Matt Andersen plays a solo acoustic set at Radio Heartland
by Mike Pengra
June 10, 2022
It’s been over two years since we’ve had the opportunity to have a live musical guest in the Radio Heartland studio, and so booking our first, Canadian musician Matt Andersen, and actually seeing it through was a magical experience.
Matt Andersen is Juno Award-nominated musician originally from New Brunswick and now based in Nova Scotia. He has been touring the world for the past 20 years or so with his powerhouse vocals and amazing rhythm and blues band, but his 15th and most recent album, “House to House,” is a little different. He recorded the record on his property with his musical friends all in the room with him. And he based his songs on the acoustic guitar, rather than the electric licks his audience is used to.
The result: true roots music with a little gospel flair, perhaps … and a pleasure to listen to.
Matt Andersen was “Live Guest Number 1” for Radio Heartland since the start of the COVID pandemic. And what a way to start!
Songs Played
“Coal Mining Blues”
”Other Side of Goodbye”
”See This Through”
All songs are from Matt Andersen’s 2022 album, House To House, available on Sonic Records.
Interview Transcript
Edited for clarity.
Mike Pengra: That's Matt Andersen live in the radio Heartland studio today a song from his latest album House to House. It's called “Coal Mining Blues.” Matt, welcome.
Matt Andersen: Thanks for having me.
Mike Pengra: It's really nice to meet you. And it's so, it's so good to be speaking to a live musician again in the studio, it's been so long!
Matt Andersen: I know, we're still around. I know, we didn't go away.
Mike Pengra: Yeah, after two years of the pandemic, we haven't had live guests in the studio. So you're my very first after two years.
Matt Andersen: I'm happy to be your first.
Mike Pengra: Me too. So you are from eastern Canada; New Brunswick, to be exact. Wrapping up to the kind of the U.S. leg of a 2023 tour. And so welcome, and thanks for being willing to come in and be our first guest. This is the best part of my job is to talk with live musicians ... versus dead. But talking to musicians live in the studio and having a conversation about this album, which is different than your last albums. House to House came out this last winter; it has a much different vibe than your previous record. Can you tell me about that?
Matt Andersen: Yeah, I mean, most people that normally is a solo performer, but every time I've gone to the studio, it's always been a bad thing. You know, I think a lot of that was, I don't know, it's fun to be able to go into it and do things in the studio that you can't do live, and touring with a band always isn't an option. And also, I think just lots of stations and that kind of stuff don't play solo acts you know? So to kind of how I'd get some love that way, and we always went with the band, but I love doing the solo show. You know it's definitely it's been my bread and butter but also it's where I'm most comfortable. So it was... kind of made sense. There's a studio that I built over the pandemic at my house; we converted a garage into a studio. It started as a humble little space to work and then it turned into a rather extravagant bit of work! But yeah, so I just decided it was time to do a solo thing, so I just throw on the slippers and went across the driveway and pushed "record"; kept it pretty simple.
Mike Pengra: The record has some backup vocals on it some other instruments, they're all done in your studio at the same time?
Matt Andersen: Everything's done live off the floor. Yeah, that's how I wanted to do it. I didn't do a whole lot of pre production. A lot of the songs I didn't really know the words to, I just had them there to keep it as fresh as possible. I find, for me, if I go in and know things too well, it starts to sound comfortable. And I think that's the worst thing you can do. So I'd rather, I like that spontaneity of, you know, being on your toes and kind of catching that energy as much as we could.
Mike Pengra: So this album, as I mentioned, has a different feel. It's just the, the solo stuff, the acoustic stuff. I'm used to hearing you with an electric guitar and with a big band and the horns and everything. Is it a different recording with that this way? Feel different singing that way?
Matt Andersen: I mean, the freedom of not having to think about anybody else but myself. And then no think about myself at all, I mean, it was definitely a pretty freeing way to record. But it was, ya know, I approach things the same way with a band, you know, I don't rehearse my band when I go in. The last album we did we just did a login, live off the floor and just kind of let all the people react. But as far as the approach, and the studio, it was just really relaxed, I guess. Had one of my wife's friends come over to engineer. We'd have coffee, have a lunch and then just sneak over to the studio when we felt like it. There was no, there was no schedule; we had three days to do 12 songs. So it was like, it was nothing. It was just a no pressure way to record. And you know, I always hear the stories of these bands will go into the studio for weeks on end. And I thought wow, what a luxury to not have any pressure of time and that kind of stuff hanging over your head. And at home, I didn't. You know, if we felt like having a cigar, we'd go have a cigar, come back in and sing. And it was it was a pretty fantastic way to create.
Mike Pengra: There was a quote I read from you and another interview, it talked about this new record. It said "big and strong isn't big and strong if you don't have a quiet moment to compare it to."
Matt Andersen: Yeah, I mean, that's one of my favorite things of a lot of my favorite albums. They always have one moment where they strip everything back and do something quiet, like Bonnie Raitt always has a solo acoustic tune whether it's you know, "Love Has No Pride" or you know, "Louise" or something like that, you know, where it just kind of sucks you in. And it's just, those moments are some of my favorite moments live too, you know, I'm kind of known as the guy who belts and screams and, and makes a lot of racket, and then I find that loses its impact if you just do that song after song after song after song. But if you give three or four of those, then pull it back to nothing, it sucks people right in. And it's kind of one of my little stage tricks, I guess. You know, really, if people are paying attention, say nothing, and they'll seem to pay more attention to you.
Mike Pengra: I'm talking with Matt Andersen in the studio today. Matt's from Canada. His new album is called House to House. It came out this winter. We just heard the "Coal Mining Blues"; this is a song called "The Other Side of Goodbye" you're going to do next. Tell me about this song.
Matt Andersen: I wrote the song with a neighbor of mine, Terra Spencer, our first time writing together I think this was a — this might have been a Zoom write, I think, if I remember, you know, we were kind of all settling into that mode over over the pandemic.
Mike Pengra: Tell me about it!
Matt Andersen: And she had a good bit of it done, and it's, I love the kind of groove that we had in our heads, and and we finished it up together and it's breakup song, and I love breakup songs. I was feel like, you know, I love having breakup songs in my show; either makes people cry because they're in one or they've gone through one. We've all had those moments.
Mike Pengra: Exactly. And I think that's part of your recent history too. Right? Did you suffers some personal loss recently?
Matt Andersen: Um, no, I mean, I had a breakup eight years ago but I'm, I'm well over that one now at this point.
Mike Pengra: Yeah, eight years.
Matt Andersen: Well, it's still good for solid material!
Mike Pengra: This is Matt Andersen live in the studio. The song is called "Other Side of Goodbye" here on Radio Heartland.
"Other Side of Goodbye" is the name of that track from Matt Andersen recorded live in our studio here on Radio Heartland. One of the songs from your album that we have on rotation. The album is called House To House. Beautiful, beautiful song there. We talked about you recording in your home studio and also doing this kind of song, live, these kinds of more acoustic songs. Do you ever step away from the microphone and step out into the audience and do a song?
Matt Andersen: I'm not coordinated enough for that, but I've stepped away from the microphone quite a bit. You can usually feel if the room is gonna be able to handle that kind of a thing. And sometimes in a space that's really big, you might get lost, but you know, in rooms that can handle it, I love stepping away from the mic and just hearing how they were... You know, a lot of the rooms we play, especially if you're playing like an old opera house in a town or something like that, they were designed for acoustic and no amplification. You know, they're designed for that one person up front to go out and sing. And churches are great for that, old churches, a lot of people use, I mean, it was meant for the pulpit and everybody to hear that, so when I've got the room for it, I take advantage of it.
Mike Pengra: If they could just serve drinks.
Matt Andersen: Yeah, sometimes the can! Yeah.
Mike Pengra: Did you grow up singing in a church or anything? You sound like you have a really gospel-y voice.
Matt Andersen: I love that kind of stuff. When I grew up, my mom played organ in church, and lots of old country in the house, and a lot of the stuff I listened to as well, like lots of old Sam Cooke, Otis Redding or Al Green or any of that kind of stuff. Even like you know, the white artists I listen to, like Van Morrison or Joe Cocker. They were all inspired by that music, and that's the kind of stuff that kind of gets me going. So I definitely it seeped its way into my throat eventually.
Mike Pengra: Would you do this kind of album again?
Matt Andersen: Yeah, absolutely! I mean, I still love doing the solo shows. And this one I kind of almost dedicated to the quiet moments in the shows, I think, somewhat. It's pretty pretty laid back. I'd love to do one that's more like my live shows and have a little bit more oomph in it, I guess. But, you know, a lot of these songs were sitting on the shelf because I never quite fit into the band album. So they were just, I wanted to record them but they'd never had the right project, so I made a project specifically for them.
Mike Pengra: Matt Andersen is my guest today in the studio. House to House is the name of his latest album that came out this past winter. Matt, what is what is next for you? This is the end of your U.S. tour for a while anyway then what's next?
Matt Andersen: Yeah, then we've got some stuff that kind of came in through the summer; you know, it's it's gonna be a weird year, I think, because everybody wants to play, from the top to the bottom. Everybody's back on the road, which is great. But it's it's kind of left a bit of a bottleneck, I think, and lots of gigs are still being honored from a couple years ago. So it's a different summer, but there's lots that's coming in. And then I've got two months coming up in Europe and in the U.K. in the fall. And then next year, I think we're going to have a band album that's already in the can we recorded last year is going to, I don't know, we'll take the band on the road.
Mike Pengra: Great. Excellent. Matt, thank you so much for coming in.
Matt Andersen: Thanks for having me in.
Mike Pengra: And being our guinea pig, our very first live guest in two years. Matt Andersen is my guest, and you're going to close out with another song here called "See This Through." Tell me about this song.
Matt Andersen: Ah... so I think a lot of us over the last while have seen difference of opinions popping up on many topics, and some people don't express their opinions all that gently. And I think it led to a lot of people kind of putting up walls of "if you don't agree with me then we can't hang out anymore." And there's a lot of folks who I don't agree with that I don't want to put any walls up between, and this song was based around that idea that we can disagree and still be, still be friends.
Mike Pengra: We just disagree.
Matt Andersen: We just disagree. Absolutely.
Mike Pengra: This is Matt Andersen live in the studio on Radio Heartland.
Credits
Hosted by Mike Pengra
Engineered by Craig Thorson
Visuals by Eric Romani
Digital production by Luke Taylor
External Link
Matt Andersen - official site