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Music

Matthew Good is Better Alone

What's it like dealing with your mental health issues in public and naming your new album after 'Dungeons & Dragons'?

Photo by Matt Barnes

You may have heard that Matthew Good is an asshole, but it turns out he’s not. I know—cue the disappointing sighs, but in conversation Good is actually a pretty nice guy. He is outspoken and intrepid in his words, and always has been. In the 1990s, Good was the frontman of a band named after himself, one that was just as entertaining during interviews as they were on stage. The Matthew Good Band experienced tremendous commercial success in Canada with their big, radio rock anthems, which won them some Junos, including Best Group in 2000. But the not-so-secret truth was, the band members pretty much hated each other. They broke up soon after releasing their fourth album, The Audio of Being, and what a lot of people don’t realize is that Good has spent more time as a solo artist than he did leading the Matthew Good Band.

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Five years after his band dissolved over irreconcilable differences, and three albums into his solo career, Good was diagnosed with Type 2 bipolar disorder around the same time his first marriage was ending. Astonishingly though, he persevered and made what might just be his most popular record, 2007’s Hospital Music. But that album was so much more than a fan favourite; it helped established Good as an advocate for mental health in this country, appearing on George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight and delivering a TED Talk in Toronto to raise awareness.

In 2015, Matthew Good seems happier than ever. Now remarried with children, he has a new record deal with Warner Music to release his seventh solo album, Chaotic Neutral, which yes D&D fans, is a reference to your beloved role-playing game (Good was a long-time player). Noisey had a heart to heart with Good about the new album, trying to sing Kate Bush, the politics in his country and former band, and the art of sabotaging an album release in the U.S.

Noisey: So, how are you feeling about this upcoming Canadian election?
Matthew Good: That’s a tough one. It really depends on how you look at the current state of things and Harper’s tenure in office and everything he’s done – from the parliamentary laws he’s broken to messing with the elections act and underfunding elections Canada in this election, the fact that their war chest is massively larger and the election cycle is longer… if we lived in a perfect world the Liberals and NDP would get into a room now and decide to build a united front and form a coalition where the #1 goal is to pin the election on that platform and let the dice fall where they may. Whoever gets the most seats in that coalition obviously gets to be Prime Minister, but they support each other. There are enough and even more similarities than dissimilarities between those two parties for it to work. And when you look at all of the ethonomic problems that have plagued Harper’s time in office – not to say there will be a fix coming from the other side – but obviously a change in scenery is due. Especially with the low turnout numbers in the last election, which I think is something the Conservatives are counting on, it’s almost like this election cycle has gone on so long and Canadians aren’t used to that and we’ve become tired and complacent, where we aren’t talking about it as much as we would normally, that the Conservatives sit back and bombard us with what most people think are absolutely asinine ads. But a lot of people buy into them. And will those people be the majority that turn out to vote? My money would be on the Liberals and NDPs deciding on a common goal and make it a conjoined government.

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I know you’re doing a lot of promo for the album and tour on social media, but will you be weighing in on Canadian politics?
I don’t even control my social media anymore. That ship has kind of sailed for me in a ways. I find it to be pretty tedious, and there’s just a lot of negativity on social media. So I try to stay away from it. Obviously I was a really big champion of it in the early days, but there was an article in the Guardian today that asked is commenting even purposeful anymore? A lot of people are thinking about disabling comments now. Back in the late 1990s, you had your dissenting opinions and felt you could talk about something. But now it’s just a swamp, and you need to put hip-waders on and carry a gun to see your comments. It’s turned into this bizarre third dimension where people spin and as a result detract from what someone originally said. Even worse, it detracts from the intelligence in which they’ve said it, to sabotage language and dumb it down. I think it’s pointless. It’s subterfuge for the degradation of language. It happens in politics too. You have to speak at a fifth grade level so everyone out there who can vote for you will understand what it is you’re talking about. How can you explain the realities of anything to anybody when you have to do that?

I know some people thought you coined the term “first world problems” and that’s not actually the case. But what was the last first world problem you had?
My family and I just moved into a new house, and you know how they make the microwave the top part of the stove and it has the fan in it? But they put the two big elements up front, and the microwave doesn’t go all the way over the elements. So if you bowl anything in a big pot it just puts condensation on the front of your microwave. There you go.

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You said, “For the first time in a long time it was refreshing to approach the making of the album from a wholly artistic standpoint.” How were your previous albums not “wholly artistic”?
I mean wholly artistic as in I’m not sitting at the board recording bed tracks with a producer saying, “Okay, maybe we should try it with a snare,” etcetera, etcetera. This time around I was basically lying on the sofa checking my email and Warne [Livesey] would say, “What do you think of that?” And I’d just put my thumbs up in the air. So all he’d see is my hand [laughs]. It was more enjoyable because he and I have been working together for almost 19 years, and we’ve always talked about what we’d do differently. When we talked about this record, it was more like, “I’m gonna let sleeping dogs lie. I’m not sitting at the board for fucking 12 or 16 hours a day inspecting every part.” My input was pretty limited. I’d play my parts and he’d say, “What do you think of this sound?” And I’d say, “Fucking cool!” It allowed me to concentrate more on watching the song develop and hearing the sounds that Warne envisioned when he heard the demos. The whole point of this was to not fall back on what we’ve done in the past sonically. And the only way to do that was to relinquish control.

I heard you wrote an album before this that you binned. How difficult is it to waste all of that material?
I did. I don’t know. If you’re a young artist it might be harder because you think, “I’ve written this and it exists.” And you need to use it. But 23 years later you should hopefully be good at self-editing. For me, anything I do I accomplish it first listening to it myself. I don’t need other people to say I’ve accomplished something. I know what I’ve done. One of the songs I ended up scrapping was 21 minutes long. The ultimate reason was I sat down and looked at the material I had and said, “Okay 21 minutes. For the budget I have for this record that is going to be three weeks of that song.” I just couldn’t do it. That would be nuts to try and pull off. It came down to the decision of this being really impractical, and maybe if I was the Beatles recording at Abbey Road it’s something I probably would have done, and released a double album. But ultimately I had to look at it and say, “This is impractical.” It sucks, but there it is.

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Think you’ll ever release it?
I deleted it. I did it once, I can do it again, man. For me writing songs and movements, like “Non Populous” or “Avalanche,” those are the easiest songs for me to write. They’re the most fun, they flow easily and offer the most latitude artistically. It’s not something I was upset about. I just went, “Meh. It’s taking up a lot of room on my hard drive.”

Chaotic Neutral is a reference to Dungeons & Dragons. How nerdy were you about D&D as a kid?
It’s an alignment in Dungeons & Dragons. Yeah, I played it until I was almost 30.

My mom heard about how it brainwashed players into killing people and committing suicide in the name of Satan, so I wasn’t allowed to get into it as a kid.
Yeah, see all of that crap was such nonsense. The funny thing about it is the guys who created it are the least threatening men you’d ever meet. For me it remains to this day one of the greatest experiments in social imagination. Kids played it but it became a very adult thing. It’s less about fighting monsters and more about character interaction, and interaction with real people in a world. And that is way more centre stage. There are political, geo-political, criminal elements that come to the forefront. For me, as an imaginative outlet, I got into cartography because of that. So it was something I enjoyed. The last game I was involved with was with a friend who was ten years older than me was in charge of one of the foremost stables in Vancouver, a stable master, and a friend who was in the literary world. So it wasn’t just a whole bunch of people on welfare.

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The video for the album’s first single, “All You Sons and Daughters,” has you interacting with all these wolves. How close did you get to them?
Extremely close. Ironically I wasn’t nervous. First of all, what you can’t see in the video is that all of the leashes and chains have been rotoscoped down. Everywhere there is a wolf the trainer is four feet away. The dark one, the timberwolf, Oliver, he was super cool. He was licking me and I could rub his belly. The other ones? No. But there are scenes where to get them in the shot you have to throw meat in the air. So there’s a wolf’s jaw right by my head because I’m trying to sit there and sing the song as if nothing’s happening. I kind of didn’t fear it because of my wife I’ve spent a lot of time around horses. Yeah, wolves are dangerous, but there’s nothing quite like having a two-year-old animal that doesn’t know it’s two years old, coming around on you in a stall. As far as horsemanship is concerned, you learn how to deal with that kind of thing, especially with horses things can go wrong really quickly. But what happens is in that sphere you learn how to keep calm because horses pick up on that stuff immediately. The second you’re in their presence they know if you’re freaking out. So that being the case, no, I went into the entire thing extremely excited. Andy has to be given all of the credit. Andy’s idea was more flushed out than the video is, and when we started shooting we ran into obstacles because you’re basically dealing with wild animals. And he did the best that he could with what we have. So credit has to be given to him wholly.

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Having Holly McNarland on the record felt like a real throwback to when you two emerged simultaneously in the mid-’90s, Big Shiny Tunes era. The two of you have worked together a few times. Describe that relationship for me.
Oh, you know, I’ve known Holly for 20 years and we bump into each other. I knew she was living in Toronto with her husband and kids. And when the subject came up of getting a female voice I just thought I would get Holly. She lives there and I made the record in Toronto. And “Blah, blah, blah” I got half a sentence out and she said, “Yep!” Because we’ve always had a great rapport. Unfortunately there is no great story. It’s that boring! [laughs] And in true Holly McNarland fashion, she came in with the parts nailed and ideas of her own for more harmonies.

The two of you covered Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting” on the album. That’s a ballsy move.
I know, it’s sacrilege, let’s be honest. And I don’t consider it a cover, it’s a tribute. And when I decided to do it I did it on my own and not even for the record. Some people heard the demo I did and said I should give it a go. And I was like, “Okay, but I’m not gonna put it on the record.” And then it turned out the way I did and I thought it was different enough than what Kate Bush did. I’m not trying to emulate what she did – this one is four minutes, while her original one is seven minutes. There’s a lot more space in hers, and I changed the chord progression in the first chorus and second verse slightly. So it’s just a tribute. Hounds of Love was massively influential for me and it’s a perfect record. And to try and emulate what she did with that song would be utterly ridiculous. So all I can hope is in framing it that way I did it justice.

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I had my doubts, but I think you pulled it off.
It’s interesting because one of the reasons why I thought of doing it is because she wrote it from a male’s point of view. It’s about a son talking to his father, and the guy was jailed. So I thought I could give it a male voice, and then when Holly came in she did background vocals. But my main reason for having her sing was because the higher register in the chorus was just a bit out of my wheelhouse to get it how I wanted it. So I got her to do it and she sang some other parts, and kept making Warne turn it up. So they went from backing vocals to “featuring Holly McNarland.” It was too good, she needed to be louder.

I noticed you talk about mental health in the song “Moment.” What did you want to say with that song?
Well, what happened was my wife is a photographer and was doing a photoshoot of a family and the son of the woman they were shooting was older, and found out she was married to me, and her son’s been a huge fan of mine for some time. And he asked if it’d be okay if he could give a letter to me, along with some poetry. And it inspired me, greatly. And when I sat down and wrote that song it struck me to write something more hopeful than something that is tinged with darkness. And it was largely the positive experience through that happening to be what it is. After I wrote it and he found out it would be on the record and that was the impetus of it he wrote me another lovely letter. The story ended up coming full circle as far as the positivity is concerned.

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There’s long been a stigma attached to mental health issues. Do you think there’s been much progress?
Yeah, but I think vastly more needs to be done. On any commercial level when you’re going to talk about something everyone is just “Yay!” for a little while. But when you have to wade in the dark water, it’s not something people are particularly keen on doing. If they have to do it, they have to do it, that kind of thing. Let’s face it, the mental health system needs a major overhaul. It’s like a rusted ’67 Chevy truck! It’s ridiculous that you’re contemplating doing something to yourself and it’s because of a mental illness that your safest bet is to call the police because the police will come and an ambulance will come but because the police come you actually have to be committed. Even in small towns, what are you gonna see a social worker and be released right away? That’s not right. If you came in with a fractured skull or you were a diabetic that wouldn’t happen. It’s considered a third-tier illness. But on the other hand there’s a problem with the exaggeration. People go in to see their GP in this day and age and give off slight indicators and they’re put on an antidepressant. Dude, everyone’s got to be young, depressed and listening to the Smiths. That doesn’t mean you have a neurochemical imbalance. Everyone goes through that in their teenage years. Not everyone is fucking happy. And therein exists the schism in media, where everyone is shiny and happy and if you don’t conform to that you’re fucking depressed! That’s not the case. You’re just a teenager for chrissakes. You’re supposed to be depressed!

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Hospital Music was a real breakthrough for you because it dealt a lot with your addiction to Ativan and learning you had Type 2 bipolar disorder. Is that album more meaningful to you because of that?
Probably no, but there are parts of it yeah, and for a lot of fans it is. For me it’s kind of difficult, but this new record is up there along with Lights of Endangered Species. I was extremely proud of that record. But Hospital Music I made in three weeks and produced it myself and played everything on it besides drums, and Ryan played guitar. I’m proud of it and it holds a place, but it was a whirlwind. But then again so does Avalanche, and White Light Rock and Roll Review because we made it in nine days. It kind of depends.

Before you were diagnosed, you had this shirt that read: “I Hear Matt Good Is a Real Asshole.” How much do you think your illness affected your behaviour that was blamed on you being an asshole?
The interesting thing about that statement was the story. What happened was I had done an interview with I think the Toronto Sun and back then when I was being interviewed someone would inevitably try to get me going. And I can’t remember who it was but they got me going and it came out the next day and the guy said, “Matt Good is kind of an asshole, blah, blah, blah.” So we were playing a show in St. Catharines, and I thought it would be hilarious to have cheap black t-shirts and put “I Hear Matt Good Is A Real Asshole” on them. We only had enough for one show. And I was being sarcastic. So we play the show and our merch person comes up to me and says, “Those were gone before the first band went on stage.” So of course my management at the time was like, “Ka-ching!” And I wore the shirt on stage. That was the hot merchandise. You could get a bumper sticker, it was capital! And because of that it’s turned into this whole thing. I’m not gonna say that I didn’t play a role in making that a merch item. But ultimately its impetus was I was trying to be funny because some dude had written something. But that’s not to say I wasn’t a dick from here and there. Yeah, a lot of that had to do with [being bipolar]. During the band’s lifespan I didn’t drink or do drugs, from the age of 20 to 34. I was the only one stone sober. So I would just work non-stop. Didn’t sleep, smoked my brains out, looked like a heroin addict because I never ate. I had that go around too, people thinking I was a druggy because I was 145 pounds. That was just because I was cycling and working 18-hour days. And then the whole thing came to a head when… people who suffer from bipolarity, which is just a new term for manic depression, often in their 30s or 40s have mixed state mania, where you can enter a state in which you suffer from mania and depression simultaneously. And the suicide rate in that state is astronomical. It’s like being in prison in your head. You don’t know whether to shit or go blind. You can’t function as a human being. You just want to cease to exist. And ultimately when I was 35 years old that’s what happened to me.

How do you feel about your time in the Matthew Good Band?
I still perform a lot of those songs. I play “Load Me Up,” “Strange Days,” “Automatic,” every show. And if I didn’t play “Apparitions” I’d probably get strung up. Why the hell wouldn’t I play them? Ultimately, it’s like the Police. It was a band that largely began on happenstance. With the exception of Geoff [Lloyd], who I’ve always had a soft spot for, the last thing we ever were was friends. Hell no. That band was so ultra-political it wasn’t even funny. I didn’t want to name the band after me. But when Last of the Ghetto Astronauts came out there was some success with the two singles, I mean what are you going to do as a musician? Have people not buy your record so you can stop production and change the name of the band on the front of the record? No you don’t, so because of that you get stuck with the name. Even if you’d rather it be another name, it is what it is, and you go forward. There wasn’t an aspect of the band that wasn’t politicized. Whether it came to having to dole out writing credits, to splitting up one song on every record whether people contributed or not at all to who got to go to England on those middle two records to the mix, to the rest of it. It was a fucking headache!

Beautiful Midnight was eventually released in the U.S. via Atlantic but I read something about you sabotaging its chance to succeed. Have you heard that story?
I didn’t hear it, I did it!. When I went to the press junkets in New York and Los Angeles I was just treated like a piece of shit by the media. Because let’s face it, had I been English and come to America with multi-platinum records under my belt there’s no way in hell I would have been treated that way. But because I was Canadian and I stood up for myself when people came into the room with attitude and I gave it right back to them, yeah, didn’t fly. I had to be so fucking happy just to be in their presence that it wasn’t even funny. And I wasn’t willing to do that.

How is your relationship with the U.S. now?
As far as the media I talk to in the U.S. who’s followed my career for 20 years has been cool. As far as playing down there, I can go into Chicago and sell out the Double Door and that kind of thing. Definitely not like a bunch of Canadian bands that can do a hell of a lot better than me. But I can sell out a room in New York, and ironically Phoenix. Yeah, it’s cool. I’m fine with it. As far as that’s concerned I live by that Tom Waits quote: “If you can put 500 in any room in the world you’re a success.” For me now, I’m 44, I have a family, three kids, and I don’t make any money playing there. So I have to look at it unfortunately from a touring standpoint economically. Yeah, I play border cities. I play in Buffalo, because even though you’re playing in America it’s most Canadians because they all listen to Canadian radio stations. Or if you go down to New York City it’s the same because they’re just on to everything. I hate playing in L.A. It’s just fucking attitude from everyone. The only good show I ever had in Los Angeles was when I played with a full band we sold out the Marquee for Hospital Music. And that was awesome and probably the only good show I had in that town, because it wasn’t just me and an acoustic at the Hotel Café with everyone walking around trying to be cool.

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You’ve always boycotted the Junos, though you’ve won four. Have your feelings changed at all over the years?
I’ve been nominated 20-something times, so if you think about it that’s once a year for pretty much every year of my career. For me, it’s a thing where we undervalue ourselves. When you turn on that show who the hell plays it? There’s one cool band and the rest is just for the tween audience. I don’t want Arcade Fire to win an award on Saturday where it’s not televised. Let Arcade Fire close the damn Junos, like they did the Grammys. You look at all of these fantastic artists we have in this country and they’re not good enough to put on TV? They have to go to the night before. And that’s not limited to just rock music. That includes jazz, Aboriginal music, anything. I know it’s about ratings, and the Grammys does the same thing… The other thing is, if you walk into a room and there’s a Cezanne and a Rothko, how do you decide which is better? Can you?

I noticed you co-headlined a festival this summer with Our Lady Peace. Do you have much nostalgia for the 1990s Canrock heyday?
I took this summer off, it was a family summer and I wasn’t on a record cycle. I’m not gonna lie to you: they threw too much money at me not to do it. Because I logistically have to look at everything. Everyone that works for me except for one person is from Toronto. So I have to bring everyone in from Toronto. But no, do I look at that period with nostalgia? I don’t see how any Canadian in music couldn’t. You had Canadian bands headlining their own arena tours. The support for Canadian music was through the roof! It was great! You can’t really call it a renaissance, but something special happened. And it was great to be a part of it.

Cam Lindsay is a writer living in Toronto. He is on Twitter.