The Matches: Distinguished Gentlemen

By Fringe Staff

By Eric Davis

When it comes to live shows there are three kinds of bands: the ones who don’t quite sound as good as their records, the ones who sound the same and the ones who’s live show is beyond what can be captured on tape. Oakland’s The Matches fall into group three.

Not many bands out there can (or will) give the fans in the crowd their its, but The Matches gave, and gave, and gave. The band members were drenched in sweat and had their chests heaving after the first song. The energy, stage prowling, and bands’ smiling faces never flickered off for a moment. The Matches were happy to be up there, happy you came, and happy to prove it.

It’s hard to describe what type of music these young men play, they’re extremely dverse. Trust me, it’s good. The artistic leap forward that Jon Devoto (lead guitar/backup vocals), Shawn Harris (rhythm guitar/vocals), Justin San Souci (bass/ backup vocals), and Matt Whalen (drums) have made between their first record “E. Von Dahl Killed The Locals” and their latest, “Decomposer”, shows that these young lads Bay (the bands ages range from 20 to 24) from the East are going to be the band to watch.

This is probably the reason Epitaph Records has them headlining the Epitaph tour this year. We caught up with lead singer Shawn Harris back stage and we were able to ask him a few questions before he and his band mates hit the stage and proved that they were a band worth the hype.

FRINGE: You guys worked nine different producers on this album, most of them being highly respected artist and musicians in there own right — Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion, Tim Armstrong of Rancid, Mark Hoppus of Blink 182 and plus 44, John Feldmann of Goldfinger, Nick Hexum of 311, Divine Genius Productions, MattRadosevich of Taking Back Sunday, Mike Green and Miles Hurwitz — you’d think with that many different types of brilliance on one project, you’d end up with a record that was all over the place, in a BAD way.

However, just the opposite happens on the bands new record. How did you manage to keep all those forces balanced?

HARRIS: I think it came out all over the place in a good way. Using that many producers wouldn’t have worked with just any set of songs that we have ever written. The theme of the tracks that were coming together when we were demoing the record was a snap shot of our new found gypsy life, if you will. We recorded our first album in garages and basements in the bay. We signed to Epitaph Records and suddenly we’re kinda through out into the van and on to the highways, a different city every night, scraping-by by sleeping on different peoples floors. So, all the songs were constructed in various places, even different countries. We went over seas a number of times during our first record. I can’t think of two songs that were written in the same place really. We also met a great more deal of people from around the world and absorbed a lot. I feel this record is written from less of one voice than we’ve done before. It feels like it’s speaking from a collection of different stand points, especially the lyrics. So, working with so many producers made sense to do on this one.

FRINGE: Did you know what producer you wanted to work on each song or did they pick?

HARRIS: When we were beginning the process of pick a producer to do the record with we were feeling confined and caged by having to select a (single) producer. We had a lot of options from all the touring and meeting a lot of people we wanted to work with. We love the style of all those guys but wanted the record to be broader. We had about thirty demos for the album and sent them all out to the guys we wanted to work with. A few weeks later each producer got back to us with the different tracks they wanted to do. We had an idea of who we wanted to work on each song and most of them turned out to want the songs we imagined them doing.

FRINGE: I keep hearing the term “commotion promotion” in the press about you. What is that?

HARRIS: That’s our cute little term for playing outside of shows. When we began promoting ourselves, flyers weren’t working out for us, they would just end up in the gutter. The problem there is you need people to recognize your band name. We were just a local band that wasn’t playing big shows, no one knew who we were. So, we started taking our acoustics and playing outside of big shows, like playing outside of the Warfield during an Alkaline Trio show. So, as the fans started to exit the building we were outside playing and yelping, running around. That coupled with flyers got us some name recognition. Name recognition is what you need to get the ball rolling. We did that for a few times a week for a couple years while we were building up and starting to sell out local shows. We’d play UC Berkley, Telegraph, outside of record stores. It became something we were known for. To stop doing it didn’t feel right. We still do it on national tours. At first it was just a promotional tool but now it’s something that sets up apart from other bands. It helps us to keep building.

FRINGE: A lot of big names in the music industry seem to be championing your band. There is a lot of talk about The Matches being the next important thing in music. It’s almost as if you’re being asked to pick up and carry the banner of East Bay punk. How does that make you feel, being such a young band or does it feel that way to you guys?

HARRIS: I never thought about it that way. If we weren’t so far along on our next album already we might feel a lot of pressure. I escape that by constantly writing. We try to surround ourselves with bands that are better than us. To be around people who can do what we do better than we do it. It helps to have the bar high, to feel like you’re not on the top of the hill or the top of your game, and I don’t feel we are. I think we have so far to go before we are writing the greatest songs we are going to write.