Matty Lewis - Zebrahead (09/11/2012)
Set to return to our shores for a massive tour with Reel Big Fish and Goldfinger, we chat with Matty Lewis of Zebrahead about everything from Soundwave to Sonic The Hedgehog, all while his puppy interrupts the conversation…
Hey, how are you?
Matt! I'm great. How are you doing, buddy?
I'm good.
Sorry, hold on, I have a puppy and she's eating a toy and making a lot of noise.
OK, go ahead, I'm ready now.
That's ok. So you must be pretty excited to be coming back to Australia so soon (after Soundwave)?
Yes, we are excited because we had such a great time last time and I thought we were going to have to wait until our new record came out before we came back. We're especially excited because these will be our first club shows in Australia so it's gonna be a little different. We're excited for that, we're excited to be coming back but next time we are gonna be doing our own shows. It's kinda like you do the festival first, then the tour with another band and then you do a headline tour. We're really stoked.
There is definitely a lot of fans hanging for you to do a headline tour so hopefully that is on the horizon.
*Matty proceeds to tell his puppy off again*
Sorry about that. Yeah it definitely is. It's gonna have to happen after the new record of course but it's definitely happening.
Are you currently working on the new album?
Yeah we are. I had surgery in August and wasn't able to play the guitar for about a month and I'm still recovering but just before that I wrote a bunch of songs and we all got together and wrote some more songs so we're almost at the point of going into the studio.
That's pretty exciting then. What happened for you to need surgery?
*Matty proceeds to tell his puppy off again*
Sorry, sorry.
All good, mate.
So I played baseball all through college, up until last year in fact and I think the wear and tear and when I play guitar I get a little carried away so I'm just getting old, probably. But what they did was there is this thing called the labrum in the shoulder and they had to reattach it to the bone so it was pretty gnarly.
You're all alright now?
I'm about 80 percent so I'm almost there and I'll definitely be fine for our shows when we are down there.
So have you toured with Reel Big Fish and Goldfinger before?
We have toured with Reel Big Fish and Goldfinger so many times I cannot count I swear to God *laughs* Honestly we have toured with them so many times but it's great because we're all close friends so it's gonna be like old times again. It's always fun with those guys.
For those that don't know, how did you actually join Zebrahead because you aren't the original singer.
No, uh uh. I joined around 2004. I was in another band (Jank 1000) and we just toured around the States and our band broke up and around that time Zebrahead kicked out their singer. Ed (Udhus) our drummer and Ben (Osmundson) our bassist were going to do studio work for my solo project and while I was there they just said I should try out for Zebrahead so I said ok but I didn't have any of their CD's or anything so my manager sent me out all of their CD's and I learnt all of their songs and the rest is history.
What were the highlights of Soundwave?
All the shows. I know that's the generic answer but honestly the shows and the crowds were amazing! They were all fantastic. I was only expecting maybe 50 to 100 kids at each show but we got way more at each show and we were so stoked that our first time there was so successful. Other than that the country itself was beautiful. The people were awesome. The beaches were fantastic! Actually, I even got in the water and I hate water, I mean I'm not from anywhere near beaches and I got in there, pretty deep too. I even surprised myself. It was pretty awesome. You have a beautiful country.
Thank you. I saw your show in Sydney and you guys are just so energetic live, it was one of the highlights of the day for me.
Oh, awesome! Thank you. What we lack in talent we make up in enthusiasm. *laughs*
*laughs* I've gotta ask about the 'Panty Raid' covers album, where did that idea come from?
It's one of those things where we've never done a cover song before and we were thinking of doing one, and we could have just done a few regular cover songs but we decided to do all girls songs and give it a funny name and it worked, I mean I'm not sure if the songs work but we had fun doing it. It was around that time we moved the studio we used into our own studio so we had the studio in the studio so to speak so we could just record all day and night if we wanted to. It was great, we had a lot of fun with it.
What about Avril Lavigne's 'Girlfriend'? You guys did that take for take in the clip, that must have been a lot of fun what made you decide to do it that way?
*laughs* That was the most fun I've ever had in a music video. The idea came from our director and we did it at all the exact same places that she went to. The putt-putt golf place we rented it out for like 6 hours and we ended up having some down time where we got to ride the go-karts for something like 3 hours, it was awesome. That was the best day of filming. Although I had to dress like a girl so that kinda sucked.
*laughs* I bet you loved it!
*laughs* I keep it in my closet. My wife, she'll never know.
I'll keep it secret, don't you worry.
*laughs*
What was it like to be asked by Sega to record a song for one of the Sonic The Hedgehog games?
That was really cool. It was a while ago, I'm trying to remember. First of all Ali (Tabatabaee, vocals) and I did the vocals on a track that they wrote and then as a band we kinda covered that song, like made it our own I guess. That was really great. To see the song in the game was really cool. We did a song for the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) which was pretty awesome too.
Who would you say are your biggest influences?
Well I answer this question a lot and a lot of people think that I am joking but I'm not because when I was younger they pretty much influenced how I wanted to play. I'm talking about Cheap Trick, Van Halen and uh, don't laugh, Loverboy and Huey Lewis is probably one of my favourites.
*laughs* Didn't expect that.
*laughs*
What about new bands?
Yeah there's the band called uhh....Zebrahead? Something like that anyway but yeah they go alright.
Yeah I've heard they go alright.
*laughs* As for new music it's tough because I'm around new music all the time and there aren't a lot of good new bands.
What about Australian bands?
My favourite Australian band of all time is The Living End. I always wonder why they aren't bigger because they are just amazing musicians, right?
Absolutely!
They shred the guitar, shred bass, shred drums. They just shred and I'm just not really sure why they aren't really big but we appreciate them and I'm sure they appreciate being appreciated. They are one of my all time favourite bands by far.
They are absolutely an amazing band.
Without a doubt!
What is your favourite song to play live?
I always love playing 'Playmate of The Year' because you can get everybody to put up their middle finger and say fuck or when we get them to yell out whatever word for vagina they have like minge or bushy. It's always a good time, especially funny when there are Mum's in the crowd with their little kids so yeah, it's always great *laughs*
*laughs*Sounds it! What do you like to get up to in your time off?
I play ice hockey where I'm a goalie. I play a lot of ice hockey actually. I used to play baseball of course but unfortunately not anymore because of my shoulder. Other than that I just hang out with my 2 dogs and watch TV. I drink a lot of beer, like I mean a lot of beer *laughs* And I write other types of songs and yeah....that's about it. I know it's pretty boring but don't tell my wife that that's pretty much what I do all day *laughs*
One last question: what is the best thing about being in Zebrahead?
That's easy, the best thing about being in Zebrahead is free beer.
*laughs* Good answer.
*laughs* Yeah, it's great.
Alright well we'll wrap it up there, thanks for your time.
Just one last thing. I just wanna thank all the fans there in Australia. We can't wait to be down again and hopefully they all come and see us again and if it's your first time hopefully you have as much fun as we do on stage.
I bet they will. It's been a pleasure.
Awesome, thanks a lot, Matt.
No worries, mate. Bye
Matt Barton
Hey, how are you?
Matt! I'm great. How are you doing, buddy?
I'm good.
Sorry, hold on, I have a puppy and she's eating a toy and making a lot of noise.
OK, go ahead, I'm ready now.
That's ok. So you must be pretty excited to be coming back to Australia so soon (after Soundwave)?
Yes, we are excited because we had such a great time last time and I thought we were going to have to wait until our new record came out before we came back. We're especially excited because these will be our first club shows in Australia so it's gonna be a little different. We're excited for that, we're excited to be coming back but next time we are gonna be doing our own shows. It's kinda like you do the festival first, then the tour with another band and then you do a headline tour. We're really stoked.
There is definitely a lot of fans hanging for you to do a headline tour so hopefully that is on the horizon.
*Matty proceeds to tell his puppy off again*
Sorry about that. Yeah it definitely is. It's gonna have to happen after the new record of course but it's definitely happening.
Are you currently working on the new album?
Yeah we are. I had surgery in August and wasn't able to play the guitar for about a month and I'm still recovering but just before that I wrote a bunch of songs and we all got together and wrote some more songs so we're almost at the point of going into the studio.
That's pretty exciting then. What happened for you to need surgery?
*Matty proceeds to tell his puppy off again*
Sorry, sorry.
All good, mate.
So I played baseball all through college, up until last year in fact and I think the wear and tear and when I play guitar I get a little carried away so I'm just getting old, probably. But what they did was there is this thing called the labrum in the shoulder and they had to reattach it to the bone so it was pretty gnarly.
You're all alright now?
I'm about 80 percent so I'm almost there and I'll definitely be fine for our shows when we are down there.
So have you toured with Reel Big Fish and Goldfinger before?
We have toured with Reel Big Fish and Goldfinger so many times I cannot count I swear to God *laughs* Honestly we have toured with them so many times but it's great because we're all close friends so it's gonna be like old times again. It's always fun with those guys.
For those that don't know, how did you actually join Zebrahead because you aren't the original singer.
No, uh uh. I joined around 2004. I was in another band (Jank 1000) and we just toured around the States and our band broke up and around that time Zebrahead kicked out their singer. Ed (Udhus) our drummer and Ben (Osmundson) our bassist were going to do studio work for my solo project and while I was there they just said I should try out for Zebrahead so I said ok but I didn't have any of their CD's or anything so my manager sent me out all of their CD's and I learnt all of their songs and the rest is history.
What were the highlights of Soundwave?
All the shows. I know that's the generic answer but honestly the shows and the crowds were amazing! They were all fantastic. I was only expecting maybe 50 to 100 kids at each show but we got way more at each show and we were so stoked that our first time there was so successful. Other than that the country itself was beautiful. The people were awesome. The beaches were fantastic! Actually, I even got in the water and I hate water, I mean I'm not from anywhere near beaches and I got in there, pretty deep too. I even surprised myself. It was pretty awesome. You have a beautiful country.
Thank you. I saw your show in Sydney and you guys are just so energetic live, it was one of the highlights of the day for me.
Oh, awesome! Thank you. What we lack in talent we make up in enthusiasm. *laughs*
*laughs* I've gotta ask about the 'Panty Raid' covers album, where did that idea come from?
It's one of those things where we've never done a cover song before and we were thinking of doing one, and we could have just done a few regular cover songs but we decided to do all girls songs and give it a funny name and it worked, I mean I'm not sure if the songs work but we had fun doing it. It was around that time we moved the studio we used into our own studio so we had the studio in the studio so to speak so we could just record all day and night if we wanted to. It was great, we had a lot of fun with it.
What about Avril Lavigne's 'Girlfriend'? You guys did that take for take in the clip, that must have been a lot of fun what made you decide to do it that way?
*laughs* That was the most fun I've ever had in a music video. The idea came from our director and we did it at all the exact same places that she went to. The putt-putt golf place we rented it out for like 6 hours and we ended up having some down time where we got to ride the go-karts for something like 3 hours, it was awesome. That was the best day of filming. Although I had to dress like a girl so that kinda sucked.
*laughs* I bet you loved it!
*laughs* I keep it in my closet. My wife, she'll never know.
I'll keep it secret, don't you worry.
*laughs*
What was it like to be asked by Sega to record a song for one of the Sonic The Hedgehog games?
That was really cool. It was a while ago, I'm trying to remember. First of all Ali (Tabatabaee, vocals) and I did the vocals on a track that they wrote and then as a band we kinda covered that song, like made it our own I guess. That was really great. To see the song in the game was really cool. We did a song for the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) which was pretty awesome too.
Who would you say are your biggest influences?
Well I answer this question a lot and a lot of people think that I am joking but I'm not because when I was younger they pretty much influenced how I wanted to play. I'm talking about Cheap Trick, Van Halen and uh, don't laugh, Loverboy and Huey Lewis is probably one of my favourites.
*laughs* Didn't expect that.
*laughs*
What about new bands?
Yeah there's the band called uhh....Zebrahead? Something like that anyway but yeah they go alright.
Yeah I've heard they go alright.
*laughs* As for new music it's tough because I'm around new music all the time and there aren't a lot of good new bands.
What about Australian bands?
My favourite Australian band of all time is The Living End. I always wonder why they aren't bigger because they are just amazing musicians, right?
Absolutely!
They shred the guitar, shred bass, shred drums. They just shred and I'm just not really sure why they aren't really big but we appreciate them and I'm sure they appreciate being appreciated. They are one of my all time favourite bands by far.
They are absolutely an amazing band.
Without a doubt!
What is your favourite song to play live?
I always love playing 'Playmate of The Year' because you can get everybody to put up their middle finger and say fuck or when we get them to yell out whatever word for vagina they have like minge or bushy. It's always a good time, especially funny when there are Mum's in the crowd with their little kids so yeah, it's always great *laughs*
*laughs*Sounds it! What do you like to get up to in your time off?
I play ice hockey where I'm a goalie. I play a lot of ice hockey actually. I used to play baseball of course but unfortunately not anymore because of my shoulder. Other than that I just hang out with my 2 dogs and watch TV. I drink a lot of beer, like I mean a lot of beer *laughs* And I write other types of songs and yeah....that's about it. I know it's pretty boring but don't tell my wife that that's pretty much what I do all day *laughs*
One last question: what is the best thing about being in Zebrahead?
That's easy, the best thing about being in Zebrahead is free beer.
*laughs* Good answer.
*laughs* Yeah, it's great.
Alright well we'll wrap it up there, thanks for your time.
Just one last thing. I just wanna thank all the fans there in Australia. We can't wait to be down again and hopefully they all come and see us again and if it's your first time hopefully you have as much fun as we do on stage.
I bet they will. It's been a pleasure.
Awesome, thanks a lot, Matt.
No worries, mate. Bye
Matt Barton