Questions with Matthew Dear

So far this year, it would be safe to say that Matthew Dear's Asa Breed has been one of the new records that I've listened to most. Combining influences that range from Talking Heads to New Order to Tropicalia to traditional Southern folk, it's a strange record to be sure, but one that over time reveals itself as an accessible and thoughtful selection of electronic pop songs. In anticipation of his show tonight with Mobius Band and Treewave at the Granada, we gave Matthew Dear a call so that we could talk to him about his new album, his various musical projects, and dance culture:

So I read that you grew up in Texas, is that right?

Yes I did, I grew up there until I was 16 and then I moved to Michigan.

Where?

San Antonio, just south of there actually. My dad lives in the Austin area now, and my mom is moving back to San Antonio, so I'm still very much a Texan.

Do you get to come back a lot?

Yeah, I try to come back once or twice a year to visit my father, and it's good to have a show there too, kind of kill two birds with one stone.

And I read that there is a song on your new album based on a true story about one of your ancestors being gunned down by a Texas Ranger?

Yeah, it's the last song on the album called "Vine to Vine." It's based on a story my dad told me about one of our relatives getting murdered by a Texas Ranger for their land. Back then, south Texas was pretty lawless.

So it was kind of more like a mafia hit than law enforcement?

Yeah, it sounds like it.

What made you want to write a song about that?

It's really one of the only songs I've ever written based on a story I've been told. It just kind of came to me, I just felt the need to put it down. It sounded like a great story, and I think I did it more for my family and my father than I did for myself. I already had a guitar loop that sounded like it would fit perfectly, and it just kind of work out naturally.

So the idea came together after you heard that guitar loop and put two and two together?

For sure, absolutely.

So how did you end up hooking with Ghostly International in Michigan?

My mom had made a move from San Antonio to the Detroit area for a job when I was still in High School, and when I finished school, I went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor 40 miles west of Detroit, and around that time I met Sam Valenti who had an interest in starting a label and shared it with me, and we hit it off really well and became good friends, and about a year later he put out my first and Ghostly's first record in 1999, and we've been colleagues and really good friends ever since.

Do you play any role in the label these days?

Well its definitely Sam's thing, and although I interact with him from a musical standpoint, its his label for sure. If I find some people on the road that I really like, I can bring it to Sam and put in my two cents on what we should release, but it's definitely Sam's brainchild and he has the monetary investment and all that.

So what was the vision behind the label and what you guys were trying to do when you first started out?

Sam I think is still finding it, he's always finding it. He was an art history student so he's very much involved in the artistic end of things, not just sonically, but visually and the overall package that goes with it, which is always changing in his mind. In the beginning, we wanted it to be a dance music label, we wanted it to be a 12 inch DJ culture, but it quickly became more avant and different, and he wanted to cover all the aspects of what he thought electronic music should be. And what started off as my first 12 inch, a dance record, soon after was Tadd Mullinix's first record, which is more listening music or IDM as they were calling it back then. And from there the label just grew, and now we have bands like Skeletons, which is more like an art jazz band punk rock band and Spectral, which is still dance floor techno based.

I know you work under several different monikers, and I wonder if you could tell us a little about each one.

Yeah totally. Audion came about from my need to make really dance floor heavy techno, and at the time I was still doing dance music under my own name, but from that, I think I've evolved to where I want anything under my own name to be my eccentric experimental pop side, it's going to have words and be song based, and from now on, anything that's a dance record meant for the clubs is going to Audion. And False is a bit more subversive, dark, moody dance music.

Do you like working on one project more than the others, or is one more challenging?

No, definitely not, the good thing is that they represent different styles of living and working. This tour that we're doing under my own name right now is completely backwards from an Audion tour that I'd do in Europe. Right now we're at a rock club in Chapel Hill, NC, and dealing with rock venues, and singing and playing guitar and giving more of a performance set. And the crowd is totally different, they are more into standing and watching the show rather than dancing the night away at a club. In Europe, I play big festivals and big crowds that are more into techno and dancing and partying and I'm both of those people. I love going to a techno club late at night and dancing the night away, and I also love going to rock clubs and seeing my favorite bands play, so to choose one of those would be impossible, both of those characteristics are a part of my persona.

I find the differences between European and American audiences very interesting because electronic dance music is so much more a part of the mainstream culture there than it is here, and I wonder if you have any ideas on why that might be?< There are many factors that contribute to that. Europe in general is a lot more relaxed about many things that give dance music more room to breathe. Closing times for clubs are more open, you can have 24 hour clubs there that stay open until whenever they want, the laws aren't cracking down on them, they serve alcohol until they close, there is not cut off time. So it's a much later lifestyle out there. Regular people don't go out to dinner until 9 or 10, and stay out to dinner until midnight, they have really long late social hours all over Europe, Spain, Germany, that's just normal over there. But over here, a lot of people go to sleep by that time, your average family. So that definitely lends itself to a later night life. When someone stays out 50% longer than someone that lives in that states, that just adds to this desire for dancing and techno clubs to be open that late. Also, drug laws are a lot more relaxed over there, you can get away with it a little more, obviously in places like Amsterdam, so there are many reasons that people over there can soak up techno music, and it's not thought of as a bad thing over there, whereas here, techno has a bad association with drug use and illegal raves, and warehouse parties, and it's kind of been shunned by mass media and people in general.

It's interesting because it's a chicken and egg argument-- maybe if "rave" culture had been allowed to exist in a more open and legitimate manner in the United States, then maybe it wouldn't have become associated with a lot of the darker things that you mention.

Totally, I think that's right.

Well in American underground culture, there has definitely been an intermingling between dance culture and underground rock/punk/post-punk culture over the past few years. Do you think this is a fad, or are we catching up to Europe in the sense that dance music will play a more prominent role in our culture?

I definitely think rock musicians are embracing it more. You have groups like LCD Soundsystem and things like that, and I think the "indie" scene is gaining a respect or an understanding of the importance of electronic music and the history of our whole musical library, and I think that is cool. I think people are noticing that it's not just a rhythm in a sweaty club, but that there can be a lot of musical genius involved in it, and that there can be creativity within the form, so in that sense I think it's great. You can never tell what is going to happen, it's always shifting and changing, but it would be great if it got a bit more of a foothold and more respect from the music community.

Switching gears, I guess the story I've read is that Asa Breed is your "pop" record, and I was wondering if that is what you set out to make, or if it just ended up being that way, or if you agree with that sentiment at all.

I like to call it experimental pop music, and by pop I mean melodic, and there is nothing wrong with melodic music. Some of my favorite bands are inherently pop musicians, whether it's New Order, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, Talking Heads, Radiohead, it's all based on catchy melodies and songs. So in that sense, I say it is pop, but I didn't set out to make it that way, it's just what I've been doing since I was a kid, messing around with songs and guitars, and it's just been a matter of time since I've been able to put it out on record. I started off with electronic music, but I've always continued to work on this stuff on the side, and I thought it was time to put all this stuff out under my name.

Did you find it challenging to work with more traditional pop songs, or did it seem natural?

It was a very natural change for me, I've been working on this album for almost four years, and some of the songs had been sitting around for that long, so for me it wasn't drastic at all, this has been in the back of my head all the time. I didn't make a decision to try something new, this is, to me, just what I do.

Could you tell me what your stage set up has been on this tour?

With the band we have a laptop, which is kind of the brains or skeleton of the music, and we have a live bass player and a live drummer, and I've stripped down the tracks to accommodate the musicians on stage, so it's kind of a mix of computer software and live music, and I do vocals with a backup vocalists, and I also play guitar. I think it has enough to keep people interesting live, but it has enough of the original songs to remind people of the album.

So on this tour, you're mixing live bands and laptop stuff, and on the album, you're mixing your electro and rock influences. What kind of music inspired you first as a listener?

Oh everything. I mean, when I was 8, I got into my brother's dance music records, a lot of new wave and experimental electro that really turned me on. I knew I liked anything synthetic sounding, I was really into samples and stuff even though I didn't know what they were, I was grabbed by that kind of music. But of course I also like country and folk and rock music. I've always been into all of these styles, and this album, to me, reflects my love of all the different angles you can take with modern music.

So I wanted to ask you about living in Detroit, because obviously there is the huge history of electronic music there. Do you feel that spirit in the city there, or has a lot of it gone away?

Well I actually just moved to New York, to Brooklyn, three months ago, it's a good time right now because I don't have children, and my wife and I both wanted to move there. But you most definitely feel that spirit in Detroit, it's there in small numbers. The people there are holding on to the electronic scene, and they really respect Detroit and the history involved there, and they know the history. It's not too big of a scene, but you can definitely feel it when you're there, and it was a really good time to be there and feel it, and do what I could do to contribute.

Any new projects in the works?

Yeah, I've got 10 to 12 new songs for a new record under my own name, and I have some new Audion remixes on the way, and some new Audion stuff that will come out next year.

Photo by Ryan Dombal