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The spirit of Aqualung lives in a complex songsmith whose moody music he equates with both the underwater world and celestial space. His name is Matt Hales – singer/songwriter, pianist and multi-instrumentalist. A mastermind at mesmerizing us – first with his 2005 debut album in the U.S., Strange & Beautiful and now with the eagerly awaited successor, Memory Man.
Matt shares this sound haven with his wife, Kim Oliver (co-writer) and his brother, Ben Hales (co-writer/vocals/guitar/bass). Trained on the keyboards as a very young child, Matt is not only adept at piano, but everything from glockenspiel to moogbass. His atmospheric voice creates an ambiance that ranges from lushly cinematic to hauntingly melodic.
Memory Man is the culmination of many things: Touring for two years and the musical variations that were created onstage. The birth of a son and the subsequent floodgate of emotions that have trickled onto the tracks. And perhaps years of experience have allowed Aqualung to push the envelope, exploring the extremes of their hopes and fears through lyrics and composition.
Glide had the opportunity to speak with Matt on the phone during some down time. Here are some of his thoughts on unexpected success, family ties and his latest release.
The first time I heard your music was in the movie, “A lot Like Love”. Did you find that the movie brought the song “Brighter Than Sunshine” out to the world?
I’m sure it contributed to it …how could it not. I noticed around the time that film was out a lot more 17 year olds started showing up at our concerts. It’s funny but as songs get more widely known, they sort of turn into pop songs, which isn’t how they originally started.
Originally America was never part of the plan and now it’s very much so…
I know…it’s almost the entire plan. It’s funny the way that happened. We had no idea. We had very modest hopes for what might happen when we put a record out here. I knew that there was some interest, but I figured it would be like the fate of most British artists who release records over here — which is that you get some support but it doesn’t amount to a great deal. I have friends back home who are probably much more successful artists than me and it hasn’t really caught on for them over here at all. They sell like 5,000 albums and then they do one four-week tour and go home and never come back. I thought that might happen to us, but it didn’t.
Apparently, performing Strange & Beautiful in front of Americans for the past two years inspired new ideas for Memory Man. Is that right?
Yes, I’m not sure that it was necessarily Americans that made a mass of difference, but what the unexpected American success meant was it extended the touring life of that material by a couple of years. What made sense creatively was to use that time to experiment with what we were doing. All that experimentation was stored up and went into the new record.
Tell me about Memory Man…how is this a departure from Strange & Beautiful?
In a number of ways, it’s a distinct new chapter. I felt like it was time for me to push myself a bit further…to push the Aqualung project into some new areas. One of things I learned from years of touring the old stuff is that it turned out to have more capacity for drama and atmosphere. It had the potential for being so spectacular and I hadn’t really realized it. So that sensation for wanting to make a slightly less inhibited record was definitely at the core of it when I started working on Memory Man. It has a slightly different outlook. If I was to characterize each album as a person, Strange & Beautiful is an appealing, but shy creature. Memory Man is not an attention-seeking fool, but it’s someone who speaks with slightly more assurance…a bit more confidence, perhaps.
And the title Memory Man?
Well, the title kind of means nothing at all in some ways. Which isn’t to say I didn’t give it a lot of thought. It was an album without a title right until the end, as they [albums] always have been with me. Throughout the making of it, there was something cinematic about the way the record was sounding and how each song moved into the next. I kept wondering if I was making a soundtrack to a lost movie. And the title of the album should be what the movie would be called. It took ages and ages for me to settle. I thought it should be slightly science fiction with a ring of the ‘60’s …and maybe something Kubrick-style. Memory Man is actually the name of a vintage echo pedal we were using so much while recording that I jokingly said, ‘We’ll have to call the album “Memory Man.” And I thought afterwards that the name had that ‘60’s paranoid, sci-fi feeling and that might just be perfect …and it is.
How is it working with your brother and wife? What are some of the pros and cons?
Well, the pros really outweigh the cons, which is why we’re still doing it. They are the people I have always worked with. Other people find it much more of a strange idea than I do. But there’s no doubt that the biggest advantage of working with them is that we know each other so well that we don’t have to explain ourselves. All three of us want to create material that has an emotional resonance that we hope will really touch people. In order for us to create that kind of work, we don’t want any distractions – we don’t need to be worrying about our own agendas or even our own relationships.
You already know each other’s agenda …
We do, so there isn’t any need to discuss it. We’re able to just put our energy into the business of writing the songs. There are cons in that it’s a slightly risky undertaking because I can’t escape from my brother or wife…not that I want to, but if things aren’t going so well with a song, sometimes you don’t want to be continually bumping into the people who are working with you…giving you that look as if to say, ‘Have you sorted that bit out yet?”
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And how long have you and Ben been working together?
Well, we’ve been working together since he showed up when I was two. Quite an unusual arrangement (laughs).
Speaking of family, Kofi is two and a half years old already. You’ve talked about how he has profoundly affected your music when he was born…
He’s profoundly affected my and Kim’s total existence. Because I’m musician and songwriter, it’s therefore affected my work, as well. The arrival of Kofi into our lives has made me receptive to the world in a more acute way than I was before. Which is a good and a bad thing. I feel the amazing joy of life and the possibility and hopes and all the magical things that are around us more than I did before. But that’s offset by really feeling the threats and horrors that are terrifying about our current situation. I think about the world that my son is going to inherit. So in that way, I feel my receptors are receiving on all frequencies for the first time.
In an interview recently, you were talking about one of your new songs, “Broken Bones” and you mentioned the “aerial thing”. Is that what you mean by receptors?
Oh, yeah. My “aerial thing” is indeed the receptors. Basically, everyone is receiving a certain number of frequencies and at different points in your life you care about certain things more than others. With Kofi, suddenly I’m kind of “hearing” the whole thing now and that’s as awful as it is wonderful.
The single “Pressure Suit” seems to lyrically tie back into the Aqualung name…not being able to breathe, etc…
Well, we didn’t resist using that terminology. There’s something quite nice to the way it relates to the band’s name. But more than that, there’s a kind of drama in those terms. If there’s one song that spans the mood of the album, it’s probably “Pressure Suit”. It has both the person who is lost in space and the person waiting back home. The one who is being returned to – sort of earthbound and looking up to the sky. It’s a love song at heart, but it’s also about distance – love persisting under extreme circumstances. All of that has a kind of tumbling, rushing energy, which is why I say there always has to be a journey in a song. Even though it’s not exactly resolved in the song, there is a sense that the journey will reach its end.
Why did you choose Paul Buchanan of The Blue Nile to be a guest vocalist on “Garden of Love”?
I chose him because I love his voice and his work. I thought it could be very dramatic to have a different voice take up that song at that point. I expected it to come across like it was the other half of the conversation in the song. As if the camera would swing around and you would suddenly see the other half of this story. But then when he actually sang, it took on this slightly magical dimension and it sounded more like the same protagonist reflecting on that event from later on in his life. There is a great kind of worldliness in his voice. And even though he’s a Scotsman and I’m not (laughs) there is a tone that somehow matches in our voices. He was the first person to notice it, actually. So it wasn’t quite what I had planned but it worked out rather well.
The podcast of the making of Memory Man was quite an incredible effort. Here you are writing about the production of this new album on your site while trying to complete the CD. Was this a therapeutic thing to do?
Well, I have to give the credit to Ben because that was mostly his work. I think he found it very therapeutic because it helped him keep track of what was going on. The other thing I was really glad we did was those songcasts where Ben and I had conversations about all the songs. That audio is up there on the site, as well. That was very interesting to document for us too, because it was about half way through making the album and we could go and hear what we were doing at that point.
You’ve been quoted as saying you would like to make “grown up” music. I know you don’t mean “elevator” music…
I suppose I want to write songs that are dealing with life as I’m experiencing it. After all, I must be a grown up now (laughs) …there’s no escaping it. There’s a whole aspect of pop music that’s about celebrating and trying to perpetuate some illusion of carefree and responsibility-free youth. It’s excellent for what it’s for, but I can’t look myself in the eye and make that kind of music now.
And you’ve made so many kinds of music in your life…
Well, maybe that’s it…I made that kind of music when I was young. I really explored that and I found it to be a slightly deficient experience in the end. There was something missing. When I started Aqualung, I discovered I could write songs that were in my own vernacular. I was 30 years old at that point in my life and a lot of things were coming into focus. So the word “grown up” doesn’t mean it has to be sensible or boring – hopefully not — but it’s not pretending that I’m 16 years old either.
How often do people compare you to Chris Martin of Coldplay?
It’s something that happens from time to time. I’m sort of hoping it’s going to wear off. Initially, it’s an easy comparison to make with all and me playing the piano and occasionally singing high and being English.
Who turns your head musically these days?
Everyone (laughs). I’ve had a real reconnaissance with Kate Bush in the last year or so. I can’t seem to get enough of her. In particularly, The Sensual World which is my favorite record of hers. I listen to that constantly. And then just all the old favorites – particularly when I’m away I listen to music that I know well because it provides some sense of home. It’s always back to Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, The Beach Boys and all the greats.
You’ve toured Aqualung in many different ways, from you on your own to 15 people on stage. Will you be staying as a four-piece band for now?
For the time being we will. I’m just figuring out how to play these more expansive songs onstage. I always do that when I’m recording. I don’t give any consideration to the practicalities of how we might play them, and then that’s always the exciting part when we have to figure out how on earth we’re going to do it. But it turns out to be possible and we’re certainly getting better at it with each successive date. What would be really interesting to do with this album after we’ve toured it a few times as a full band is to then tour this material stripped down to just me or a couple of guys.
You’ve done that before, haven’t you?
Yes, and it always reveals a lot about the songs for me, as well as the audience. And with this record, which is more densely arranged than previously, it will bring out the simple song that’s always there. The heart of it. This material will lend itself to many different interpretations. I’m really looking forward to the next few years of playing these songs, finding all the different ways they can be sung…really getting to know them.
