Canadian blues is in a wonderful place, with Matt Andersen releasing his tenth studio album ‘Halfway Home by Morning’ to glowing reviews around the world, including by us here at The Rockpit. Learning his wonderful craft and sharing the stage with an array of artists that include Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy & Gregg Allman to name but a few, Andersen has consistently recorded & released albums of high acclaim and has been rewarded in the past, with a Juno Award nomination for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year, as well as collecting three Maple Blues Awards and in 2013 was named European Blues Award for Best Solo/Acoustic performer. Currently on tour throughout Canada and the US, we managed to talk to Matt as he unwound after a day of travelling, to discuss writing & recording ‘Halfway Home by Morning’ and who from the music world, he would invite to his dinner table…
Sean: Hi Matt, firstly congratulations on your latest album. ‘Halfway Home by Morning’ is just wonderful. You must be really proud of how it’s come out. It’s just got such a lovely feel to the whole album.
Matt: Thanks very much. I really appreciate that.
Sean: I’ve tagged it ‘My Sunday afternoon listen while having a glass of wine with my wife’ album [laughs]
Matt: [laughs] Perfect.
Sean: So, how does it come about writing an album like this? Is it a long process for you?
Matt: I’m normally always writing, so we actually had quite a few songs to choose from for this one. We were writing right up until we recorded it, so we picked the best of what we had, gathered together some great musicians and kept it all pretty semi-organic, trying not to do anything too fancy with it. We relied more on the songs and the musicians that played together.
Sean: I love the variety throughout the album – there are some wonderful gospel inspired songs too. There are also a couple of tracks that feel like they are a bit of a tip of the hat to Buddy Guy…
Matt: Yeah, a lot of the songs are co-writes. When we do get in the studio my producer Steve & I try not to give the musicians too much direction – we let them feel things out for themselves quite a bit and because of that there are lots of little bits of ear-candy in there that work their way into the songs.
Sean: One of the highlights for me is the duet track ‘Something to Lose’ with Amy Helm – what beautiful track that is.
Matt: I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Amy over the past few years and got hang out with her quite a bit. We’ve done quite a bit of touring together and become close friends. So when I wrote it, Amy was certainly the first person I had in mind to sing the song with me and it ended up probably being one of my favourite moments of recording too. It was the last track we recorded and standing across the vocal booth from Amy is one of the best things you can do. It was fantastic.
Sean: ‘Halfway Home by Morning’ is your tenth studio album but as a songwriter, has the way you approached writing & recording an album changed much for you?
Matt: Well I’ve never really had a process… although sometimes I wish I did [laughs]. I’ve done a lot more co-writing over the last few years and having someone else to bounce your ideas off of is really great. I find I’m writing better songs that way. Other than that it’s always been the same – sometimes the music comes first, sometimes it’s the words and sometimes, if I’m lucky, they come at the same time. A lot of songwriters have ideas we save on our phones or on scrap pieces of paper dotted all over the place, then we try to find some time to put it all together or if we are out on the road, try to find a quiet place to work on it.
Sean: Talking about being on the road, I see you have some extensive tour dates that take you up to September at the moment. As an artist how does it feel to transfer these new songs out on to the live stage, after finally getting the tracks recorded and released?
Matt: There is always a lot of anticipation. We recorded it in July 2018 and didn’t finally hit the road until February of this year, so I didn’t want to play too much of the new stuff until the album was released. So it was kinda like having a special treat for everybody – it kinda feels like you have this big secret that you want to share with everybody. It feels real great to be on the road now with the band in Canada and we are having a blast playing all the new songs live. People are really digging the new songs so it really keeps that cycle of enjoyment going for me.
Sean: The big question for me… Are we going to get too see Matt Andersen back here in Australia anytime soon?
Matt: We’re hoping to get over to you maybe end of this year or early next year. That’s the plan – to finally get my way back over again. It’s been a part of the plan so I really hope we can do it soon.
Sean: Fantastic news. As you well know, we have a wonderful blues pedigree here in Australia. It’s in a good place right now. I’ve managed to talk to a few of our country’s top blues artists and they have all released some really high quality material of late. Being from a more heavy rock background as a fan, my tastes are constantly changing and I’m really starting to understand more about blues music and artists like yourself are really opening a whole new world of music to me – it’s becoming quite a journey for me musically.
Matt: It totally makes sense. Blues influences all the stuff you have probably listened to in the past and is the root of so many genres of music.
Sean: You’ve worked with some incredible artists over the years… Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy and also the fantastic Beth Hart, who was over here in Australia in February – I’ve never quite seen anything like the performance she put in the night I saw her.
Matt: Yeah Beth is one of those performers that puts in two hundred percent each and every night. To see someone sing that hard night after night is pretty amazing.
Sean: Where did music first make its mark on you – was it school or at home?
Matt: Both really. We had a pretty great music program at school. But music was also a very big part of growing up in my house. My grandfather played and my mom played so we’d have people over and there was always music. So, it came to me pretty naturally & organically and I played in the music program all through school until I graduated.
Sean: Who were your influences at that time?
Matt: Everyone and everything really. Whatever my brothers had in their collection whether it was classic rock or to what my parents were listening to or what my grandfather played and also whatever was on the radio too. I was a bit of a sponge just soaking up all I could.
Sean: Music hitting you from every angle really…
Matt: Definitely. I’m a huge fan of music in general, Sean. That’s why I’ve never thrown myself into just being blues or just being folk or just country. I’ve just written songs and let me be the common factor between them all. I’ve never really focused on writing anything specifically.
Sean: And that definitely is reflected on this album. It was going along nicely in a certain direction when suddenly “BANG” it takes you somewhere else. I mentioned just now about the gospel sounding tracks with the wonderful backing harmonies. They are incredible.
Matt: Yeah, The McCrary Sisters brought a lot to the record with their backing singing and they are just fantastic. They most definitely have a gospel background and to have them sing on the album was kinda awesome and gave such a vibe to it.
Sean: This album has definitely made me a Matt Andersen fan but which album from your collection would you steer me to listen to next?
Matt: Probably ‘Coal Mining Blues’ from 2012. I loved making that album when we did it. We recorded it at ‘The Barn’ down in Woodstock, NY with Colin Linden producing it. I’m pretty much a fan of all of them [laughs]. There is also a live album I released about six or seven years ago called ‘Live from The Phoenix Theatre’ which is pretty cool too.
Sean: I look forward to listening to them. Just to wrap up, I have a few regular questions I like to throw your way and I’ll start by asking you what was the last album you listened to?
Matt: The last album I listened to was something I’ve had on rotation a lot lately. There’s a guy called Paul Pena who wrote ‘Jet Airliner’, the song that the Steve Miller Band recorded in the late 70’s. Paul only ever released two albums but I’ve had them on steady rotation recently or it would be Aretha Franklin’s ‘Amazing Grace’ which was her live gospel recording – I’ve been listening to that a lot of late.
Sean: Wow, I’ll check them out. I’ve booked you a restaurant table and you can have three guests from the music world, dead or alive. Who would you invite to join you at the table?
Matt: That’s a great question. Let me think… I think I would love to sit across the table from Bonnie Raitt. Who else… I think I’d like ‘old’ Elvis there, not ‘young’ Elvis because I think you’d get some great stories out of him after he’d had a moment to reflect. I think John Lennon would be pretty amazing too and he is somebody whose career took a big turn in a different direction as well. So I think we could have some pretty amazing stories around that table.
Sean: Another great table and a new name in Bonnie Raitt – she hasn’t visited the restaurant before now. So finally, saving the easiest question until last, if you could be credited with writing any song ever written which song would you choose?
Matt: ‘Silent Night’ probably. If you’re gonna get credited it may as well be for a big one [laughs].
Sean: Interesting choice and of course it’s recognised all over the world…
Matt: You know, if I thought about it long and hard I’d probably come up with something else but I feel that ‘Silent Night’ is one of those songs that is pretty much perfect – the story, the execution and the melody are all there. And it has amazing lyrics too so that would be the one for me.
Sean: That’s the first choral based song I’ve had and of course, made even more popular with Bing Crosby recording it and making it one of the most popular selling singles of all time.
Matt: He did indeed, yeah.
Sean: Matt, thank you so much for your time. It’s been great to talk to you and we wish you all the best for the album & current tour and really hope to see you back visiting our shores here in Australia later this year for some live shows.
Matt: I sure hope so and thank you. Take care.