MusicPix: You guys have weathered the storm… The phrase 'out of the ashes rises a phoenix' is pretty appropriate given your success through years of adversity. I applaud your talent, energy, and intestinal fortitude and mostly, how you work hard to capture one fan at a time. It shows your love and appreciation for what you do and above all, the music that you make.

Mat: Thank you

MusicPix: To kick things off, I'd like to show you a picture since you've been searching for Michael Stipe [Musicpix hands Mat a pix of Stipe & Steve Mitchell (founder or MusicPix) taken prior to prior to a Patti Smith show in Los Angeles in 1996.]

Mat: Oh Wow…that's one of my heroes. How did you find out about that? (meaning his quest/search for Michael Stipe.)

MusicPix: Through our research we discovered that you're a bit obsessed with Michael Stipe…can you talk about that?

Mat: I'm not obsessed with Michael Stipe… I just really appreciate his work. As I was growing up, REM was one of those few bands whose albums I collected. He kind of was the archetype for what I wanted to become…an art student, a film student, a poet and I think he's the reason why I wanted to study film in college…picking up video cameras in thrift stores and shooting in cemeteries. It's not nearly an obsession but a pure appreciation for him. He's definitely a big influence on me.

MusicPix: Given the challenges that your band has experienced, you must buy into the philosophy that everything happens for a reason. What have you learned from this experience?

Mat: I go back and forth on that philosophy. It's a nice thing to believe because how else do you justify still being poor after nine years of hard work. Is this in the plan? Is this in the stars? Is this how it's supposed to happen? In one sense, I find it to be valid because I've been just as impatient as the day I started the band as I am now because I've always wanted more. I was never quite satisfied. I've always wanted success and I've always wanted people around the world to hear our songs. Even from day one, we put out a CD independently. We shot professional photos for it. We really thought of ourselves as more than a local band. I was so impatient then. I kept saying 'We're ready, we're ready…why aren't people listening? Why don't people care? Looking back, it's the best thing that we weren't taken seriously back then…that we didn't get a record deal because we would have self-destructed. There were a lot of things that we worked out with the personnel of the band. And also within myself, it took all those years of struggling on a local level to get to this point where we are qualified finally to perform on live TV and go on a major tour and be put into these high pressure situations that not everyone is cut out for. And we certainly weren't cut out for it. It's taken years of growth to be comfortable performing on this level. In that sense, I believe that things happen for a reason. That's why we weren't picked up..why it took so long. Then part of me thinks…If it's a part of a plan that means that someone came up with that plan and I don't believe that someone came up with that plan. So I'd like to think that my life is within my control because if it's just a part of a plan, then I guess I don't have to get in the van tomorrow and eat McDonalds three times a day.

MusicPix: Is that existential Mat coming out?

Mat: No, that's eight hours in a van with nothing to do…

MusicPix: We've been previewing your new album and we keyed into a cut entitled "Songs of My Life." Can you tell us what a few of those are?

Mat: The songs that saved my life…it's pretty literal. For me, it was when I was at the age when I didn't really know what was going on in my life…not that you ever outgrow that. But those formidable years where do don't have a girlfriend yet, and you don't know where you fit in and what you're supposed to do. And sometimes the people that relate to you are musicians or lyrists. So for me, it was the Smiths, Michael Stipe, REM, The Cure, Ride…and bands who I related to and strengthen the belief in me that I'm not the only one and there's something out there beyond the suburbs. Just those nights when no one really cares about you but you've got your tapes and your records.

MusicPix: We also really like "Lips Like Morphine."

Mat: Yeah, we shot a video for it on the Southside of Chicago in a steel mill in 16 hours. We left a show in Tempe and flew home after the show. We got into Chicago late late that night, talked with the director at the hotel about the video for a couple of hours…slept for about 5 hours and got up at 7 in the morning and drove to this abandoned steel mill and shot the video for 16 hours straight. WE got out in the middle of the night, crashed for a few hours and flew to the next show in Texas. It was a great experience. The video is awesome. Actually, I just found out today that it was voted 1 on FUSE. That's the single-the one everyone's getting behind.

MusicPix: The meaning of your name has been publicized but I'm wondering that rather than Kill Hannah you will actually keep her alive forever! However do you feel about that?

Mat: Yeah, starting about five years ago, the name to me wasn't nearly as relevant as it was when the band was formed. I actually thought about changing the name because people draw these conclusions based on the word 'kill' and that we must be a super heavy band or something…besides the fact that Hannah and I are friends again and she's living in Switzerland. But we had too much momentum to ever change the band name. To me now, I'm comforted in knowing, generally, that what the name stands for is an 'experience' that many can relate to…breaking up with someone and wanting that kind of revenge. I'm meeting people all the time now that think that it's a cool sounding name. But I DO know that when I named it, I could see it on the marquee. I thought about my favorite bands and the names of those bands. I could just see our name up there. Sometimes you can over-think things. That was me as an 18 year old. Even though I second guessed it, I place my faith in the vision that I had back then.

MusicPix: "Love You Death" sounds a lot like My Chemical Romance's "I'm Not Okay." We interviewed Gerald Way prior to their tour with Green Day last year and he talked a lot about his influences and they seem to match yours, i.e. The Smashing Pumpkins. You seem to have a lot in common with My Chemical Romance. Do you feel that way too?

Mat: It's funny… "Love You to Death" is a song that I had this dream about. I had a dream about where there was a band playing this song, Love You to Death, and there was a girl singing. In my dream, I thought this is a great pop song and was so catchy and I went up and talked to the band afterwards. I woke up and wrote it down and tried to fit that lyric and that kind of refrain into a song and I've been working on it for years.…the song went through tons of revisions and I finally worked it out to where I'm happy with it and it supports that vision. It's funny that you mention My Chemical Romance because we're actually friends with those guys and we have a lot of respect for them. We have more in common with them as a new band…more than any other new band. When I presented the song to Greg, the bassist in our band, he said 'Dude, that sounds like that My Chemical Romance song but not enough to be worried about it.' [SFX] Sound of Mat chewing on a veggie burrito…

So maybe the commonality between us is The Pumpkins. We're friends with MCR.. Actually Mikey, the bassist, was actually going to try out for our band and we've just stayed in contact with them. They're an amazing band.

MusicPix: How how did that relationship develop? Bob's from Chicago right?

Mat: Yeah, who I met once on the Warped Tour but I'd never really met him. But yeah, it's funny that two Smashing Pumpkins influenced bands wrote songs related to one another like that.

MusicPix: I love Chicago for many reasons….do you think you'll always call Chicago home?

Mat: My relationship with Chicago is very much like a marriage in the sense that it's the love of your life but it's not always perfect. Every winter I curse it and say it's my last time. But every tour, I appreciate it more and the happier I get to come home. It's not out of the question that someday I might move to LA for awhile or somewhere where the climate is more predictable. I've never been to Monte Carlo. It would be fun to go there. I just read and article about Monte Carlo…

MusicPix: Who are you making music for? It seems like you're writing from a very personal perspective and it's a therapeutic release for you. Or, is it that you realize important and relevant issues and try to craft those into your work?

Mat: That's a really good question. I think that all of those things play a role into why I write. Someone once told me that you always write for SOMEONE…whether it conscious or not, there's always SOMEONE you're thinking of when you're writing. It's probably true. In the case of this album, it was a lot of solitude. I was in the place where I was staying in front of a keyboard, in front of a guitar, in front of my computer for 12 hours a day after day after day. You're always throwing out ideas…noodling around with ideas. I came up with some stuff that I thought was great, some that I thought was bad, and you draw this threshold for taste for anyone else to hear. For me, where I set that threshold is really just thinking about my band mates. What are they going to think when I play this for them? Beyond that, I write from a place where it's for my band mates because they are my toughest critics. But in my heart, it comes from a place where I was when I was our fan's age. The letters and emails I get from people saying how much it matters to them… so I think a lot about them a lot too. I want to continue to matter to them.

MusicPix: The way you relate to your fans is certainly a part of your success as you're out there, even though you're signed, handing out fliers in the snow and doing the same things that brought you here.

Mat: It's worth it to me because I relate more to a 14 year old fan who likes us for the right reasons than I relate to adults or our peers.

MusicPix: We have a series of questions that we ask every artist we interview called the MusicPix Six:

MusicPix: What is the first musical instrument you played and at what age?

Mat: My parents forced me to take piano lessons when I was six and I dreaded it. So finally, my mom said, 'why are we paying for lessons if you hate it?' They gave me a chance. I started to get an ear and played the piano along with my parents records as a little kid…finding the notes that the vocalist was singing. They had the Eagles…they had like 4 records. The Best of the Carpenters, Chicago…I'd play along with those a lot. We always had a piano in our house. Then I took trumpet because my Dad played trumpet. I had to take it in grade school through high school and was in the marching band. I love the drums in the marching band… I loved the drums because they sounded so bad ass… "Louis- Louis"… I just loved that so I bought a drum kit from a friend and then I started… Are you interested in this? I'm not even interested in this...
My sister's boyfriend was taking electric guitar lessons and he taught me a couple of U2 songs. So at 14, I was taking guitar lessons. I just dabbled but I never really knew how to read sheet music or I never understood anything about theory. I just really loved it. My favorite thing on guitar, when I was in NY, beyond learning the blues scales, my teacher would have me bring in my favorite song once a week and I'd learn a new song. He would just figure it out and I'd learn a new song that I liked each week and that make it so much more enjoyable. I got results. I'd practice every week because I wanted to play the songs that I liked. At that point, it was Guns'n Roses… Paradise City and a couple of Faith No More songs…Sex Pistol's songs…Anarchy in the UK and things like that.

MusicPix: What artist/performer influenced you the most?

Mat: One, I would say it would be The Cure, Robert Smith.

MusicPix: We can tell by your hair cut…

Mat: I feel stupid saying that because my hair happens to look like his right now. Beyond that, I'm realizing more and more that I went through this period of Shoegazer bands like Ride and Cap & Wheel…. I'm realizing what an influence those bands had on me and still continue to. Vocal phrasing and lyrically… definitely like Michael Stipe, Smith, and a lot of Psychedelic Furs. But I do a lot of screaming and he never really did that.

MusicPix: If you weren't in your current band, what band would you like to play in?

Mat: I'd like to just play bass in a band. I don't want to think about the strategy of the band…the business of it…or my voice is going to break or my hair is going to look stupid. I'd love to be in a band like Muse or something where you just sit back and focus on the songs and enjoy the sounds and the instruments. That's saying if I was qualified…which I'm not.

MusicPix: What are your 3 'desert island' albums?

Mat: Metal Ballads Vol. 1… (Sarcastically laughing) I'd say The Cure-Standing on a Beach, Peter Gabriel-So, and U2-Joshua Tree. But if I could throw in the single, Cherry Pie by Warrant that would really balance it out.

MusicPix: Who do you think is the most over-rated in the music industry?

Mat: That's tough. I don't know. Who's popular right now?... I don't even know. All of those pop stars like Justin Timberlake, Christine Aguilera, and Britney Spears are all talented and they're awesome and I wouldn't consider them over rated. I think the entire genre of Rap is over rated beyond the really great stuff like Dr.Dre, Snoop, Tupac, and Nelly and 50 cent- they're all great. But just below that level, there are a ton of dudes just barkin' out lyrics and horrible sounds and singing about the same exact thing. But they are making so much more money than I am, so I've got to say that's over rated.

MusicPix: What's your 'perfect world?'

Mat: You mean like pick a planet in the solar system? I'll pick Pluto…

MusicPix: What's your utopia?

Mat: Like design utopia? That's a real loaded question because you have to be careful what you wish for. If you asked me that when I was 17, I would say that every single person is hyper-intelligent, with great taste and great style and perfect beauty, with all the similar interests, everyone is loaded and everyone has bands. But now, I've come to appreciate diversity and the way the world exists now. Looking back, I liked being one of two people in my high school who were into the bands I'm into. I've been to New York where I've found myself in a room with 50 people who look and act like I do and it's not that fun… laughing… hmmm Perfect world? It would be cool if I was able to travel and people would leave me alone when I wanted to be, and that my friends could travel…and it would be cool if I lived in a world when I ordered a cheese sandwich, people would know what it is and I wouldn't have to explain was it is and they wouldn't freak out and have to get a Manager. I wouldn't change much because I really like it. But I would change a few things like that. I could do without ignorant hillbillies and do without people in super rural areas of the country who can't comprehend what I'm trying to order… I wouldn't get into politics and wouldn't make any sweeping statements. I haven't had the time to invest time exploring big issues like that. I've always felt that I'm a victim of propaganda and I don't feel like I can make statements on the stuff I hear. I don't know Dude. I really like swimming in the ocean. I only get to do that once a year. A personal Chauffeur, a personal pilot for me and my friends, and unlimited supply of Red Bull and vodka. There's this place by my house called Al's Hot Dogs…if there was an Al's Hot Dogs on every corner. I would like to design a curriculum of tutors that would come and teach me everyday…I'd like to learn how to play Chess better. It would be cool if I had this staff around me so that each day, I would learn MORE instead of learning LESS which is happened every minute since I left college. I'd like to learn other languages. It would be cool if the teachers were hot girls, say ages 18-25 with nice bodies and smelled nice. All of it would be real expensive but in the perfect world, I wouldn't have to worry about that. All your bills would be paid. I like ice cream a lot.

MusicPix: How about eating burritos on top of a trash can?

Mat: A chef would be nice but I don't take a bite of this burrito for granted because I've had less. I've waited at a McDonalds for three hours once because the cashier told me she was going to give me a small French fries for free at the end of the shift. I waited until then end of the shift and she said she was just kidding. I waited because I didn't have the 85 cents for the French fries- so I've been there. I've dug under my friend's seat looking for change before. So every bite, even a burrito on a garbage can…I'm happy for it, but there's room to improve. Oh yeah, a bottle of Bordeaux.

MusicPix: Any particular year?

Mat: A '74... a Lafite-Rothschild.