late MySpace generation, I mean, Davey and I started playing together in like early 2000, and brother rice, all male Catholic high school that's in the affluent Detroit suburbs. But by the time we were actually considering it as a career when I graduated from Michigan State in 2008, and we got our first booking agent and just hit the road. Like there weren't nearly as many bands there were. If you were somewhat interesting and had, like, a novel approach to what you were doing. You could make, you know, inroads in some sort of music career. It's so interesting, like right when we right when the Orient songbook came out was when Mumford and Sons and the Lumineers and the Avett Brothers they were brothers manager was our first manager but it's like that's when I started to realize how hard this was actually going to be like, because I really don't share anything in common with those bands other than a banjo. But they can completely pigeon holed us for like a couple years is like part of that like stomping on the ground like floor on the floor, like anthemic like kick drum at the front of the stage. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just not back to the function of songwriting. That's not why I wrote songs. I didn't I wasn't trying to write arena anthems with folk undertones. I was just, you know, I was trying to sing songs about Pawnee. like Michigan. So but like, you know, I realized that my career was out of my hands. And like, maybe there was almost something liberating in that lack of control. But then eventually, I wanted to get back to a place where I did have the agency. And that, unfortunately, entailed almost completely leaving the music industry or any aspirations of being a part of. But not to down your guys how you guys are doing? No, because I think that's really such a bummer. No, no,
Ben 50:29
I think it is. Exactly. I think that it's exactly it, which is like, and don't let me put words in your mouth. But like I see it in this way where it's like, and I think Phil teed it up exactly that way to where it's like, well, what is the value in it for me? And I think at the top, you were saying, These songs are for me at the end of the day, right? And that if you can approach it in that way where it has value for you, you know, yes. Do you still want, you know, a bajillion listens on every song? Absolutely. But it can make the work of it still feel valuable? Even if at the end of the day, it doesn't have you know, 2 million listens. And is that is that fair? Is that?
Matthew 51:08
Yeah, like? I don't I in no way like, covered a million casual listens, like, that would kind of ring hollow to me, I would love more lessons because I truly believe there's more people out there that could read that my songs could resonate with in a really deep and meaningful way. And I would benefit, you know, emotionally from knowing that there's that conduit in existence that I am reaching someone and you know, it's a it's a symbiotic exchange. I feel, that's, that's my one regret. It's a it's, it's, for lack of a better word. It's a spiritual deficiency. It's the shame, right? That's the thing I'm embarrassed about that. I failed kind of at not reaching more popularity, but just being an advocate, like navigating things logistically better to give my songs that chance. And sometimes I feel like I failed my songs as like a businessman or as like a performer, or a salesman. Because when I talk about showbiz, I use that word because that's what I was kind of thrust into, like, when you're the frontman on a stage, no matter how big or small, the stages, you have to perform the same songs every night to be their advocate, to put on a little song and dance and like, be like a carnival barker, you know. And that's a major, major element or reason why I don't miss touring, because there's no doubt, at least for me personally, that over time, it became I began to cheapen the songs that I cared so much about. How can I not? I mean, yeah, you're providing facsimiles of what the original emotion was every night. There are people who are amazing performers that don't have that diminishing returns artistically. I'm sure some people are better at performing the songs than they are writing the songs. I I think I'm a better writer than I am performer. I kind of grew into the craft of performing. I don't think I ever got phenomenal at it. I could sing my songs, and mean it. And that better than anyone else could, I could sing a song on that familia song better than anyone else. But I don't know if that makes me a good performer. But yeah, that's, I guess what I could say about wanting or creating more popularity, it's just sometimes I feel like I failed. Pretty good songs. Hmm. Go ahead.
Phil 53:46
Well, yeah, I think Ben and I both bucket that. I mean, like when we when we left Michigan State and 2015 2026 or 2014 2015. You know, we had kick started a podcast with two other friends that sent us around the country. We did this whole road trip, produced this podcast, Michigan State, you know, host they hosted us to do a big live show at the university. And WD et was like talking with us about like, Hey, this is pretty good. And it was like at this moment in podcasting, where, you know, cereal had came out maybe like, six months prior. So like podcasting really wasn't big yet. And I think Ben and I both had conversations since then of like, Oh, damn, we were like, on the precipice of, you know, really taking off and it's easy to get into that mindset, I guess is what I'm getting out of like, what
Ben 54:40
should what should we have kept at it for just a couple more months or just another year and then you know, things really could have taken off and yeah, it's totally hard not to get into that headspace and I think, Phil and I have it. I'm always like, we can't you kind of can't go there with yourself because it's just like that. What if it can be, I don't know, acidic in some ways, right?
Matthew 55:05
Yeah. Well, um, a lot of at least in my case, like a lot of the bands that did ride the wave better than I did when I had my chance, I feel like never made a second or third record sometimes, you know, like, so things work out, you know, there are so many different models. Like I said, I always respected those people that were in it for the long game. And if you look, I mean, if you look at Bob Dylan's career, it's just up and just spikes. You know, in the 80s work, people wrote them off completely. Now people look back on the 80s. Dylan is like, secret gems in the rough. So there are definitely different ways to gauge success, I guess would be the Pat takeaway from that.
Ben 55:53
Right, right. Man, you've been so great. Is there something we haven't asked you that you want to say? Or that you're thinking about? Yeah,
Matthew 56:02
no, you guys are so thorough and thoughtful thing. These questions are great. Hopefully. I haven't been rambling. I've been somewhat cohesive for you. Have
Ben 56:09
you been very cohesive? You did. Okay. Give me great answers. I really appreciate it.
Matthew 56:15
I always feel so jumbled after an interview of this depth. And then afterwards, I if I can make it through hearing my self ramble. I'm like, sometimes Oh, I made a pretty good point there. But I took forever getting good.
Ben 56:27
No, you did very, very well. Yeah. Thank you. We really appreciate it. I thanks for talking to us. It feels good to
Matthew 56:33
talk about, like, you know, work that I care a lot about. So thank you so much for having any interest in it. And it means a lot to me.
Ben 56:40
Yeah, it didn't. Did I see 2022 is when the next frontier album is coming out?
Matthew 56:45
Yeah, we recorded that during the pandemic and the same, you know, with Ben Collins in Ypsilanti. So it might sound somewhat similar, but in terms of, you know, the technolog technology it was recorded on, but I'm really proud of this batch of songs. It is about I mean, there's like a song called Bloomfield Marriott about so like, there are like these landmarks, but I think it's a little broader brush strokes and a little it's a slightly different poetic type of device. I use then Qigong, it's less specific than Cuba harbor, and a little more. Yeah, I am excited. We still need to mix it and stuff like that. So I'm excited to delve back into it.
Phil 57:30
I don't know if you're a big, like big on social media type of guy. But is there any like things you want to plug like, whether it be a Twitter or like where they can get keto harbor?
Matthew 57:40
What? Because of COVID the vinyl plants around the country are very backed up. So I don't even have the vinyl yet. So but that is something to look forward to. And I'll have it this month. A lot of people pre ordered it. And so those orders will be going out. I have it on CD already. But I hopefully if the delta variant actually goes away for once, I'll do a big final release show. Yeah, but Matthew millia.com or Matthew Miller has pretty much my handle everywhere. So cool. Yeah. Preorder the vinyl it'll come out this month, depending on when this podcast comes
