Q. First, please briefly introduce yourself.
Matt Matt (hereinafter referred to as ‘Matt’): Hello. My name is Matt Matt.
Q. What was the first music you heard in your life? I’m curious about the oldest music I can remember.
Matt: I looked for it again recently. Long ago, I listened to songs that my dad played for me, like Na Hoon-ah’s “Hongsi” and Kim Chang-wan’s “Mother and Mackerel.” Also, thanks to my parents, I often listened to the music of folk artists like Kim Kwang-seok.
Q. So what kind of music did you listen to during your school days?
Matt: When I was in middle school, I mainly listened to what other people listened to. I remember hearing Huh Gak’s “Hello” often because it was so popular. Even when I was in high school, I heard a lot of artists around me like Dean and Crush, so I had the experience of listening to them together. Then, for the first time, I found and listened to the music of an artist called THEY. When I first heard it, I remember thinking, “Wow, what is this?” After listening to their music, I thought I should do something like this. So, I prepared for the Applied Music Department.
Q. When did you start preparing for the entrance exam?
Matt: I like singing, so I prepared for it for a while when I was in middle school and high school. I started in earnest around the end of my second or third year of high school. I worked so hard, but I took a leave of absence after only one semester. (laugh)
Q. What was the music you listened to most often while attending the Applied Music Department?
Matt: I listened to Jehwi’s “Dear Moon” very often. This is so good. I realized on a deeper level that there is a world like this. In addition, I often listened to foreign R&B. Besides, when you go to school, you can get to know many master artists through classes and other channels, right? So I listened to people like Tower of Power and Quincy Jones, and I really liked it. Earth, Wind & Fire was also good. I think I listened to a lot of that kind of music.
Q. There are representative real sounds and picks. (laugh)
Matt: It’s good music for ensembles. (Laughs) It was then that I realized that there was a world of band-based black music.
Q. great. Now I would like to talk about the wave table for a moment. First, please briefly introduce the members.
Matt: First of all, the team consists of a producer and singer named Pyung and two singers named SINJUN and TIVE. It seems like the three of us are from the same hometown. Because Iksan is such a small town, I didn’t have many friends who played music. So, if I did well, word spread throughout the neighborhood. Pyeong and Shin-jun are both good at singing, so I was introduced to them by a friend who suggested I meet them. This is a team we formed when we met when we were around 19 years old.
Q. What kind of music did Wavetable do?
Matt: Between us, we defined it as Korean pop music. There is a song that has the same vibe as Yoo Jae-ha. I also admired that kind of music and loved listening to it.
Q. That’s interesting. Can you tell us about what it was like working as a Tiv at Wavetable?
Matt: The identity of the wave table actually didn’t completely fit me. As a result, I didn’t take the lead. Of course, I also liked that kind of music, so I followed it. But THEY is the music I wanted. It was like contemporary R&B. The thought of wanting to do cool things with dark colors has always been stuck in my heart. In order to satisfy a desire that couldn’t be satisfied through Wave Table, I decided to release a regular album and go my own way, and I created an identity called Matt Matt.
Q. Why did you not use the original name?
Matt: I didn’t even want to use my original name. When you say “TIVE,” it should be read as “TIVE,” so no one read it as TIVE. It was a cute name, but it didn’t really appeal to me. So I came up with a new name.
Q. How did the name Matt come about?
Matt: Because I really like Matt Champion? I was thinking about the name “Matt~” because I thought it went well with the trucker image I was pursuing. There were truly stellar names as candidates. There were names that sounded like engineers, like “Matt Mirage,” and there was also “Matt Kim,” which was my last name. But there wasn’t anything I liked.
I thought I couldn’t build it, so I went to Otis Lim for advice. “Do you really want to do it as Matt?” He said. I said this is the only way to go. Then he said, “Then use mat twice and do mat mat.” That really stuck with me. It feels like “Minsu, Minsu.” Anyway, among the musicians active in Korea, there are all kinds of names. So I decided right away.
Q. Are there any anecdotes that occurred while producing the album?
Matt: We fought a lot. My other friends must have been very stressed too. What’s strange is that even though we fought and went through such hard times, we still remain friends. At the time, I think we thought each other’s ideas were unreasonable. When I think about it now, I have a stronger feeling that it could happen. I wonder how much he wanted it, how much he wanted to do it, and how strongly he would have pushed for it.
Q. What came to mind when I listened to the Wavetable album was that the colors of the three people were lumped together. If you layer rubber clay and keep kneading it, the colors will mix. Overall, Pyeong’s vibe was a bit strong, but the three people’s colors were united somehow.
Matt: Right. Overall, Pyeong and Shinjun’s colors were a bit big, but they somehow incorporated each other’s colors. Actually, I’m not sure what my two friends think of [Vegetable]. But what all three of us can say in common is that we tried to include all the things we liked at the time. When you listen to the album, all kinds of strange things come out. I think the album ended up like that because I tried to put a lot of things I liked into it.
Q. In this case, was the direction of production discussed between the three of you?
Matt: Since Pyeong is in charge of production, it’s inevitable that Pyeong’s color will shine through. Still, I think we tried to accommodate both of us as much as possible. Every week, the three of us wrote a draft, gathered in one place, and then gave feedback. I could see that Pyeong-i was trying to reflect what we wanted to do as much as possible. Since Pyeong was also the leader of the team, I think he was very considerate when he said, “I want to do something like this,” like, “It suits you well, so let’s go like this.”
Q. great. I saw Kang Mood’s name on the album. How did you meet this person?
Matt: That friend is a keyboardist and composer. I was originally close to Pyeong, so I got introduced to him and ended up joining the team. He is a friend who helped me more as a sessioner than as a performer. I received a lot of help in terms of chord progressions, voicing, and instrumental composition.
Q. So [Vegetable] wasn’t just made with pure MIDI? How did it work?
Matt: Some of it was done with MIDI, and some of it was recorded with real instruments in the studio. We also added upright piano and real drum sounds to the song.
Even when I was working, I didn’t set out what kind of music I wanted to make at first. I left it entirely to my senses. I made it without a beat by playing a metronome and writing a melody and recording it. I can’t play an instrument, I don’t know how to chords, but I know how to build harmony. So, I made a song by building up the harmony first, and when I gave it to Kang Mood, he said that it would be okay to add these chords and made it. I arranged it that way. We also wanted to know something about this song after making it, but it was nice to listen to. That’s why I paid it. Thanks to this, my friend who played the piano had a hard time. (laugh)
Q. It’s a truly extraordinary way of working. How did you meet Otis Lim?
Matt: First of all, Won Kim is from Iksan, the same place as me. Thanks to that, we didn’t visit each other often, but we knew each other’s names. At a time when I really wanted to make my own music, I heard that Won Kim was trying to do various things in the R&B field. I immediately contacted him saying he wanted to work together and sent him some of the themes I had written. In the process, Won Kim shared the theme I sent to Hyuntae and Otis Lim, and we got an offer to work together, so we started doing various things.
We did a lot of things together, but Hyuntae and Won Kim watched the production together. Otis, as a fellow player, gave me a lot of advice. It really helped me a lot.
Q. great. You participated in composing Otis Lim’s “Ti Amo” and “Don’t Call (feat. pH-1),” right? What part did you play?
Matt: I helped with the top line. I came up with an overall theme and sent it to Otis, who developed it.
Q. You were featured in “Your hands (Feat. matt matt),” one of the double singles jointly released by HAAN, SHIRT, and Gabriel, right? How did you get connected?
Matt: They contacted me when I released my second pre-release single. I was originally following all three of them. BLESSFOR contacted me saying that they were listening very well and that it would be good to take a look. We met and chatted and he said he wanted to ask me to feature, so I gladly accepted. It was an honor to work together, and I was grateful.
Q. What part did you focus on the most when working on “Your hands (Feat. matt matt)”?
Matt: I wanted to show that Matt is good too. First of all, Han and Gabriel are both people with really high abilities. In particular, Gabriel is a truly amazing person, including his discography. Since I am a complete rookie, it would be a success as long as I blend in well with those two people without any sense of heterogeneity. I did my best with the mindset of not causing any inconvenience.
Q. It’s really fun. Now, I’d like to talk a little about the regular album [MATT MATT]. You selected 3 songs from the album and released them as singles first, right? What criteria did you use to select the songs you selected as pre-release singles?
Matt: Actually my plan was to release two singles and an EP. But no matter how much I thought about it, it felt like the aura that an EP could give was lacking. First of all, the hyungs who helped me with the work did the same, but I think it is important for an artist to have work. So, we changed our direction to releasing 3 songs first and showing “I know how to do this too” before dropping the full album. So, I think it would be good if you thought that the three pre-released songs are the ones I can do best.
Q. I thought the album cover was really sensational too. Who worked on it?
Matt: I don’t know if he thinks so, but my best friend Kim Si-woo did it. A friend named Mud Kang introduced me to it. It came together so well. Even though the album cover was completed within an hour, it came out really amazing. I like this friend because he understands my needs really well.
Q. I really liked the unity between the album cover and the sound. Can you tell me what kind of music you wanted to make?
Matt: I’ve always loved the sound of musicians like Queen and Prince. In particular, I listened to Queen a lot, so much so that there wasn’t a song I didn’t listen to even after taking a leave of absence. Dominic Fike and Kevin Abstract, who are my favorite artists right now, are amazing, but Queen are just fundamentally crazy. I don’t think it was music that could have come out in this era. To the point where I think it should have come out in this era. In particular, I listened to [The Platinum Collection (2011 Remaster)] a lot. I especially wanted to do music like “Killer Queen.” I’m not even sure how this mix was possible at this time… Anyway, I think it’s really amazing. It’s a song I like so much that I listened to all of the remastered versions.
Q. It’s been quite a long time since you took a leave of absence, right? Can you tell us a little more about the music you often listen to?
Matt: I listened to a lot of Queen that I can’t remember, but when I think about it, I also listened to Lennon Stella’s “Older Than I Am” a lot. I also listened to a lot of Coldplay and Lizzy McAlpine. I started listening to rock music like that, and around 2021, I started listening to Duckwrth and Dijon. I liked it so much that I recommended it to people around me, but people around me said that just hearing the voice made their throats hurt. But later, everyone was listening to Dijon music.
I also listened to many other musicians, including Phoebe Bridgers, Choker, Zion.T, Gen Hoshino, BROCKHAMPTON, and Gabriel Garzón-Montano.
Q. I think today is the day to clean up Matt’s playlist. great. If you look at the credits, Hyuntae and Won Kim are listed as producers. I’m curious what your working method was like.
Matt: My two older brothers work together on drafting the instrumentals. The first method is to develop together offline and use a theme. Secondly, there is a method in which one of the two of us writes a draft of the beat and we develop it together. Once you decide on a theme to develop, the two of you create a beat in just one or two hours.
Hyuntae also plays the guitar, but guitarist Won Kim plays the guitar a lot. I feel like Hyuntae puts a little more emphasis on post-production work, such as arrangement. And then I topline it and write the lyrics. When I send the top line to my hyungs, I sometimes suggest ways to improve the composition or lyrics. They’re all producers. Besides, my brothers know very well what I want. So I never once doubted the pictures my brothers drew.
Q. Was there a standard when choosing the beats made by Won Kim and Hyuntae?
Matt: I thought if it sounded good, it was great. I had no intention of unifying the message and instrumental. I don’t think the melody, sound, and lyrics need to be unified. It’s a very exciting song, but the lyrics can be sad. Sound is sound, and lyrics are lyrics.
I listen to my songs often. When listening to “MYSELF,” you focus on the melody and sound rather than the lyrics. And generally speaking, the melody of “MYSELF” is not the type used in comforting songs. But if you focus on one thing, you forget about other things. Then, your worries will go away, so in a way, it is comforting. So I focused on music that was easy to listen to, and looked at the lyrics separately from the music.
Q. great. Since we’ve talked a bit about the work method, this time we’ll talk about the message. What story did you want to tell?
Matt: I wanted to show the different sides of Matt, a person. That’s just how people are. A person who is undervalued in one group may be respected in another. Rather than a consistent message, I just tried to include the story of a person named Matt Matt’s life. Rather than an intended message, the lyrics are written based on what comes out of my senses.
Q. It was fun to read the lyrics in so many different ways. From a certain perspective, it seems like there are a lot of breakup lyrics.
Matt: I like family movies more than action movies. A movie like
Q. great. “ONE! TWO!” was released first. Let me start with the story. I’m curious as to why this song was released in the first place.
Matt: The first song I wrote when I met Won Kim was “ONE! TWO!” I fell in love with it as soon as I made it. I made this song and thanked my hyungs for letting me make music like this. It’s a song that really means a lot to me. Moreover, I thought it was the song that best represented me. It felt like “Matt Matt has appeared!” The length of the song is short, so it feels like a self-introduction. So I revealed it first.
The intro says “ONE! TWO!”, right? I wonder if I will be able to sing a one-two with as much emotion as this song in my future life.
Q. Looking at the credits, I saw that Sannie wrote the lyrics. How did you meet?
Matt: Sanhee is a friend from college. I didn’t know, but he spoke English really well. Since I am also an artist, I thought I could express what I wanted, so I asked for it. At first, I took the lyrics I wrote in broken English and told them what I wanted to express. We talk about things we want to go back to if Sanhee writes it down.
At first, Sanhee said she didn’t know if she could do it, but I believed her. As expected, it came out really well. In fact, Sanhee wrote almost all of it. So, if you look at the credits, only Sanhee is involved in writing the lyrics.
Q. What did you want to include in the lyrics?
Matt: It’s a story about myself, who says I make music, but I don’t have any work coming out, and for five long years, when people ask me, “What are you doing these days?”, all I can say is that I’m practicing hard in my closet. I believe in myself a lot, and I think the music I make is good, but no one has ever heard it. It is the story of a person practicing in a closet being reborn as Matt Matt, and the first narrative of musician Matt Matt. You thought I was doing nothing, but that wasn’t true. I kept moving forward, and I was finally able to carve out my own path and make my own music.
“My god! This feeling’s okay” means “Is this okay?” I love this music! That’s what I’m saying. In “Good mommy’s giving me the gold vibes,” ‘mommy’ may refer to my mom, but it also includes the people around me who helped me pursue music. The chorus builds up by saying “My child” right after. That’s not what I’m saying. ‘Mommies’ do this for me.
Q. Was there a feeling you wanted to embody while making the song?
Matt: My brothers made the beat for “ONE! TWO!” first. As soon as I heard it, I said I really wanted to write it. Because it was the style of music I really wanted to do. I felt like I would really feel like I was flying in the sky when I wrote this song, and I translated that feeling into the lyrics.
Q. great. The atmosphere is suddenly refreshed in “MEMORY,” right? Is there an intention to arrange the tracks like this?
Matt: I just wanted to let you hear “MEMORY” first. I really like Sentai series like
Q. Did the instrumental come out first too?
Matt: For this one, I wrote the theme first, brought it to my hyungs, and they developed it. Won Kim added some guitar and Hyuntae did the post-production to make it look nice.
I wanted this song to have a Joker feel. When you think of a villain, the only thing that comes to mind is Joker. But the Joker was originally a good person. I thought it would be nice to have that feeling in music as well.
Q. great. What did you want to include in “MYSELF”?
Matt: They’re all talking about me. I don’t get lonely a lot, but I feel gloomy when I don’t have people around. And the more I think about it, the more depressed and sentimental I become. Especially at dawn. But people can worry. Those worries accumulate and become a part of me. It’s a necessary process. I wanted to comfort myself a little. The first line of the lyrics, “Don’t face ID,” also means not turning on your phone. It means stop looking at your phone and find happiness in your day. “Live this life!” (laugh)
Q. What does “HEY HEY” mean?
Matt: Originally, I wanted to say that someone is watching you, so be careful what you do. However, since I sing the song, it may sound like what I’m saying, but it could also be what I heard.
Q. The lyrics of “ECHOES” were quite meaningful. What did you include?
Matt: It’s a fictional portrayal of the situation right after a breakup. It’s a situation where you miss someone so much after breaking up, but you don’t even know what to say when you meet them in person. When we meet, should we say “What’s up?” But it’s not good to ask “What’s up?” to an ex-girlfriend you haven’t seen in a long time… I worry about these things. It contains wandering thoughts.
Q. What does “That’s enough” contain?
Matt: This song doesn’t have any grand content, but is about loneliness. It’s a song that hesitatingly recites about not wanting to be alone. Looking at the progression of the song, it is also written with the intention of being a carol. It’s so lonely being alone during Christmas. In terms of the tracklist, it acts as a bridge connecting “Slide” and “ECHOES.”
Q. Now, let’s move on to “Slide”. It’s also the second pre-released single, right? Why did you release this song a second time?
Matt: “ONE! TWO!” Next, I thought it was the song that could best show me. I had written many songs before “Slide,” but I thought there was nothing like it.
Q. The album cover caught my eye. Other songs had lower saturation or had a darker feel, but in this one, you can see the sky, right? I’m curious as to why you set it up this way.
Matt: I wanted to reveal the image of a trucker through an artist named Matt. I wondered if American truck drivers crossing North America would drive while looking at the open sky like this. I think “Slide” has a very painted and laid-back feel, and I thought it fits the trucker image well. That’s why a truck was included in the album art.
Q. Should we take it with a bit of a traveler’s sensibility? It would be good if you could explain it in more detail.
Matt: Rather than that, it is closer to the image brought about by the trucker lifestyle. Of course, in reality, truckers may be very busy people, but the image of their lives is very bright and leisurely. You get that feeling when you look at things like photos taken while leaning against a truck. I thought that was really cool.
Q. It’s fun.
Matt: And my house is completely rural, but the yard is rather large. It took an hour from home to school. After school, I drove home and played with the dogs. Then I suddenly felt that my childhood was no different from life abroad. If I lived abroad, I wondered if I would have lived like the album cover of “Slide.” The way of life I have experienced since childhood is similar to the Western mood. So, even though I am Korean, I am a person who is good at asking about Western moods. So I wrote this cover.
So, I didn’t put anything too big into the lyrics of “Slide” and just wrote it as it came out. I wanted it to be a little lovely, but I also didn’t want it to convey any meaning to the listener. Anyone can see that they paint it.
Q. It was a great song because I could clearly feel the paint in the music and the album cover. What did you want to include in “FOOLS”?
Matt: It’s clearly in the second verse. It’s the only Korean verse. I wanted to write about cancel culture. I think everyone, including me, has a part of them that enjoys this. But at some point, I wondered if this was a problem and felt that it was not something to laugh about. Let’s say I insulted the president. If I were the president’s child in that situation, I would shed tears of blood. Why are you so anxious about not being able to kill my dad? I think I too would think that my dad would hate being president. If this culture continues, there will always be people who are sad.
But it won’t change just because I say it. This is where the lyrics “I’m going to feel this alone anyway” appear, and if this is repeated, the person who criticized it will one day shed bloody tears. This is where the lyrics, “Someday you’ll really feel it and say it, too,” come from.
Q. This was thoughtful content. “Fault” is your third pre-released single, right? I wonder why this was released for the third time.
Matt: This was also a song I put out because it was Matt and I liked it. “Fault” is a song that shows where I can compromise. There are people who say you should make popular music. When I compromised with popularity, I wanted to show that I could compromise even the lines shown by “fault.”
Q. To summarize, “ONE! TWO!” is your favorite song, “Slide” is a song that shows your trucker side, and “fault” is a song that shows how far you can compromise with popularity, right? And of all three, it is the most Matt Matt-like song.
Matt: Right. However, I think it would be more accurate to summarize “fault” as simply wanting to release a song that is easy to listen to. When I played it to people around me who listen to Melon’s Top 100, “fault” got the best response. (laugh)
Q. great. In terms of message, what did you consider when writing the lyrics?
Matt: I wanted to get the feeling that I had messed up something out of my body. I always have this thought in my head that it’s my fault. I couldn’t get it out and it stayed stuck inside. That was expressed through music. I think that if I voice out what’s stuck inside me and put it into the microphone, the microphone will take my whole heart. Everything, good or negative.
I’m revealing it now, but none of the 11 songs are directed at anyone. These are all songs for me. They come from me, they are songs that show me, and I wrote them with that in mind. So the title is [MATT MATT].
Q. So what is “TELL ME” about?
Matt: This is a love song. This is what I do when I’m flirting. I wanted to put all my emotions into the album, but it’s hard to do that, right? I had to choose the emotions I wanted to include in this album, and one of them was love. I think love is important. So I added it.
Q. great. “SUICIDE” comes after this song about longing for love, right? What song is this?
Matt: It only takes a moment for someone to get sick. Physically, but also mentally. Anyone can do that, so I might end up making an extreme choice someday. I wrote this song while imagining how I would feel in that situation.
Q. Why did you imagine that?
Matt: When I saw that Korea had the highest suicide rate in the OECD, I realized that people were having a hard time. It was unfortunate why they had to do that and how difficult it must have been for them to get to that stage. So I felt like I had to have those feelings too. I don’t want to die. It hasn’t been so difficult that I’ve had to make an extreme choice yet. Even though it’s hard, I look at Instagram and if I see something funny, I smile. So, I felt like I needed to know what level I could endure mentally. So, I thought I should at least anticipate in advance what I would feel if I were in that situation. That way, when such a situation arises, you will be able to recognize it quickly.
If you look at the lyrics, there is a phrase that says, “This fucking rain in the city’s dragging me down.” My mood is not affected by the weather. There is no such thing as rain or anything like that. It’s actually nice when it rains because it’s cool. I wrote these lyrics because I thought that if I became depressed because of the weather, it would be really serious. Of course, I also think that my songs can never represent those who are suffering mentally. It’s just my opinion.
Q. great. Now I’d like to ask you a closing question. First, I would like to ask if you have any future plans.
Matt: First of all, I want to perform a lot. I especially want to do something really cool with the three bands. I think it would be cool if Won Kim, Seongbae, and Soobin looked simple.
I also want to release albums periodically. I also collaborate with cool people. If possible, I would like to collaborate with brands… I really want to try many things.
Q. Do you have any last words?
Matt: Please listen to matt matt’s [MATT MATT] a lot! And um… I don’t know if it’s okay for an artist to say this, but I hope people don’t have to live too hard. Beenzino also tells me to act like a fool. I agree with that. I think not thinking about it helps a lot. Rather, I think people who live without thinking like fools are happier than people who are smart and think all the time. I actually think that the more you think about it, the dumber you become.
Q. Sounds good? I think this is something an artist can say. The interview ends here.
Matt: Thank you.