Matt (left) and Isom (right). Photo by Brett Munoz and used from band's myspace.band web site download album here
To kick off their current tour, Matt and Isom held a free show in their hometown venue The Element and begged any fans who were coming to bring all the old, spare lamps they could find.
"The idea was, let's get a bunch of lamps, just place them all over the room and just light 'em up, so people can be really involved," Isom explains.
"I think one person brought a lamp," says Matt. "But it was really cool."
With or without the lamps, Matt and Isom has this way of creating an atmosphere that is both markedly separate from the average music experience and yet so full of honesty, passion, and occasional ridiculousness that it somehow resonates with every person who encounters them. Sometimes they achieve that with the lamp commission, or sonically with their epic style of adventurous, luminescent electronic rock. Other times it just happens when Matt is kicking a soccer ball back and forth with a kid after a show.
Sometime after releasing the album that changed the way they see their band and sometime before touring through a bowling alley, VFW and Hollywood favorite the Knitting Factory, Matt Wilcox and Isom Innis speak with The Overcast.
On how they met...
Matt: Online dating. Have you heard of Match.com?
Isom: His brother was putting together a youth group band and wanted me to sing and play guitar, so he took me to Starbucks one day and I met Matt. We went back to his house and we played some Coldplay songs and some Switchfoot songs.
Matt: It was really natural. We just picked up an acoustic guitar and started strumming. I had my little Squier amp and my crummy delay pedal and we played, like, John Mayer songs all day. Hillsong and John Mayer. I don't know. It just happened...he was playing and I jumped in.
On their album August Jesus Depression...
Isom: We wanted to make an album based on all our experiences. I don't know if you picked it up by listening, but the whole album is divisible by three. Everything that's a part of it, from the song placement, to the names...
Matt: "Matt and Isom"--three words. August Jesus Depression. Nine songs. "slowslowslow" is three, and it's the third track. Lyrically, there's a lot of threes...
Isom: There are three tracks for "August," three tracks for "Depression," three tracks for "Jesus." We just wanted to make it based on all of our experiences, and those three words for us represent everything in our lives. "August" is representing a time, time represents age, it represents any aspect of time. You have "Jesus," which represents religion, it also represents happiness and everything good about the world. And then you have "Depression" which symbolizes evil and depression and all the bad aspects, and it's kind of like hope for suffering.
Matt: I feel like we needed to do it. Like there are some songs that mean so much to me, just listening to them. I can't listen to them because I'm so into them.
On becoming a "real band"...
Isom: I think we've spent three and a half years learning how to be in a band and I kind of feel like we've just become a band. [Before August Jesus Depression] I don't think we ever had the confidence to actually be like, "Here's our album, this is ours, this is what we thought of, we're going to put it out now."
Matt: With the album, I feel like that was when we started to take ourselves seriously. We met in spring of '04, but we're just now getting it. I feel like, for the past four years and since before January, I was just lying, trying really hard to make people believe that this is what I do and I'm good at it or whatever. And then since we started working on our album, I just feel a lot more natural. I don't really feel like I have to prove myself.
Isom: We just want to be as human as we can. And I think that's why, one, our music is so diverse and, two, I think that's why we're just learning not to really care and just be ourselves.
On their song "slowslowslow"...
Matt: I've never called Isom about what lyrically should be in the songs but "slow slow slow" is...perfect. Absolutely perfect. When I listen to it, that brings me back to a point in my life.
Isom: I feel like that song is kind of like our feelings to other people. Like all of this great possibility. In order for it to be accepted, we accept it.
Matt: And it's crazy because that was exactly how I was feeling when we did it.
Isom: That's like the whole concept of the album too. Even the whole concept of our band.
On the selfishness of songwriting...
Isom: I think there's a certain point where you'll never be able to please a person. Maybe one person, but you'll never be able to please a group of people because people have so many different ideals in their lives. I think what you have to do is you have to make what inspires you.
Matt: I think that's a huge difference with us from a lot of bands--not most, but a lot of bands--is we're not writing for other people. I know it's kind of selfish, but songwriting has to be selfish in order for people to really have a grasp of it. If it's so meaningful to you, it becomes like, "This is obviously written with so much into it that I can't deny this."
On why they make music...
Isom: Music makes me feel amazing, and I want to be a part of that amazing feeling. I think you just have to make music that really inspires you, that makes you get lost in it.
Matt: The main reason why I make music is because I feel like I have to to be content with life. I've gotten to a point where I have to do it. Because I feel like it's ours. It's a part of you and it's what you're thinking. It's why people write books. Art is such a different language of describing who you are and I feel like I have to do that or else I'm not content with life. I just want it to be real, period. And if it's real, I love making music. And if it's not real, then it's Nickelback.
On the songwriting process...
Isom: The best songs that we do come right away. And if they don't come right away, we end up working on them for awhile, and then we throw them away--and then we come back to them and do the same thing.
Matt: And we realize that they still suck.
Isom: For some reason the best songs for us always happen really naturally.
Matt: The last twenty songs we've written I don't think we've ever sat down to write them, with two acoustics or something, because that's traditionally the "right way" to do it. But we don't do that. We're usually not together. We send each other tracks back and forth and we just work on it, and it just happens.
Isom: It's funny, we don't ever build, like, a solid foundation, but somehow it comes together in the end.
On recording Black and White EP from separate cities...
Isom: It was like a collaboration--I was in Boston and Matt was in Nashville the whole time they were written. I would be in my room in Boston and I would record acoustic guitar and vocals and I would maybe occasionally throw in one or two other things then send it to Matt. Then Matt would turn it into this entire song with all these musical arrangements. It made us so much better. I think that shaped the way we are because it made us way more creative.
Matt: It's like being married, but not ever having sex. That's a terrible analogy. But let me explain. If you have that relationship with someone but never have that next step of meaningful, I think that's the difference.
Isom: But it's like the sex came when the song came.
Matt: That just has the next step of meaningfulness to it. Instead of being like, "Let's hug."
Isom: Putting this into relationships, I think, like, before people have sex with each other, there's so much anticipation going into that, so much effort into it.
Matt: You have to be safe. And you have to be careful.
Isom: Okay, this went on too long. But it's really a good analogy. Next question.
On comparing their previous EP, Black and White EP with August Jesus Depression...
Isom: I actually really like [Black and White EP]. I still listen to those songs and I'm like, "Man, I really like this stuff." But when we were writing those songs, we were just writing them just to do it, to put songs up, to write an awesome song, and we collectively put those together. The Black and White EP, those songs are just as personal as August Jesus Depression. I just kind of feel like the period it came from was disorganized, it was just kind of thrown together. But I mean, there's beauty in that.
Matt: The songs are there. We've always had the songs. I love the songs. I feel like we were just learning how to do what we do. I think in terms of recording it and trying to translate it now, we're way better than we were.
On playing in India...
Isom: We have a really good friend who's a really, really talented artist named Xander Singh. He had a tour in India and he was like, "Do you guys want to go?" And I'm like, "Heck yeah!" It kind of sucked 'cause Matt wasn't able to go 'cause he was still in college in Nashville, but I went over there with Xander and my roommate at the time, Luc.
India changed my perspective of life. I went thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean and then realized that people are just the same, all over the world. They believe in the same things, they live for the same giant concept. I think everyone has these micro-themes that they live for, but, I went to this temple right when I got there, and the first thing that the priest (they call them pujaris) said was like, "May God bless you and your friends on your visit to this country." I thought, "Wow. Billions of people in the world are all people living under God and people still believe in the same big thing." It really opened my eyes. It was very inspiring, to know that people feel happiness and sadness all over the world. To actually realize that and see that firsthand is really cool.
And, Indian people really like metal music. They tried to get us to cover all these songs we couldn't by, like, Iron Maiden. They really liked metal and they really liked classic rock like Pink Floyd and Eric Clapton.
On their latest release "Antimotion"...
Matt: We had just put out [August Jesus Depression]; it was like six days after it. We had this talk for an hour or two and it was, like, four in the morning. We were like, "Okay, so what's next." And we were just kind of like, let's just do whatever we want to do now. And I took that to heart. We went to Austin for South By Southwest and I was in the hotel and I just left everyone and sat on the bed and started doing whatever. And that beat came out. And from there, we just started, from that beat.
Isom: After South By Southwest, Matt was in Denver, and I was in Boston to finish the semester. And it was kind of the same thing as Black and White EP--he sent me the music and I recorded, like, a scratch vocal and more stuff and sent it back. And Matt, two weeks later, came and visited and we tracked the vocals.
Matt: Strings and classical sounds have really intrigued me lately. I sent him the string arrangement that was that chord progression with that melody. I remember sending him, like, a thirty-second clip of the drumbeat. It was just this completely weird beat that we couldn't even understand. And from there he took this 30-second clip and made it into this song somehow.
Isom: The title "Antimotion" came when we were driving back from South By Southwest, because...you know how party, dance rock is so big right now? That's all about dancing, that's all about motion. "Antimotion" is kind of against that. It counteracts that. But the funny part of it is, it's still electronic. And I think it's completely danceable.
Matt: I feel like we're kind of rebels.
Isom: The lyrics are really depressing on that. Sometimes when I'm really happy like I have been, I tend to overanalyze myself a lot. Sometimes I just think these really awful thoughts in my head and then that's where the lyrics came from. Usually Matt'll send me a track and then I'll just be sitting there and I'll have my headphones on and then I'll just be staring at a computer screen trying to figure out what I should do. And, I don't know, I just get in this very dark mood and that's where the lyrics came out of. Like, "I'm a bloodsucker, I'm a gravedigger..."
On the "Antimotion" artwork...
Isom: One thing I really liked was we got to release the lyrics and artwork in the package with the download, which I think is so important. Hopefully, how I envision it is people clicking on it, downloading it, and looking at the lyrics and artwork while they're listening to the music. Like the graveyard. Those are headstones. And everything we do is collective. I drew those lyrics and those gravestones, and I sent them to Matt, and Matt puts it into Photoshop and manipulates it even more. It's like the same way we record our music is the same way we do our artwork.
On creating their own environment onstage...
Isom: We kind of want to make music like people write novels. Like when you read Catcher in the Rye you step inside J.D. Salinger's head. And you're in his head for, a week, two weeks, a month. We want people to come over and have Thanksgiving dinner at our show.
Matt: Literally have Thanksgiving dinner.
On their current tour...
Isom: We have Omaha, then we have Wichita, then we're doing Austin, Dallas, Beaumont, then we're doing Orange County, then we're doing Los Angeles. We're playing some quirky venues then we're playing some really cool ones. We're playing a bowling alley, we're playing a VFW hall--it's funny, the VFW hall we're playing with the biggest band that's already sold out. And then we're playing, like, a thousand-person venue sidestage, we're playing another thousand-person venue small stage (Knitting Factory), we're playing a really sick place in Austin, this really cool club. It's all different. It's gonna be interesting. I'm really excited.
On their relationship with the audience...
Isom: A year ago, we would never hang outside and talk to people after shows. We would never talk to people. We've had a MySpace for, like, two years and we would be like, "Screw talking to people on MySpace. We're a band--people are supposed to talk to us and we don't respond." And seriously, no, we held ourselves on a different pedestal. But I think the older we get and just the more experience we get, the more we realize people are just people, they're the same as you. You just have to be one amongst every other person. I think we're the only band that actually likes interviews. It's fun to actually get to talk to people. Going on tour and playing shows, I feel so honored when people are standing in front of us. It's kind of a weird thing because we're not putting it in a formula in order for kids to come, but at the same time when kids come to what we're doing it's just, like, amazing. We want to hang out with you guys. I want to get to know you guys as much as possible because we're the same kind of people that come to our shows and we just want to be friends with them. Be a big family. That's what we want to be.