INTERVIEW: MATT GILBERT
Matthew Gilbert is emerging as one of Australia’s premiere indie-folk performers & songwriters. With an abundance of relatable and moving stories up his sleeve, Gilbert capivates listeners with honest melodies, lush harmonies and mysterious lyrics - hitting hard but always pulling back for a warm embrace when complete.
Personal stories, paired with enthralling storytelling, has always inspired Matthew Gilbert’s songwriting. New single ‘Out Of The Contempt’, is no different; channeling honesty, depression & heartbreak to unveil the inner-workings of his psyche, when moving past a deeply hurtful period in his life. Seeking closure & healing, Gilbert is invigoratingly honest throughout the track, reflecting on his actions and his will to fight against adversity. The first cut from his sophomore record ‘Getting Over All Of It’, ‘Out Of The Contempt’ works to introduce worldly cinematic soundscapes that is present through the album, drawing inspiration from Gang of Youth, Boy & Bear and Bon Iver throughout.
Tori and Matt talked about the new track, his sold out Wesley Anne show and the pros of kickstarter campaigns.
So, Tell me a little about this. The song.
‘Out of the contempt’ is the lead single of my album ‘Getting over all of it’ which is a 10 track. It's a mixture of lots of different things. I'll tend to be a singer songwriter with some, ambient, folk flavours within there. Lots of orchestral elements.
Have you always been this genre?
Yes. And no, I think I've developed more into it. I was very heavily influenced, and I love Sufjan Stevens. I've always loved his orchestral and Sigur Ros and anything that's ambient orchestral reverb, synth pad, melancholy type of music. I've always loved it. But I've grown up on, pop rock. Things like The Fray andReliant K - they're kind of like a bit punky. I've kind of got lots of different flavours - but I love The Fray. I wanted to be The Fray. This is my life. I got into piano and a lot of my stuff used to be more piano driven. Piano rock type of style with orchestral stuff. I think this album has morphed to be very acoustic guitar driven, rather than piano driven.
When you say singer songwriter is that you starting off usually with a piano or this one was more starting off with an acoustic guitar?
That's right. Yeah. So the other songs were definitely started off with piano like, other album that I did a while ago started off with. This has been much more writing with acoustic guitar. I had some arranging help from different strings people, because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. A lot of it was my inspiration or different ideas that I was - “hey, try this”. Singing parts for them, then they would play it. A lot of it was me and then getting loads of other people to help me record it.
You had orchestral experience recording live? What was that like?
I don't know, overwhelming. I mean, some of it, this is the thing, some of it was live, and then some of it wasn't. So the stuff that I did do live was just amazing. And it's always good to work live. Because when you do, there's the speed at which you can move through things. It flows seamlessly. When it's remote, it's so hard. There's so much back and forth. And it's very disjointed.
Did you find that different in comparison to recording your last songs?
I mean, that was all done not in isolation. I remember….both of them took a long time. And both of them took longer than I thought for different reasons, the first one just took a long time because I was young. I kept adding songs. I had no idea what I was doing. This one obviously was drawn out because of not being able to have access to people. But in terms of the differences, I felt like I had a lot more of an idea of what I wanted. This time I had a lot more of a focus and a drive. Not just with the arranging, but mixing and sonically what I was looking for, I was a bit more refined. I could communicate a lot better with my mix engineer and I could communicate a lot better with my artists and instrumentalists and vocalists. I could tell them this is what I want.
I think I believed in myself a bit more. I had a bit more backbone to be like, “No, that's not what I want. Can you try that again?”
You crowd fund for this recording as well….did you do that for your last album?
Do you mind me asking how much you ended up raising?
We ended up raising $4,000. Obviously, Kickstarter takes a percentage of that. I can't actually remember the percentage. I think after that there was three and a half. Hardly any of that actually went to the producing the album. I put a lot of my own money into the producing the album. A lot went into the promotion of the album. Getting it out there, getting some merchandise, generating a buzz around the album. Coming out of COVID, I had so little traction with people that I really needed to make quite an impact. Hence, the Kickstarter, that was really good, really successful. I was so overwhelmed with the support that people were just so generous.
I think it's something that more artists are starting to lean into, we continue to hear how horrific it is to work with a label, and that they take 90% of everything.
Is this something that you'd recommend to other bands to explore?
Oh, absolutely. Even if you're not in it for the money, its brilliant marketing. It helps you to find and specify who your audience is, who are the fans who are going to spend $20, $50, $100 on you is pretty golden information. It's encouraging. It's very, very helpful.
I guess that brings us full circle. You had a show with a live orchestra.
Two weeks ago? A week ago? I can't even remember it was life changing for me to be honest. I had no idea how it was gonna go. I had a good feeling. It was this 14 piece band. The whole time I was trying to figure out how many tickets were being sold. I had to keep going through the venue organiser, it was just like, oh, no, I'm not selling as many tickets as I was hoping for….. then we showed up on the day and sold out.
So that was a pretty surreal moment. But it was just insane. The atmosphere was wild. It was electric and unreal, it may end up being the most memorable show that I will ever play, just because of how beautifully unexpected it was.
It reminds me of Harry Potter when they get Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. That spin on your music that gives so much more depth.
To be honest, that's what it felt like, if I had my way. I would play with an orchestra every time that I play it because there's the emotion that it adds is unreal. You can't recreate it. It breathes a lot like a dimension of ambience. It changes it from a musical performance to being an art installation.
Are you hoping to do the tour with a bit of a string set or a full orchestra?
The plan is two of the two people, which is one of the violins and a sax player who are going to follow me around. The hope is that we can do a bit of a round trip around Melbourne.
Is there any dream venues on the list?
I'd love to play the Northcote social club. A lot of my dreams are probably not really huge dreams for people but to play at some of these places where I've seen some pretty excellent people play would just be pretty rad. I mean, one day, I'd love to play at the corner hotel, but, I want to make sure I can bring 300 people to that to that gig. I'd hate to show up with 30. You have to have that belief in yourself and a little bit of gumption.
Is there anything that you'd want your fans to know about?
I put a lot of lot of life into it. All the stories are real stories, not made up once. I constantly want to grow with my music. I get uncomfortable when I start writing the same thing over and over and over again. I love kind of adapting and changing with my likes and dislikes at the time. My music is pretty alive. It changes and it's always gonna be bloody interesting. I try really hard to make it always interesting and different, new and fresh.
What is your on repeat playlist?
I had a feeling you're gonna ask that question before we started! I've got a big love for this fusion jazz band. I really love this other named Mero. She was in Eurovision and she did a song. It's gorgeous. I love Mr. Timothy Wolfe. I'm always listening to Timothy Wolfe.
And finally, What is your go to snack when you're writing or producing?
Look, my wife is pregnant at the moment. One that we go to quite a lot at the moment is sweet potato chips. I'll go anything's sweet potato chip.