The Matches

Recent visitors to Australian shores The Matches are only a few days away from unleashing their third and most experimental album yet.

Front man Shawn Harris talks about beers, girls and producers...

By Cameron Chambers 

Hey Shawn, how are you today? 

Pretty good man, how are you? 

Great man, where are you guys

at the moment? 

Houston, Texas my friend. 

The Matches just finished up

shows here in Australia? 

The festival was a carbon copy

of a tour we have in the US called Warped... you may have heard of it,

ha ha. It had all the same bands too, so it was kind of weird to see

all these bands that we’re friends with in America all the way over

here in Australia. It was like “what are you doing here”?! 

I don’t even know if there were

any Australian bands on the show... 

Carpathian did the national

and then there were a few locals in each city. 

Ah cool. We had a lot of fun man

and at least we could spend the summer hanging out together with our

friends. We had some good sideshows as well. As far as sideshows go

we decided to book some of our friend’s bands from Australia rather

than the American bands... because we’ve already done that. 

We thought we’d hook up some

friends we’d met down there previously! 

You guys are starting to become

regulars down here, what is it that keeps bringing you back to Australia? 

Um... girls, beer, chocolate and

oh yeah... the shows! They’ve just been going so well, ha ha. We’ve

been getting a lot of support from Australian radio and MTV and we keep

getting asked back... and it’s not the kind of place you want to decline.  

We got asked to come and do the

Pyramid Festival for New Years Eve, so we flew over for just the one

show! We had a similar offer to do a New Years show in New York but

we didn’t take it... we’d rather go to Australia. 

Who were some bands that

you enjoyed watching during the festival? 

Motion City Soundtrack are old

friends of ours... um, we’re friends with The Plain White T’s. They

were actually one of the first bands that we played with eight years

ago! 

It’s so funny, their new single

is this huge pop sensation... well, I don’t know if it’s like that

in Australia, but in the US and the UK it’s this radio Starbucks kind

of song, ha ha. But yeah, everybody thought they came out of nowhere

but they’ve been working their asses off for years, so it’s good

to see that they’re having some success. 

Fall Of Troy were really, really

good and... yeah man, we already knew ninety five percent of the bands

from touring before, ha ha. 

Did you get a chance to do

any of the cliché “we’re on tour in Australia” activities? 

We’ve kind of already taken

care of the cliché ones, like kangaroos and all that shit, ha ha, and

you know, go to the beach and go swimming. We’ve done that but now

we’re at the point where I think we have more friends in Australia

than we do in America, so we like hanging out with them.  

This question is actually from

that you adhere to? 

Weird shit, ha ha! 

John our guitar player does all

kinds bizarre, kind of tantric exercises. He freaks the hell out of

me! He’ll do these one armed push ups and hold it and breathe funny,

so if you’re standing outside the dressing room it sounds like dudes

are getting it on behind the door, ha ha. 

Justin does all these jumping

jacks and weird squats as well, but Matt and I just sit in the corner

with a beer, ha ha. 

A band’s third record is

“A Band In Hope” any differently compared to your previous albums? 

Nah, not really. I guess we did

have one intention that was different, and that was to put out “A

Band In Hope” as close to “Decomposer” as possible. We’re gunning

for the one year turn around between albums... like Bob Dylan and The

Beatles. They don’t tour though, ha ha, so it’s harder for us, but

you know what I mean. 

We’ve got to stay on the road

coz we make money nowadays, so we recorded the album with a lot of different

producers... we actually used nine producers again because it was practical.

Recording a song or two here, or two songs there between tours... I

don’t think one producer would have put up with that shit, ha ha. 

Producers... your standard technical

producers, well, they want to do this whole project thing and have set

hours, so they say “let’s go from 10am – 8pm” or something like

that and I know that personally, I simply cannot think with a clock

in the room, ha ha. I like going from whenever we wake up, which could

be 8am or 4pm depending on what day you catch us, ha ha, until we can’t

keep our eyes open anymore... like 2 days later, ha ha! 

Why do you think The Matches

sound benefits from having so many different producers on board? 

I think overall the sound would

be the same. I wouldn’t say that having many producers attributes

to the different styles that are covered on the album, but... I would

say that we were really conscious of which songs went to which producers.

We could tell when a song was a John Feldman styled song, you know?

We’d be like “he would really fit our vision for that song”. 

There is a danger of working with

a producer who colours the band’s songs nearly as much as the band

does. Sometimes you’ll hear a record and you can tell who produced

it, as opposed to who the band is, so working with different guys is

almost a failsafe to ensure we aren’t overtaken by a producer’s

style. Any continuity on the record, and I think there is, then that’s

our style and not the production. 

Are you concerned that your

by having so many different people involved? 

Not really, but in saying that,

there are definitely a handful of songs that we couldn’t put on the

record that are really good songs and I think our fans would really

like them. Hopefully we find a place to put them, like a B-sides record

or an EP or something.  

I just hope we get it out there

because I think people will dig them... they simply didn’t fit the

track listing. I guess making it cohesive is half luck and the other

half is editing afterwards and making sure all the songs fit.  

Was the inclusion of pianos

record that felt like it could utilize additional instrumentation?

On the last record we had a song

called “Salty Eyes”, and we had our friends Anton and his brother

Lewis play strings on that song. Strings are beautiful man... I’d

put them on every song if I could play them, ha ha. But we don’t want

a record that we can’t play live. It’s cool to have strings here

or there because live there are things you can do to replace them, you

know, using a guitar or synth or something. 

When we have access to a piano

or a keyboard or something like that then we can definitely play it

live like the album. I guess by including all kinds of different instrumentation

you’ve got to be more creative and go with the flow as far as utilizing

what’s available.  

That’s all we’ve got time

for Shawn, is there anything else you’d like to add? 

Aside from the record coming out

very soon... no, ha ha! 

Thanks for your time man. 

For more info head to www.thematches.com or  www.myspace.com/thematches.