Matt Of Maenda

 Matt Of Maenda

Interview With Matt Of Maenda

SBS:  Welcome to our pages!  Whether you’ve been here with us in some way before, or you’re brand-new to the site, it’s probably best to get an introduction from you so that we get everyone on the same page to start.  Tell us a little bit about the history of your music, and what’s happening with it lately!?!

Maenda:  Well, I’m Matt.  The main creative driving force behind the project called Maenda.  We make a blend of Trip Hop, Post Rock and Industrial elements.  Mainly instrumental.  It all started with the desire to create something different from what I did before, during what I can only describe as the most terrible time of my life.  A time of loss, pain and abuse.  I played guitar in an experimental Metal band called IDEK. back then, and felt it was time for something new.  I wanted to blend my favourite elements of electronics and ambients into something that can be both casually listened to and/or deeply engaged with.  As it turned out, this was a great way to put my grief, pain and creative energy into something that felt special.  Time went by and now I released an album and got a full band together, playing live, with new, exciting music on the horizon.

SBS:  Let’s talk about the before and after of where you’re currently at.  What’s something about the music that you’re making now that you don’t think you could have done five years ago, and what’s something you think you’ll be able to do with your music five years from now that you can’t do today?  How have you grown as an artist/band, and what steps do you take to continue your artistic evolution?

Maenda:  I used to be quite an elitist regarding art and music.  I was deep into progressive and avant-garde music of any kind and I guess that kind of stunted my ability to write…well, just good songs.  It was never good enough and I was needlessly hard on myself.  Now, I feel creatively reborn.  A lot of that is because of the people I have surrounded myself with.  Now, I’m less afraid to ask for help.  The Maenda band is filled with incredible talent.  Musicians that are probably better than I’ll ever be.  And they think my ideas are dope?  Well, then I guess there’s something to it.

As far as next steps go, we’re currently working on an untitled EP that completely transforms the Maenda sound you know into something darker, bigger and more personal than it’s ever been.  We’ve transitioned from making mainly instrumental music to making songs with vocals that drive the narrative and we’ve developed a style that sounds unique to my ears.  I could not have done that 5 years ago.

SBS:  If you were to assess the overall health of the independent music scene right now, what would you say?  What are the positives and the negatives about the current state of independent music, and what do you feel like artists & bands can do to contribute to the community & help it grow beyond the music being made?  If you’re not actively looking to listen to the music of other independent artists/bands, is it really all that fair to expect anyone would listen to yours?  How do you help the scene around you grow?

Maenda:  I have been making music for more than 15 years now and what I have found is that generally speaking, music as an art form (or a product) has never been more obsolete in the mainstream.  It has been relegated to content, and with the rise of AI and the low bar for releasing music, people (in general) just don’t look at music the same anymore.  It’s sad and disheartening.  But on the flip side, you do see a lot more great DYI artists that are putting out incredible work.  While streaming services are making music more homogeneous, creativity and sounding unique yields bigger rewards.  There’s a lot of great music out there.  It’s just hard to find, I guess.  With big cultural changes like this, you always see an action and a reaction.  In the end, I have faith that music will find its way back to the hearts of people.  Many artists around the world are pushing back with everything they’ve got and there are still a lot of people that generally love (live) music and the community that it brings.

SBS:  What do you consider to be the biggest accomplishment or achievement you’ve had with your music to-date?  How do you personally measure your own success – is that something that even can be measured?  Is it awards, accolades, chart position…or is your definition of success based on something entirely different?  Should success, however you define it, be something that artists are continually focused on – or is success something that naturally occurs in the course of doing what you love to do?

Maenda:  This is going to sound like a cliché, but the music video for our single “Let Go” had won a Best Music video award during an indie film festival (Accolade Global Film Competition) and I felt nothing.  I felt more pride during the shoot of said video, however.  I did the concept and directing and watching it all come together was the best feeling in the world.  Working together all these amazingly talented people that all brought a little something of themselves to the project.  Now that felt good.

For me, it’s never about the actual “success.”  Another cliché, but I truly just want to make what I hear and see in my head and present it in a way I think is really cool.  If other people like that, awesome.  If they don’t, that’s alright.  That being said, hearing from people that dig our music, people that delved into the themes and actually engaged with the art…that’s what I would call success.  Even if it’s just one person.

SBS:  When you’re working on something brand-new, and something about it just doesn’t feel like it’s coming together the way that you think it should, how do you know when it’s time to give up on it, or how do you know that it’s time to dig in even harder and find a way to make it work?  Are there distinct red flags you can hear when something’s not working?  What are the signs you look for that tell you to stop forcing the material?  What would actually encourage you to keep going with the process instead?

Maenda:  That’s a great question!  I’m dealing with this constantly in my work.  For me, it all comes down to pursuing a certain direction.  When you get that initial creative spark, that’s something special.  Sure, that spark could turn out to be a dud and you feel that something’s just not right.  But how would you know if a certain idea doesn’t work unless you’ve tried it?  Just going down a direction is beneficial; for me, it’s an exercise in creating and getting a better understanding of what I want to sound like.

And so with that initial creative burst in mind, there is value in an idea you thought was worth creating.  Sometimes it needs plain and simple work, like restructuring the parts, completely changing the arrangement or even changing the tempo to something drastically different.  Sometimes you have to admit that the idea or concept is not resonating with you as much as it used to.  Shelving it doesn’t mean you can’t come back to the idea in the future, where it could be totally inspiring.

But when I’m truly stuck on a song and I feel it leading into a writer’s block, I just stop working on it.  I discovered that working on 2 or 3 songs at the same time works really well.  A small batch of songs I can hop on and off to, keeping everything fresh.  I used to skip on making music because I was “not feeling it.”  Now, I just sit down and start working on something.  And because I have multiple ideas to work on, there’s always something to do.  It keeps me stimulated, creative and productive.

SBS:  One of the points of general consensus in the art of making music, is that we all get our sound from somewhere…we hear what we like, then more often than not, we take tiny pieces of what we love to find our own voice & approach to go on and make music in our own way.  Essentially, what I’m saying is that it’s absolutely natural to be inspired by other artists/bands, and almost every artist/band ends up having that inspiration show up in their own work in some way, shape, or form.  What the real key is though, is retaining your own organic perspective – you still wanna be original too, right?  So how do you go about doing that?  Are there artists or bands that you know have been an influence on your style & sound?  How were you able to incorporate that influence without becoming too noticeably derivative and still be yourself?  Should we embrace and celebrate our influences more than we do?  It’s almost like we try not to admit influences exist in the pursuit of being original, but it’s like, bruh…if it’s there, we can hear it.  We all borrow something from those that came before us to some extent, don’t we?

Maenda:  First of all, I feel that everything any artist makes is a result of their influences, whether they like it (or know it) or not.  There is no shame in honoring (not worshipping) the artists that made you and your art the way you are.  However, there is a difference between taking influence from something or someone and being a flat out copycat.  Taking influence from things you love is a great thing, but straight up making the same thing is, to me, redundant and boring.  That doesn’t mean it can’t still be great, by the way.

To me, retaining your own vision depends on the way you combine your influences and how you go about writing/creating your songs.  In every sense of the word.  You could love Drum ‘n Bass, for example, but there are hundreds of ways you can implement or even evolve the things you like from that genre into any other kind of music or context.  And the most important part: perspective.  You’re the only person in the world that has exactly your perspective.  Use it.

So in the end, to me, an artists’ style is usually a compilation of multiple influences.  Some conscious and some subconscious.  In my case, the former usually manifests in the sounds I tend to like.  I like the dusty, but raw feel of Burial.  The ethereal honesty in Explosions In The Sky.  The dark, electronic grooves of Massive Attack.  Those are sounds or feelings that I unknowingly gravitated to during the making of They Say The Sun Is Dying.  The latter are things like the way I play the keys and the guitar or the way I tend to structure my songs, when I’m going off on feel.  It’s about exploring elements I like.  Not entire packages.  I gravitate towards certain sounds, so I decided to dive a little deeper into it.  Why do I like it so much?  How can I create the same sound?  And what can I learn from that to make something my own?  Having a little understanding of what I like, helped pave the way for something that was truly my own.  The creative sessions were all based on flow: wherever the flow took me, that’s where I went.  I was aiming for certain vibes but going down the rabbit hole and letting go led me to something completely different.

SBS:  Has there ever been a time where you wrote something inside one of your songs…maybe it’s a lyrical line, or maybe it’s a riff of some kind…something that you did, where you surprised yourself?  I like to think we all have a moment or two where we can stand back and be amazed by something we created, and appreciate the fact that maybe, just maybe, we exceeded our own expectations of what we thought we could accomplish – you know what I mean?  Get as specific as you can so the fans out there know what they should be paying attention to when they hear it – what’s your favorite thing that you’ve written on the inside of one of your songs, and why does this particular piece resonate so much to you?

Maenda:  In the work the Maenda project has released so far, it’s less about a melody and more about sounds I think sound…well, cool.  For me, a lot of the fun is tinkering with different kinds of synthesizers, weird pedals and software in my home studio.  The title track from our album They Say The Sun Is Dying is one that comes to mind.  It has these echoing piano parts, wrapped in an icy wind of a synthesizer.  It started with some strange processing on a piano recording I’ve made.  I had the opportunity to borrow a Juno 106 and putting those two together, quickly turned into the track.  I was in the right mindset and knew what it had to convey and it all went pretty smoothly.  Positive connotation, much?  Listening back to it now, it feels melancholic, lonely and weary.  It’s cold, but not in a mechanical way.  More like a defeated way.  And I like that.

SBS:  I’ve been having a lot of great debates lately about whether or not everybody that’s making music has the right to be heard…and you’d probably be surprised by how different people seem to feel about this issue.  I know where I stand on it, and I think you can all probably get an idea of what my position would be from this free interview we’re doing here & the way we run things at sleepingbagstudios…but regardless, I’m putting this question out there to you, because I’m interested in YOUR perspective.  Just because you’ve made a song, does that mean people should listen?  If your answer is yes, do your best to explain why you feel that way & why we should make a sincere effort to listen to the music of others.  If your answer is no, explain why you feel that way, but also explain why people should still be listening to your music if that’s the case – what would make your music the exception, and not follow the rule?  Is there any value to an idea that’s not finished, or a song in its demo stages, or maybe something that’s not recorded in a top-shelf studio or with good equipment – somebody still took the time to make that song to the best of their ability with the means they had to create it – should that be listened to, or not?

Maenda:  Man, fuck the people that think they can decide whether your art is valid or not.  I think anyone is entitled to make art and share it with the world if they so please.  It could be a fun song about eating tacos or a deep introspective concept album.  Both have merits for various reasons.  On the flipside, I do get the argument that there is far less curation coming from actual experts, because anyone with an opinion and a mobile phone can become a critic nowadays.  There’s just a lot of music out there, but that’s also what comes with the democratization of the music industry.  Now, you can get seen and heard without selling your soul to a major record label.  Even though we’re all getting ripped off by Spotify in the end, but let’s keep that can of worms closed for now.

SBS:  There are ups and downs in the dynamics of almost every album we listen to, with very few exceptions.  Even those exceptions, probably still come down to more of a personal preference about what we enjoy about music and how we personally hear it, rather than anything being completely and totally “perfect” – you know what I mean?  Does an album actually need to have some kind of up/down dynamics in terms of what’s appealing to the masses in order for the best of the best songs in a lineup to be fully appreciated?  Wouldn’t every artist & band avoid the ‘down’ side (less accessible/less popular for example) if they could?  Does the ‘down’ side represent something else perhaps, like the story of an album or journey of an artist?  Is the ‘up’ side of a record as potent or noticeable if it doesn’t have a ‘down’ side to go with it?  Would a completely balanced album somehow be boring if it didn’t have the ups/downs that most have?  Do we HAVE to like every single song on a record for it to be considered complete?  Are the dynamics of an album something anyone can really steer in the direction they want to, or are all artists & bands simply going with the strongest material they have created at the time?

Maenda:  I think a balanced album would purposefully include the ups and downs you mentioned.  Not in quality though, but in energy and storytelling.  I even have a couple of albums I really like, but have a few songs on there I wouldn’t mind skipping.  Sometimes it’s about the package and the way that sonic world is weaved together, the way the story is being told.  Whether that’s more abstract or on the nose.  As an artist, there’s a lot of control you have on the dynamics of an album.  But in the end, it’s also a combination of songs, usually from a certain place in time, during a certain mindset.  Whether it has a clear vision or not.  Art can be imperfect, we need more honest humanity these days.

SBS:  I wanna send out a shout-out to YOU from me personally – I appreciate everyone that has taken the time to talk tunes with me throughout the years, and I appreciate the time YOU have taken with this interview too.  Because this one’s a little different in the sense that it’s been sent out to multiple people and is a little more generic in that regard, I have no doubt whatsoever that we probably didn’t get to talk to you about something you wanted to talk about – so let’s fix that!  This final space is what we call the SBS Open Floor – a spot where you can say anything else you want to say to the people out there.  It can be anything at all…your main websites…something else you want them to know about you and/or your music…your favorite bands in the scene right now…the secret 11 herbs and spices to the Colonel’s secret recipe – you get the idea, and it’s probably best you choose something that suits you rather than take any of my suggestions, but feel free to take the SBS Open Floor for a ride.  Whatever it is you want the people to know, now is the prime time for you to tell’em!  Thanks again for everything – keep in touch!

Maenda:  Thanks for the interview.  And for anyone who read through all of this: I thank you as well.  Go check us out on social media, Bandcamp or any other digital space you use to consume music, if you’re interested!

Find out more about Maenda from the official links below!

Main Site:  https://maenda.online
Bandcamp:  http://www.maenda.bandcamp.com
Instagram:  https://instagram.com/maendamusic  

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Jer@SBS

https://sleepingbagstudios.ca

"I’m passionate about what I do, and just as passionate about what YOU do. Together, we can get your music into the hands of the people that should have it. Let’s create something incredible."

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