One-man band to perform tonight at Go Bar
By Julie Phillips | julie.phillips@onlineathens.com | Story updated at 12:58 am on 3/28/2009
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As Matt Kurz One, he hammers out on a full drum kit while playing guitar and keyboards, at the same time singing - and playing bass with his big toe.
What you first want to know about Matt Kurz is: How?
Because Kurz is the kind of artist who inspires as much for how he plays music as the music itself.
As Matt Kurz One, he hammers out on a full drum kit while playing guitar and keyboards, at the same time singing - and playing bass with his big toe.
Coordinated beyond belief sums it up. That the music is truly good makes him pretty much just amazing.
It all started in the basement of his broken dreams, when teenage bandmates dropped out of his early efforts to bring the rock. Most were lured away by drugs, he says, and either left their instruments at his parents' house in New York - where he held band practice in the basement - or sold them to him for dirt cheap so they could get out of debt.
As it goes, it worked out in the end just fine for Kurz, who'd taken up drums at the tender age of 8 or 9, he estimates. At about 11, he learned bass, and then not long after that, borrowed his brother's guitar to learn it, too. So maybe playing on his own wasn't all that much of a stretch.
"I've had different incarnations of a one-man band since I was about 18," Kurz says, adding he started with guitar and drums and added instruments along the way.
The bass, for instance, just sort of came to him a few years back: "I was playing the bass drum with my right foot, and I pedaled the snare drum with my left. And I just so happened to have my bass laying on the floor and I turned to reach for something ... and I looked at it and I was like 'Hmmm ...' " he says. "I started pounding my toe on it, and I found it to be a lot easier than I thought it would be."
He then flipped the snare drum around to hit it with his heel, he says. That worked, too.
It does take a lot of practice, though.
"To get to where I am now, doing walking bass lines - that took me a couple years," Kurz says, adding he's always pushing himself to play better. He worked up to playing the full drum kit, holding a drumstick in his fist while he strums the guitar.
Kurz moved to Athens in October 2006, after sharing a tour with Bomb the Music Industry that brought him here. "I fell in love with it," he says noting it was a mix of the architecture, the feeling of Athens' being a little metropolitan and small-town at the same time, and the positive response he got from that first show.
Last year, he took time off from touring to work on his music, and ended up recording two albums - a solo album, in which he plays the instruments individually, to be released later this year, and "Debt Sounds," as Matt Kurz One (playing the instruments at the same time). He celebrates the release of "Debt Sounds" tonight at the Go Bar.
Not surprisingly, Kurz has started his own record label, Team Lincoln, named for his interest in the 16th president, and his inspiration for being an independent. "Debt Sounds" will be Team Lincoln's first release - and he says he hopes to grow it, to help other musicians along the way.
As for his own sound, he says being a one-man band generates attention for him, but most important to him is bettering himself as a musician.
"The novelty aspect allows me to get in doors I wouldn't be able to get into otherwise - playing shows with metal bands, ska bands, indie bands - because nobody can pigeon-hole me because of the novelty aspect. It works pretty well for me. ... But it's only gonna carry you so far," he says.
When people stick around for the whole show - that's the payoff.
"The compliment that means the most is, 'It's cool that you can do that, but I love your music.' That makes my soul happy."