Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin RichmondIndie rock band Nada Surf first hit big on college radio in 1996 with their driving, guitar forward song, “Popular.” The band started playing together four years earlier while attending college in Vermont. But they’re perhaps best known as a New York City band, where their lead singer and primary songwriter, Matthew Caws came of age.
Caws is known as a vulnerable, and often reflective songwriter who tackles everything from social anxiety to politics in his work. Nada Surf’s latest album, Moon Mirror, is the band’s tenth studio album. It's both introspective and at times, and hard hitting.
On today’s episode Bruce Headlam talks to Matthew Caws about growing up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in a house filled with baroque music, and how he thinks some of the classical instrumentation may have influenced his own writing. Mathew also recalls the time Nada Surf backed up Joey Ramone and played a full Ramones set at Coney Island High. And he performs two songs from Nada Surf’s latest album, Moon Mirror, for us live.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Nada Surf songs HERE.
Pushkin.
Indie rock band Not a Serf first hit big on college radio in ninety six with their driving guitar forward song Popular. The band had started playing together four years earlier while attending college in Vermont, but they're perhaps best known as a New York City band where their lead singer and primary songwriter, Matthew Kaus came of age. Kus is known as a vulnerable and often reflective songwriter who tackles everything from social anxiety to politics in his work. Not a Serf's latest album, Moon Mir is the band's tenth studio album, and it's every bit as introspective and at times hard hitting as ever. On today's episode, Bruce Helm talks to Matthew Kabs about growing up on Manhattan's Upper West Side in a house filled with baroque music and how he thinks some of the classical instrumentation may have influenced his own writing. Matthew also recalls the time Not a Serf backed up Joey Ramone and played a full Ramone set at Coney Island High Plus. He performs two songs from Not a Serf's latest album, moon Mer Forest Live. This is broken record Liner notes for the Digital Age I'm justin Ritchman. Here's Bruce headlam with Matthew Cars.
This a new propeller.
Turning up by. There's a whooful spinning digging a saw grace. There's growing menu of preanu mistakes, same old ground I've always walked on. Now they call it face dopy free. You won't be replaced, don'py.
Free, you won't bearing. There's a new day coming. We don't know its name.
There's new methods bruin. Some will be the same. There's growing feeling going down the drain. Same old ground I've always walked on. There's always new pain.
Don't be fred you will belted. Don't bet you will belt.
There's a brando flavor, a seat again, its taste. There's a brand new picture. Color has gone to waste.
There's a growing feeling nobody is chased.
Same old ground I've always walked on. Sliding in the lake. You felt a bright white law. You gave it a name. Man, you said a prize. Okay, then may be a guy and they love you with all the hall. But there's no place underground.
There is no devil has We're alone.
But you are the door prize. Watch it go it's.
Twilin We're alone, but you are the door prize.
Watch it go. It's lovely twil.
Matthew cause, thank you so much from not a Surf coming in to talk about your new album Moon Mirror. Yeah, and we have lots to talk about. Great and I wanted to get to that song, so we're going to start with it. You did, Okay, tell me about that song.
Well, I started writing it a long time ago. You know, sometimes start something and finish it right away, but sometimes you know, write half and put it away for a few years. And I was writing this one when Trump was running for office the first time, and I he and Mago, which maybe at the time wasn't exactly called that, but that feeling seemed to me like a like a giant cruise ship propeller turning up the water and destabilizing things. And then when I got to the line, don't be afraid you won't be replaced, I was a bit nervous about it because what I was thinking about was people who have a demographic paranoia, who are afraid that they'll be replaced by another race, or immigrants in general, you know, And I was thinking, in very simple terms, you are alive and you will live out your life. You can't be replaced, you know, the way like jealousy doesn't help, this fear isn't going to help anybody's life, you know, and maybe that's not the point of it. Anyway, of that fear, you know, it's a road to blame, to blame other people for whatever you have going on, and then a road also to anger as a relief, you know. I think anger is a relief to people. Blame is a relief to people because then you don't have to feel your own troubles. But anyway, I was nervous about it because it seemed like it was flirting with sympathy, which I wouldn't want to be accused of. But I think I'm more thinking about just humanity. You know, if people feel heard, sometimes they can let their defenses drop a little bit. I've had the experience of a couple of times, at least maybe three, where on Facebook or something I'd said something vaguely political or overtly political, and somebody had commented in an aggressive way, you know, from say a maga point of view, for example, and other friends of mine would then you know, fight with them, and I found myself these two or three times, talking to them very calmly, and then taking it into private messaging and spending two hours just talking. And what I did find was that each time the person said at the end, you know, I was surprised. I was used to democrats yelling at me. I thought everybody would yell, you know, So there's this of course, there's a lot of civility lacking, but also the sort of illusion that it doesn't exist or something. Those are the ideas I was playing around with with it. And then Mark Pellington, who directed a video that's I think it's pretty great for it. He'd done a video for a song called just Wait on our Last record and he has to hear it, and I sent him the record and he really zeroed in on that song. And what he's really zeroed in on also was the sort of understory that I was also feeling at time that once I started seeing those lines, I'm like, that's about AI, or it feels like that's what it's about. Also, you know, when lyrics sort of matched two meanings, and he zeroed in on that and absolutely thought that's what it was about, which I thought was great because it just gave it another dimension. And there's a great podcast I like called Soda Jerker and Lloyd Cole was on it, and one of his sort of best practices for songwriting was that he said, don't be at all attached to the meaning that you intended. Be okay, be at peace with any interpretation, which I think is really good advice.
You know, well, I'm interested that it started as a more overtly political song. Yeah, but I didn't take that. And when you said you didn't want to betray any sympathy, I found those lines incredibly sympathetic.
Oh good.
Not just about AI, but I think that I think there's a feeling in society that people are so much more connected, yeah, through media, and yet for that reason you feel, yeah, people feel more expendable.
Yeah, I'm glad you heard it that way.
And I guess I was speaking very specifically about sympathy for white supremacists. That was the thing I was uncomfortable with, but sympathy for people absolutely. And I also find that's an experience that I have sometimes when there's a certain meaning, sitting alone in my room and singing something and then to an audience, what is the communal feeling? And I think the sympathy for each other that we need so much of in any way to express it feels good or valuable.
Well, it's a terrific song on a really great album.
Thank you so much.
That I guess Rolling Stone just said is your best in maybe the best of your career, which is you've had a long that's almost thirty years. That's pretty good.
I haven't seen that review yet. I just got a text about it. Okay, Well, I'm very pleased to hear that's what it says.
Your last record was Never Not Together, which on the surface felt a little more experimental choral intro and a spoken intro in another song. This one feels kind of more direct and new propeller aside, a little more joyful. And it's got that great sound that you have perfected.
Oh thank you tell me because it is such.
A distinctive sound. How do you get that? How do you take that song? You go into the studio and I'll even ask for the boring details of how you set it up and how you how you're recording. How do you get that that great not a surf sound?
Part of I guess part of any band's sound is like what the rhythm section feels like and Iron Daniel, where the forever members of the band have a certain vibe together. So that's part of it. I think it's Guitar layering is a thing. I borrowed a four track from somebody when I was fifteen and sat down with my WHO songbook and recorded a couple of songs, two guitars doing the exact same thing and two vocals doing the exact same thing. And I became immediately hooked on double tracking, which has led to triple tracking, etc.
Just take it a bit further, and.
I guess I really like the sound of a few guitars doing the exact same thing, so it becomes a sort of super nature, you know. And certainly when you double track yourself doing something impossible, And that's why siblings sounds so special. I think when siblings sing together, there's the fact that the grain matches so well.
The brother sounds yes, yeah, yeah.
And so when one person does it, it kind of sounds fictional.
You know, you're you're doing something that doesn't.
Exist, but maybe it sounds Maybe that's the supermagic of the elderly brothers. They sound impossible too, and it's impossibly beautiful in their case, so that and just trying to fill it up a little bit. I'm always chasing the high of the first time I had shivers hearing a song, and I remember it was She's So Cold by the rolling Stones on a little battery powered FM radio under my pillow while sleeping in a tent in the summer. We were working in our house and there was no room for us kids in the house, and I remember that shiver, And you know, I'm just trying to get excited, or chase excitement, or chase pleasures. It's like pleasure seeking in a way. You know, what sound is going to feel really blissful to me, you know, And I would never claim it's it.
Is blissful in an objective way. I just mean to me.
So, how many guitar tracks, for example, would New Propeller have, Oh.
In the intro, maybe as few as two, just playing just playing this, but with a pick two electrics and probably two acoustics. So there you go, four playing the exact same thing, and then this.
You know, that's probably three or four electrics. So it's not crazy. We don't change mixers every record.
We've used some of the same John Anniello, who's a New Yorker who's now in North Carolina. John Goodmanson from Seattle mixed this record. He produced Lucky in its entirety. He did a couple of songs on the way It's a Gift. He did a few on if I had a high fi. When you hear something again and again, you almost become too sensitive to it. And when he sent the first mixes, I actually thought they were over crispy, too much, and.
I'm saying, sorry, John, this is just all hyped, you know.
And in fact they were totally perfect, and I think they're really beautiful and super well done.
But sometimes you get a little too close to.
It when you get a tape like that back, the mixed back, do you like you listen to it in one room, to go to other rooms, to go to your car.
If I'm nervous about hearing it, I'll put it on I have a little home studio. I'll put it on my little home studio and hit play and go to the other room. You know, you know, like when you open an email you're afraid of Yes, you're kind of you're ready to shut the screen.
Are you looking through you know, through a gap? In your fingers.
We just had crowded house in here. Yeah, and I think Neil Finn said something of it. Sometimes the songs just sound better in the next room.
Yeah, yeah, totally.
And you're right, You're like it has that kind of magic quality.
If I think that I'm tripping, I guess what I mean is if I think I'm being paranoid about something, or having circular thoughts or obsessing or something, very often I'll just like put in earbuds and take a long walk and listen to it a bunch of times until whatever weird feelings I was having disappear. And it's like walking to objectivity, Like I have to walk out the overthinking or the panic or something.
There's an old Latin phrase It's solved by walking.
I can't.
Yeah, just you go for a walk.
Wonderful.
After quick break, we'll be back with more from Not a Serf's Matthew Cars.
So let's go back to the beginning. Yeah, you grew up in New York, right, that's right, Okay, where'd you grow up?
I grew up on eighty first in Lexington. My parents taught at Hunter College, so they wanted to get an apartment near there. My dad was a philosophy professor, and my mom was in French at first but then moved on to comparative literature and also English, and now at ninety one, has been an art has story and for quite a few years.
So did you grow up in a was it a musical family.
Only in fandom?
My father had been kind of promising at piano, but he grew up in a fundamentalist Christian cult in England called the Exclusive Brethren or the Plymouth Brethren, and he wasn't allowed to play anything but hymns, and he felt constricted by that and sort of moved on. And my mom had played a little bit, but they they were fairly obsessive listeners to baroque music, and in fact, to one record in particular, which I was so glad that I came around to asking my dad about that. I would think I was in my thirties, and I said, I know it was mostly back in the house, but it's with anything in particular we listened to because his you know, it's overwhelming, there's so much work, and he said, yes, ten fifty two. So I went and found it's b BWM. There are three letters, and then there's a number, and that's that's the way Bach works are classified. And anyway, I knew every note it was. They must have played it so often because I felt like I could see the dust on the coffee table, you know. It was so brought me back to Saturday mornings Tuesday nights, like they must have played it all the time.
And did any melodic lines or harmony crept their way into your.
I wouldn't know how to say that. But Phil Peterson, who played strings on the one you want on this record, and who's played all the strings on the last three or four albums of ours, we were talking about that and he said he heard something baroque in some of my melodies, which I thought was a kind of a thrilling thing to hear, even though I don't even know how to interpret it. No, Like I don't even know you know in fact, what that means. But I guess I liked hearing that.
It's a nice thought.
And then was you mentioned hearing She's so cold by the stones? Yes, getting that chill?
Yeah?
Had you started playing music by that point?
Yes.
My mother's older sister, peg Garson passed away a few years ago.
She had bought a guitar for my dad.
In the sixties, and he wasn't interested, so she put it in the closet. And then when I was eleven, she pulled it out and asked me if i'd like to play it, and she showed me one chord E major, and I went into the other room and played that chord for an hour.
I was so thrilled.
And I hadn't yet discovered the ramones, which I would a bit later, but just just doing that over and over, and then I thought, what if I move it?
I'll move it up. What if I go this way? Oh? What's that? That's interesting? What if I move it over here? Oh? So I moved this one shape? Yeah, yeah, and yeah.
So I started picking up then, and then when I was sort of thirteen and fourteen, then I started playing it a lot more often.
Was there a band that inspired that or the Yeah?
Well, my formative musical moment was when my best friend, Philip Platel was his name. They lived near us, and I went to his house every day after school for years and years and years, and there was a real sweetness to our relationship, and you know, sometimes when it was time for me to go home, he'd walk me home the three blocks to my house, and then I'd say I'll walk you home, and then we turned around and walked to his house and he said I'll walk you home, and we'd do that a few times. He had an older brother who went to boarding school, so I didn't see very often, but I always thought he was really cool. He had these really interesting posters in his room and seemed like a lovely guy. And one day he was home from school and he when we were thirteen, and he said, you guys want to come into my room and listen.
To some music. Yeah?
Absolutely, So we went and sat on his bed and he played us with no comment, front to back, three entire albums, Ramon's Rocket to Russia, Velvet Underground, Loaded and Talking Heads Remained in Light those three and it was I sometimes get misty thinking about it. It was so overwhelming. I was so interested and thrilled and knocked out. And it was funny. I mean, the remote romone songs were funny, really just rhythmically exciting moments sounds I didn't understand, you.
Know, like Remain in Light. I can't remember which were the.
Tracks, but there are a couple where it's a series of like impossible, sounds like an emotional computer or something, you know. And then a kid at school, a new kid, gave me a cass head of Tommy, and I became a whot and bought all their old records, and Pete Townsend started to feel like a like another dad, or like an older brother or something.
It's interesting that he's I think underestimated as not as a guitar player, but almost as an influence on people. He's so, yeah, he is unique, but that propulsive style, no one plays the way he does. Yes, but he doesn't. He's not in that pantheon of oh I love Clapton or I love this guy, right, but in terms of rhythm, he's completely his own.
Beast absolutely and and sound and approach and and and tricks and adventure.
Yeah, I mean, and it's super punk.
I know that's a that word as a whole hours long discussion, because it's sometimes very slippery, you know the meaning of it. But just the wildly adventurous kind of reigned in organized chaos and doing stuff that you know, sounded like the speaker is blowing up kind of a pickup switching and and string scratching, and it's just so exciting.
Did that music I'm thinking, particularly something like Remain in Light, it's fairly esoteric.
Yeah, for sure.
Did you feel like I can go do this?
Absolutely not? And that was the great thing about the Ramones and the Who. I really I loved classic rock and love the songs, really loved Zeppelin and Hendrix too, and that to me was not particularly encouraging music because it was so many steps away.
I couldn't see it. I always felt that.
Way with them as I grew up on that kind of music and just thinking like, be like if somebody gave me like eat Sock Pearlman and said here's a violin, and I'd be like, well, I don't know where to start.
Yeah, yeah, where whereas a lot of like Who in Ramones, it is sort of like, if you can drum this beat out with your hand on a desk, you can probably actually do it because all you have to do is put your fingers in a certain position to get a chord and get used to holding a pick and do that same rhythm you were beating out on the desk, do it on the guitar and you're kind of there, you know, not to overly simple, I mean obviously they're incredible players, unbelievable, but yeah.
Much much more, much more doable, reachable. Yeah.
Well, there's something else I want to ask you about, because you made a short little filmed about it, which is you had a tremor when you were a kid.
Yeah, yeah, and do you still I do.
It's I'm really lucky in that it's going the opposite direction of most people I know have it. It tends to get worse. Mine is getting a little better. But I just had very shaky hands as a child. There's you know, teased a fair amount for that, you know, while.
You're so nervous, because did it made you appear nervous?
Yeah?
You know, if I would meet like my girlfriend's parents and they asked me to pour them a glass of water or something, you know, thinking that something was going to go wrong I was going to start shaking, would make me shake very much. So there's that kind of psyching yourself out problem. What's the neurological it's just for that intentional tremor, And I wish I knew more, But it's something like intentional, I e. When you don't want to do it, you do it.
So is it almost like stuttering, Yes.
Exactly right.
And it's gotten better in part because I'm just calmer and happier as a person.
I meditate.
I don't have totally, you know, super regular practice or anything, but I do it pretty often. And just I have this theory that as you get older, you get happier because you were in so much danger when you were a child, or there was so much danger that you needed to communicate to your parents when you were a baby. You needed to let them know you were tired, or that you were hungry or thirsty or cold. And now that now that we're older, maybe our bodies are like, maybe it's okay to turn off some alarm systems now because things seem to have been going pretty regularly for a few years. So I've been experiencing this increase in peace as I get older.
It absolutely happens, and it's well documented the U shape oh happiness. The low point apparently is forty seven, right. It actually I'm maybe the isolated to the one day forty And I'm not sure, but I'll bet you when you were a kid, did did tremor affect how you played guitar?
Well?
I think I think it discouraged me from getting too far into fingerpicking, which is kind of a regret. I'm trying to mend that now and learn a little more, you know, trying to figure out how to play scarboroughfair and stuff like that. But no, I mean, because once I'm into it, it would kind of disappear. It's like the first few minutes on stage used to be a little dicey. I think, like my breath is going to be really short, and I'm going to sing. You'll hear my nervousness. But that's gotten shorter and shorter, and it's kind of dissipated. But even back then, after a few minutes, just the act of doing something I love so much would calm me down and then I'd get through.
Interesting, you're such a propulsive player, maybe that helps you to start.
Yeah, I think so.
And I was just talking about XDC the other day, you know, Andy Partridge stopped touring and I think it was eighty two or something from Stage Fright, and I was talking to a friend about how he's seem to be such an animated and active and compelling frontman.
But maybe that's how.
He got through his Stage fright was by by just becoming wild. So that he would forget that he was afraid.
You know what's interesting to me about particularly this new record, because you have been a band that's been around for a while. Most bands that have been around this this long, most singer songwriters, you know, some of my favorite performers in the world, they lose their fastball. It becomes very hard for them to do the fast songs the way they used to. But your band, you still do amazing fast songs. And I think you're I'm not gonna say one of the few, but you're one of the bands that can still pull off a great fast song without making it sound like here's our new fast song. I'm trying really hard without that. So what accounts for you being able to do this so well for so long?
Guys, thank you for the very kind words. I don't know.
I heard a Johnny Mark quote. He said something like, I have two speeds, fast and slow. We're very fast and very slow, and so I don't know if there's this habit like I'm used to. I'm used to moving my right hand really quickly. I have like jittery legs, you know, nervous legs. And remember when I was a kid, I was at like a play with my parents, and during the intermission somebody from three or four seats away came over to me and.
Said, kid, you gotta stop moving.
But anyway, that was when I was a kid, So it doesn't explain now. I don't know it just it feels like it comes naturally.
I'm not wrong though. A lot of bands kind of lose their.
Yeah, well we check ourselves now and again and keep asking ourselves, is too fast right? Because we tend to play everything faster, live, just excitable.
Well that's you know, that's the Ramones tradition, right, wasn't the famous quote They asked one of them how the tour was going, and one of them said, we're doing it in fifty minutes whatever. It's like crazy number of songs. Said, but we're trying to get it down to forty five.
Well, you know we We did an iggy Pop song on a compilation called We Will Fall the nineteen ninety eight or something, and Iggy Pop was on it, and the label was based in New York and they wanted to have a record release party and they needed a band to back Joey up, so they we were the only New York band on that record, so they asked us, and of course we said yes, and they said, okay, you're going to do I want to be sedated and nineteen seventy this do just song.
So we practiced.
For two weeks, I mean completely obsessively, and then at practice for the thing when he came, you know, and we're just like grinning like kids, were so excited. Daniel Ray was this great producer, was with him and he counted it off at the speed that the Ramones were doing it, you know, right up until the end. And Ira, our drummer, to his total credit, said actually, could we do this? Could we do it at this speed? And clicked out the album speed, which is quite a bit slower. It's really twenty twenty twenty four, it's not that fast. And Joey really liked it, which was so it was so great. And then he said, after we'd done the record release party, he said, hey, if you want the next time you have a gig in New York, learn your seven favorite Romone songs and I'll get up and sing them. And we had a show at conyel And High two weeks later, and he did it.
Oh my god, it was so great.
I still have the setless. I just can't.
I can't believe it actually happened, but it did. It was a total thrill, I mean thrill of a lifetime obviously.
Wow, so fantastic.
Yeah, so great.
You see even he wanted to go mid tempo when he got older. Yeah, what a great guy.
Yeah, he was so super sweet. Yeah, incredibulous.
So where did you meet your bandmates?
So Daniel Lorca, the bass player, he went to the Lise Frosse and I did too because my parents took sabbatical years and I lived. We lived in parisise five years old and then twelve years old later, and they put me in the local school and I didn't understand a word, and then started to pick up a little bit of French, and by the time we got back to New York, I was Frenchish enough that my parents put me in that school.
So Daniel was there.
He's from Spain, but his father was a diplomat and they'd moved around a lot.
So that's two of us.
And then when we were sixteen, we went to see a band called the Fuzztones a bunch of times and thought their drummer was great and met him and he seemed like a really nice guy. And there were a few times when Daniel and I had a couple of bands, and there were a couple of times, yeah, maybe only two times when we needed a drummer and he said, let's call Iron. I said no, because I thought he was too good, and I thought we might not be able to hold on to him. You know, a really good drummer in New York who was also a really sweet guy and funny.
You know, that's like gold. So I thought, let's not do it Unicorn, Yeah, exactly.
And then and then a couple of years later, I kind of started to have some confidence in the songs that we had and I said, yeah, let's call him, and he joined up. And then Louis Lino, our keyboard player, was here, and Williamsburg and Daniel in nineteen ninety one moved into the apartment under Louis and he had a recording studio, and we became friends and would sometimes record a little something in his studio, and over the years he could you know, mix a song here or there and add some keyboards to a couple of songs on a record, and finally started touring with us, and now he's full time.
And then how did you meet rick O Kasik, who produced your first record.
Well, Daniel would go back to Spain every summer and we made a forty five. A friend of mine, Joehabiko, wanted to start a label, but he couldn't afford to put out a single and I couldn't either, so we split it and I made the covers.
He made the.
Vinyl and a song called the Plan, and Daniel took that to Spain and played it for somebody, who played it for somebody, and we were offered a deal to put out a record in Spain. So we made an album and sent it to this label and they said, well, we want it worldwide, and we said, you know, we knew that, even though we were just pretty green, that if somebody didn't have something going on in the whole world, you couldn't give it to them for that. So I was sitting on this tape of a record that we didn't know what to do with, and I sent it to the indie labels I really liked, and never heard back from him. I was sitting on the subway one day and there was Mitch Easter like twelve feet away reading the daily news. I was too shy, and I regretted it immediately when I got out of the train, and I hadn't given him a cassette. So I told myself, I'm never going to do that again. If there's a chance i'm supposed to take, I will take it. A couple of weeks later, I went to see a blonde redhead knitting factory and I was walking out and I saw Rick Okasak walking in, and I mean, I'd always loved him.
I always loved the cars. I knew he was a producer too, and he's a really good one.
Underrated as a producer. He did a lot of music. Yeah, people remember him as a singer.
Song right, Yeah, Romeo Avoid Suicide, Bad Brains and then Weezer, Weezer.
Yeah.
So I went up and said, so sorry to bother you, but I'm an abandon and could I give you a tape? And he said, oh, sure, is your number on it? It's very gracious. Wow, And I never thought in a million years you would call. But I, as the saying goes, went out to dinner on that for a couple of weeks. You know, I told some friends, you'll ever get So I gave a tape and then one day I came home, my roommate said, you need to listen to the answer machine, and there was a message from him, and I called him back and he invited me to his house and beautiful spring night. I locked my bike to nothing, just I leaned my bike against a pole outside his house, but locked it nothing.
I was so right, just based out on cloud nine.
And he was really sweet, really sweet, and we hung out for a little while, you know, I mean.
You know whatever.
He had coffee, had water, you know, like nine or ten o'clock, and then he invited me to his studio downstairs and he said, so, what is this What is this tape? And I said, well, it's this record that we don't know what to do with. And he said, well, you could put it out, but if you ever want to rerecord these songs, I'll produce them and I'll be really cheap.
That's great. And he said, do you have a record deal? I said no, and he said, well, just keep my number.
And a couple of weeks later, unbelievably, we were playing a bar called Rebar on six steenth Street on the West Side, and this really nice guy called Bobby McCain came up after and said, I'm into label called Number six, and I'd heard of them because they put out a Dean Ware Them single and they'd put out the Unrest record an Imperial FFRR, which I thought was so good. And that was my dream that somebody who put out cool records would come up to me after a show and just say could I hear a tape? So we gave him one and the next day he called and said, actually, my day job is at Electra and my friend Ben Weber, who happens to be our manager now played it for his boss and he wants to meet you today. So he went up there and we were offered a deal, which we turned down for about a month and thought about it. Kind of scared us, you know, right, that was so quick, and i'd heard stories about you know, this was the period of commercial alternative when a lot of indie kind of bands were getting signed by big labels. It didn't noise end well, but in the end we said yes, and he was great in the studio. He's incredible. He didn't let the label visit. They wanted to come down. He said, absolutely not, and we wouldn't have.
Been able to stop them.
And the other wonderful thing he did for me. It was great, was that when we would record a song, he would have me sing what's called a scratch vocal where you go in andto you know, and you'd say, okay, do that one more time. Then we did guitars and and so about eight or nine days into the record, we were running out of things to do, and I knew it was time to sing. And I sort of nervously said, you know, Rick, is it time to do the vocals? And I said, You're done. He knew that what I was going to do naturally after a take relaxed, was you know, maybe not great, but it was going to be better than Red Light Fever. So that was really that was a really sweet thing. I think he's really good at young bands. My father figure.
You know, those car records he did were so I know, he didn't produce small, but they were so slick and highly produced.
Yes, yeah, your.
First record wasn't Yeah, it was more ramshackle. And did that surprise you? Did you think he was going to give you the cars sound?
No, but it's it's a little wilder maybe than the We's a record.
For example.
Parably, I already knew that he really likes suicide and stuff so and bad brains. Right, So like he clearly he liked wilder music also, right. But but you know he even in the ramshackle nature that record, he was he zoned in on certain things, said double this word, put another guitar here, you know, And I knew what he was going for was a little precision. Yeah, like when you would have me double track of guitar, you'd have me do it seven or eight times. And I was just doing the same thing over and over, and he was just waiting for the one where accidentally I hit it the same micro second and it had a little more power to it, And he was looking for that, which is kind of a pop thing to be looking for, looking for impact.
Yes, yeah, and then you know from there, you've had this career that's it's like the history of modern music. You had a big single, right popular that's on MTV. Yeah, and then you're dropped by your label.
Yeah.
Then you put out you know the album where I discovered you let Go or a lot of people discovered you. Yeah, and I discovered it because someone gave me a compilation They used to give out it Starbucks. Oh yeah, yeah, here music used to do them, and I know everybody makes fun of you know, oh Starbucks music. Those compilations were actually fabulous. There are a bunch of great bands, and you did it was a blizzard of seventy eight seven, which I have to ask you about that song because growing up in Canada as I did. Yeah, I heard that song and I thought, wow, this guy knows what a blizzard really is. Yeah, yeah, tell me about that song.
Well, I remember blizzards in New York.
I mean I blizzards everywhere. I mean snow days. Did you find that snow days were like heaven?
I mean they were like magic.
It's like magic.
And we'd wait by the phone to hear if there was the announcement that that schools were closed in New York today, and I love that the city would disappear. All the cars are gone, everything's white, everything's new clean. I knew that there was a big blizzard in seventy eight. Seventy seven was catchy number, though I moved it over by one. But I was just thinking back to those joyous I mean that line at least is thinking back to those joyous days. And then you meet up with your friends in the park and you see people on cross country skis going down the avenue and the cars are just lumps in the snow the way the lyrics say.
Yeah, then it becomes a love song. It's not a blizzard song at all.
Yeah.
The reason it's sort of a for us kind of quiet song is that I was sharing a room with Daniel in a hotel in Amsterdam when we were on tour. I was starting to hear the song in my head and didn't want to bother them, so I went into the bathroom and played it really quietly into a little portable four track, and we like the way it sound kind of hushed, so we kept it that way.
Is that how you write? You just have a four track? Or do you sit down with pen and paper? What's what's your well? Chie?
I do a little pen and paper, but that stuff doesn't seem to last. Maybe I'll fish a line out of it or something. But the bits that seem to have the best shot. Or when I sit down and write some words, ani melody and some chords all at the same time, like all married to each other, and it can be just a short like one little line, and some of them I'll really like and want to do more or you know, it depends on it depends on if I'm hunting, like if I'm waiting for a song to appear, or whether I have an idea, because sometimes it's like a concept, you know, and chase it down.
One last break and then we'll be back with the rest of Bruce Headlam's conversation with Matthew Cas What was writing like on this album?
Well, this is for the first time I had a real system for a little while, and that is that it was sort of tail end of COVID and I hadn't done very much with all that extra time except spend glorious time with my then toddler. But it was really time to get the band going. And so for about two months I woke up at five or five thirty most mornings, and I found that it was it was because then I'd have the house to myself. My wife and kid would still be asleep, and I'd have the living room all to myself. It's nice to be in a big room. Sometimes something about the sound not coming back at you from a wall that you're near is sort of less assaulting. But what I found, and it's a kind of a corny way to put it. But it's really what it feels like is that my inner critic was still asleep, because like a lot of people, I have a fairly active inner critic, and I'm ready to shoot down a lot of things that I make. And often the fuel or the AMMO of this critic is like, this isn't you know A, this isn't very good, and you should have started three hours before because it's two pm. What we you know, procrastinatory, ADHD, whatever it is, whatever caused me to start later than I meant to, and that guilt turns into shame, et cetera. But I've found that at five, six, six point thirty in the morning, I was just innocent. There's nothing wrong. I couldn't have wasted the day. There hasn't been a day, it hasn't been anything.
It's all free. Maybe I won't use it later, but it's not wrong. It's okay.
And the sort of heart of most of the songs was from those mornings, and I would I'd record whatever I liked that morning and label it with a date, and then every couple of weeks go back and go through those dates and see what was there and try to get organized what lines did I like, where the hooks, what hooks would go with other hooks and sort of build it from there.
I just saw this interview with Ringo Star and he said something I hadn't heard him say before, which is that he gave a lot of credit to Paul McCartney for he said, always making them work. And he said, if it weren't for him, we would have put up three albums and been forgotten. So what is it about your band that has endured? Are you the task master? Are you the guy that gets them all working? Or is there some other dynamic that's allowed you to produce music for so long.
I'm a little bit of that guy, but no, because we work so much more slowly than the Beatles. You know, it's four years since our last record. They would have made six.
It was half their career.
Yeah, half their career, Yeah, exactly, So we're on a much slower track. But yeah, I get real excited. But we all do, you know, we all love it.
And the producer on the last couple of records has been this wonderful guy called Ian Lawton, who's been our sound man in Europe for over twenty years and our tour manager and he he's a get stuff done guy with a really sweet touch, you know, not a sergeant, more like an encourager, cheerleader, coach, and he gets us going.
But I'm fairly driven once I get going.
How much do the songs transform once you're with the rest of the band, you.
Know, from not a lot to a lot.
It's really a case by case, not tons, but they just take on so much more life. And you know, Daniel's a really he's a very adventurous player, and we'll come up with pretty unorthodox baselines and so often something I wouldn't have thought of. And what I really love is sometimes that it will feel alien at first, almost wrong, and then I'm like, oh, it's great.
You know. I love that sense of adventure. IRIS like that too.
You know, I mentioned this album was full of like good straight ahead, yeah guitar songs, but you know, Open Seas and Give Me the Sun. There's just a lot of really really sharp songs. Can you talk about the first single in.
Front of me now?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah.
So there's a story, there's a very specific story to the song, and it is that I was at home, I was vacuuming the house and I was wearing noise canceling headphones, and my wife came up the stairs and she said, could you fill the bath? I want to put some bleach in it and give it a good clean. Said it absolutely, So I start filling the bath. I put my noise canceling headphones back on, and I keep vacuuming, assuming, of course, that I will remember that I'm running a bath. Well I did not remember, and she came running up the stairs ten minutes later, yelling so.
That I would hear her what is happening.
And all our smoke alarms in the house were going off because I was I was flooding the kitchen from the bedroom upstairs.
Total utter disaster, to my great shame.
So I go into whatever action I can mop stop, try to turn off the smoke alarms. A few hours later, we get the power back on. Seems like everything's drying out. We stopped it in time. Nobody's mad, It's all okay. But I'm left with this cloud of feeling so dumb and disappointed and worried that this is my brain. You know, this is the brain I have to live with. It's the only one I've got. We'll do something like this unbelievable. And a couple of days later, I'm driving. I said, it's sort of an errand to do a couple hours drive and I'm trying to get out of this funk, and I start making a deal with myself. I say, the problem is I do too many things at once. I'm going to try and do one thing at a time. And this tears me up because you know, when you make a deal with yourself, it's kind of on on credit. You know, I'll feel better now because I'm promising myself that I'm going to do X, Y or Z and you know, ps that thing. And that song has kind of helped me multitask less, but only by like five percent, but still every every little bit helps, I guess. But so I started writing this song at the wheel, which is funny because that's the kind of multitasking too.
But I wrote more dangerous.
Well, I was definitely watching the.
Road, but somebody, yeah, no, I didn't.
I wasn't using a pen. I was just thinking about it. And I didn't get every line, but the concept absolutely. I used to be this while I was that. Now I'll do what's in front of me. Now, Yeah, that's it.
And there's something very joyful about that song. Yeah, but you're actually just going to take things as they come.
I think so, I think so, and just the yeah, and it's kind of a tumble, which is sort of fun.
Yeah, you've got a great rhyme with decembering. I can't remember what.
It yes in the middle of summer. I used to be haunting, not just remembering. In the middle of the summer, I was decembering.
Now, when you get an idea like that, are you just so eager to sit down because you just know the lyrics can be? Yeah, how far can I take this?
Yeah?
Totally, And I what I enjoyed doing.
I showed it to a couple of people, and I was just making up lyrics on the spot and always always messing up, you know, stumbling and out it because it's too fast to think of at least for me to think of a new words or concept every few seconds. But it was just fun to think that it could be anything. You know, I used to be cleaning when I was dreaming, or I used to be eating when I was sweeping, or you know.
Yeah, it almost feels like like one of the old list songs like Johnny Cash is I've been everywhere or something like that that just like goes through the whole.
I love a list song.
Yes, yeah, so tell me about the song Losing.
That is by Louis Leno, our keyboard player. And we were at Daniel's house where we have band practice, and we were waiting for everybody to show up and just playing each other stuff, you know, tracks or demos on our laptops, and he played me that and.
Just I was floored.
I loved the chorus right away, really really loved it, and asked him if he wouldn't mind, you know, contributing it to the band, which means, you know, splitting the writing and stuff, because we're kind of a collective that way, right, no matter who writes. And yeah, he was into it, and I was thrilled. And hats off to John Goodminson who makes this record, because he managed to make sense.
Out of a whole.
I recorded a lot of kind of my bloody Valentine knee early teenage fan club me string bendi whiny stuff, which is a real mess, but he managed to kind of corral it into something that still works.
You're not a big string bender.
But that's yeah, No, I'm not usually you did on.
That and second Skin, which is the song that leads the album.
Yeah, that's one of the ones I wrote early in the morning. And it's just like the idea of those times in life where I felt I was hiding some thing or trying to present a certain way, you know, which is not a lot. I've had a lot to hide, but you know, I still have those moments and just not feeling good in your in your skin. Yeah, and just about that and about how I've started to feel better. So it's kind of you know, chronicling that a little bit and searching for better ways to feel.
What is it?
I tried so many new and old ways to die and self improve, from divining with dead sticks to fall in yogi hot moves.
That's like, you know, doing hot yoga for a while.
And then just making friends with that skin. Or maybe it's mine. Maybe this is my brand new skin. Maybe maybe I'm not hiding anything, maybe I'm just maybe I'm just me and maybe I'm just here.
Yeah.
And the last song on the album, Oh there's the loveliest lovely.
Song, Oh Thanks, And that's kind of a in a really Fisher Price my first Riff kind of way, is an attempt at kind of a baroque feel, the way that line kind of drips down, you know, on one finger moves, then the other finger moves when the one finger stays, et cetera. Which I love those moments at the end of bock Pieces where he hits the final chord and then but then there's still some little modulations inside it, some little changes inside. I find that really thrilling. And then the rest is another kind of looking for piece song.
Well, it is a very optimistic, great sounding record.
Thank you.
Do you want to play another song from it?
Sure? Can I play in front of me now?
Shure? Absolutely?
Okay, great, seeah, this goes.
I used to be dreaming when I was driving. I used to be leaving when I was a raving. I used to be calling when I was walking. I used to be thinking when I was talking. I used to be counting when I was sharing. I used to be blanking when I was staring. I used to be rolling when I was parking. I used to be raining when I was poking. To day, I do what's in front of me. Now to day, I do what's.
In front of me now.
I used to be stopping when I was trying. I used to be landing before I was flying. I used to be haunting, not just remembering. In the middle of summer, I was decembering, always rewriting when I was reading, but also doubting.
I was conceiving. I used to be dropping when I was collecting.
I used to be building when I was dissecting. I do what's in front of me now to day, I do what's in front of me, what's.
In front of me?
I do what's in front of me now. I used to be missing when I was kissing. Why wasn't a present? I could have been living. I used to be dodging when I was catching.
I used to be dying.
I could have been hatching. I used to be drowning when I was drinking. I was only masking. I could have been feeling. You used to surround me whenever you found me. I could have learned more from the friends around me. I used to be falling when I was leaning Catastrophe Carden. I could have been dreaming. I was Korean in looking for me that which I was relaxing. I could have been breathing today. I do what's in front of me now today.
I do what's in front.
I mean, Oh, there's too many lanes. There's too much to see in the frame at once. It's too much to contain. Oh, there's too much to rain. I can never explain it all too much for my friend. Do what's infront of me, what's in front of me?
Do what's in front of me.
Now, beautiful, Thank you so much for coming in.
Man, Thanks for having me, joy, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thanks to Matthew Calls for taking us inside his creative process. I'm Not a Serf's latest album, moon Mare. You can hear all of our favorite songs from a surf on a playlist in the episode description. You can find this episode, along with past episodes, on YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
