Matthew Good’s new record, SOMETHING LIKE A STORM, was released Oct 27th and debuted in the top 5. Described by Spill Magazine as “Turbulent and beautiful,” and by Pure Grain Audio as an “instant classic,” Something Like a Storm is the 14th studio album by the prolific Matthew Good. His single, “There The First Time” is out at radio now. To date, Matthew’s studio albums have combined for nearly one million albums sold in Canada alone. Matthew has also been nominated for an incredible 21 Juno Awards, including one for his last album studio album CHAOTIC NEUTRAL.
Matthew Good has come to the realization that he’s a survivor.
“It’s like having been at war for a long time. There have been some near misses but I feel like I’ve been lucky not to get shot in the head.” His voice shakes with laughter. “Not that you remember any of it. It’s just a big blur.” Understandable.
In the early 90s he formed the Matthew Good Band, which would go on to net two Juno Awards for the Canadian rock classic, Beautiful Midnight before disbanding in 2002. Since 2003, Matt has been on his own through seven solo albums; works that have emerged as the bullets continued to fly around him. There were his missed diagnoses and hospitalizations, his return to indie status, not to mention a sea change in the music industry.
Despite all this, he’s still here—and he’s not going anywhere. Not if he has anything to say about it.
Chaotic Neutral is his seventh album, and his first with Warner Music. For a change he handed over the reins to his long-time producer Warne Livesey. He also brought in a handful of notables including Holly McNarland, Bones Hillman (Midnight Oil), Blake Manning, Anthony Wright, Stu Cameron and Sam Goldberg Jr. (Broken Social Scene). Matt explains “The process for this one was great. I got to say, ‘I’m just going to be the artist on this thing,’ which I found massively liberating.”
In fact, Matthew Good is more than just a survivor of the music industry. In his two decades defining the landscape of the Canadian music scene he has sold nearly a million albums on his way to becoming the best-selling Canadian indie artist of all time. He has been nominated for 20 Juno Awards, winning 4. When describing what has kept him going, despite the bumps along the way Matthew says:
“Music is measured in miles. In the way the air feels, eyes closed, just before a thunderstorm hits. In how your heart races with excitement and anticipation for something or someone. In smiles, tears, solemnity, and even silences. Its choreography is found in the ordinary actions of everyday life. Dance sequences unrehearsed. Pyrotechnics as different and unique and singular as there are people on the planet.”
Track by Track:
All You Sons and Daughters
People tell me that with the way fans sample albums on Spotify and whatever, the first track on the album is critical to their grabbing their attention. I wrote the first half of the song in 2011 and then resurrected it. I’d always loved the first half of that song.
Moment
I kinda looked at the whole mental health situation and wrote something that just wasn’t dour about it. There are times in your life when you just have to exhale.
Kid Down the Well
That’s one of the songs featuring Holly on vocals. Me and Holly McNarland have almost identical male-female voices. We have very much the same natural vibrato. People have been saying that I should use her way more.
No Liars
The whole thing popped out of a beat that was inspired by U2’s “The Fly.” The guitar was put in later. Sam came in and learned the riff I had written, but then he said “I kinda got this idea…” He played all his parts and I just chucked my main bit. So he got a co-write on it. It’s only fair. He just came with magic.
Harridan
A compete homage to Nina Simone.
Girls in Black
Sam played all the guitars on that track. I don’t play on this one at all.
Tiger by the Tail
You have to remember that before this record, I wrote an entire album and threw it away. I had a twenty-one minute song called “Something Like a Storm” compete with a demo. But then I deleted it. I just started again and the first new song I wrote was “Tiger By the Tail.” Some elements of “Storm” survived, but not much. And I like that phrase: “tiger by the tail.”
Cold Water
I think I hit the nail on the head with this one: a cool Van Morrison-type soundscape. It tells the story of a sailor in a rowboat off the coast of Plymouth. His wife thinks he’s dead but when he is ultimately is rescued and returns home, she’s gone. I think it might be the best song on the record.
Cloudbusting
Covering a Kate Bush song? A risky proposition. You just don’t cover Kate Bush lightly. It’s one of my favourite songs of all time. And when I attacked it, I had no intention of putting it on the album. But then I thought “This isn’t that bad.” And I did take a few liberties with the arrangement.
Army of Lions
I write with bass. I just hear the bass first. And I go from there. This songs is about how information is misconstrued as too much info. Social media stuff, you know? A lot of that really bugs me now. I’ve always been really open, but now when I to keep things quiet, people get pissed because they feel they have a right to know. It’s about reclaiming some privacy.
Los Alamos
It’s a love story from the point of view of a nuclear scientist in New Mexico during the Manhattan Project. There’s a lazy 40’s thing to it that laments about the distance that can build between people.
