Blue October: Q&A with Matt Noveskey
by Rebecca Clark
Static Noise
http://www.staticnoise.net
photo courtesy of Michelle Whittaker

Static Noise: What made you want to become a musician? Was there a defining moment?
Matt: It was something for me that is genetic, you know some people kind of choose it and others are born into a house full of musicians and I am definitely into that category. Both my grandparents were musicians. My uncle played bass guitar and sung in a band and my brother is a fantastic drummer. I grew up in this house where music was kind of assaulted by music in every corner. It was like basically if in my family you were going to play an instrument and picked which instrument you wanted to play.

SN: What bands were your parents in?
Matt: Well my uncle played in a band in the 60’s called Reilly. They were on a small label out of Tennessee and I remember when I was a little kid and I remembered seeing him play in the 80’s and I saw them open for Blue Oyster Cult. Bands like that back in the day, and that was really cool to be a part of when you are really young. You know checking out the whole lifestyle is just something I really liked. I remember thinking how cool it was back then. My grandmother played accordion and piano and my grandfather played guitar. And I remember sitting down and listening to them play and they were really into old blues. My dad, they were my dad’s parents, he to this day is a huge blues fan. He is really into BB King and muddy waters and ect. And I grew up listening to Motown and Motown has always been a big factor. Then when it came to my siblings I have 6 sisters and a brother. It was like complete opposite styles of music because my sisters were into prince and Lionel Ritchie and my brother was into Iron Maiden and Metallica. And I was caught somewhere in the middle and that probably had to do with me having an identity crisis with music these days and I think that is the root of it right there! (laughs)

SN: So you always know that you wanted to be musician?
Matt: Exactly!

SN: When you were little, like five yrs old for example, did you have any other aspirations for a career?
Matt: You know I actually thought I was going to be an actor. That’s what my family thought too and they were really supportive of it and I did a lot of theater.

SN: When age did you decide to make music a career?
Matt: You know, I would say when I was in high school. I probably didn’t admit to it because I didn’t want to piss my parents off. They would always say to “fall back on it.”

SN: Did you go to college at all?
Matt: I almost went to Greek school and that didn’t last very long (laughs) and I wanted to go to film school. And I decided what could I go to school for that I would enjoy and kind of open in this field. And I was going to go to school for writing screen plays for television, so I English majored for awhile and then I transferred and I couldn’t really decide and the thing was that music always “got in the way” because I was always busy with my band, or bands pending on what time it was. I was so distracted I wasn’t always paying attention as I should have towards my studies, but I think that was for the best. At the time it probably didn’t look so good, but now if I hadn’t worked so hard on my music, I wouldn’t have met the right people and I wouldn’t have networked be in the band I play for today. So I think it was a good thing I kind of BS’d my way through school!

SN: Have your goals as an artist changed since you first started performing for Blue October and how so?
Matt: Yeah, you know when I was younger when I first joined the band I think I took it seriously and I was passionate about it, but I think bought into a lot of the typical kind of cliché things you hear about musicians. You know you have to act this way or be this way. You know you have to trash a motel room and party all night or you have to have girls around all the time. I kind of bought into that and after awhile I kind of realized it was kind of soulless and it wasn’t part of the art and I kind of lost sight of what I enjoyed the most, which was most gratifying to me was finishing a song. Or being in rehearsal and a new song coming together and being in the studio when you are recording and being in that moment when a song is complete. Then when you are on the road you kind of forget about what is really important. And I think that my goals kind of shifted in that sense like it took a degree where I actually forgot what my goals were. But fortunately I think we as a band went through some hard times and ups and downs and that kind of humbled me a bit and slap me around and make me realize that if this is going to be a career and something that I am going to take seriously, I needed to take it seriously. And I think in that sense now I still like to have fun, and the other guys will tell you that my sense of humor I need to chime down a couple of notches, but I like to joke around and everything, but at the same time when it comes to this as a business and a career I take it very seriously now.

SN: Who is your hero/inspiration?
Matt: Well there is a couple people I think in that sense there is a few different routes you can take and people always pick one or the other and one is somebody that you don’t know that you never known and probably never would know, and then there is somebody I have known and usually somebody’s going to say my mom or my dad, usually not always! But I am one of those people and I am going to say both of my parents. Because both my parents were always the cool parents! When I was in school my house was where all my friends wanted to hangout at, and I couldn’t figure out for the longest time and as I got older I started hanging out at my friend’s house a little more and getting to know their families and what they were like and I realized that my parents were cool people and fun to be around. And they had really good heads on their shoulders and I can really appreciate that especially after I moved away and I moved to Texas and they were so supportive of me joining the band and not giving up when times were tough. So if it hadn’t been for their love support for what I do, I wouldn’t be where I am right now. I probably would have changed my mind and I probably would have gone a different route. I definitely have to say my parent’s inspiration, both of them. Musically I had so much inspiration I wouldn’t know where to begin!

SN: How do you think you have grown as a performer since you first started performing?
Matt: I have grown to the sense where I appreciate playing my part to fit the song than playing for myself. A lot of musicians especially a lot of younger musicians on stage I think they are being overly conscious about how they are performing or thinking about their part only. Or they are thinking about what they can do to kind of show off here and make things look more complicated so they look better than the bass player or the drummer or whatever…I mean I am not going to lie I think there was defiantly a lot of that ego going on there when I was younger. And I think now I have learned to pay attention to everybody when I am onstage playing when I am playing as a band instead of just being by myself, and seeing every piece of the song and think about the way the drum and the bass should sound together. You know there is my part, and so I think that the whole more is less thing gets pounded in your head and as a musician and as you get older you start to realize that it is very true. I am not saying I like to be boring because I don’t want to do that, but I think just running back and doing what serves the song the best is the most important thing and I think that’s how I have grown the most.

SN: Is there anything you know now about the music industry/ business that you wished you would have known when your first started out?  (Any lessons learned the hard way).
Matt: yeah there is a lot! There are a lot of the little things as far as running a business or being part of the business that you kind of learn like “wow I should have been a little smarter about that.” And I don’t really want to get into that too much because a lot of that is political stuff, but I think in general I think that the main thing is don’t believe all the BS you hear, because everybody especially in the music business a lot of people are just full of it and they are going to tell you “oh you are going to be a huge star” and you are going to this and you are going to do that, but the thing is that is fine, but if you actually start to believe that and you start to think “oh man we are going to be huge! It is going to be amazing!” but thinking that way you don’t work as hard and you start believing it and you are just setting yourself up for being letdown for when you haven’t worked as hard and it doesn’t pay off the way it was supposed to and that everyone was telling you it is going to. Now it may sound weird, but I actually keep my expectations really really low. (laughs) I wouldn’t say I sell myself short or the sell the band short, because I really believe in the band. But I am not one of those people that is okay with getting my heart broken over and over again, so I don’t like to believe it when everyone is saying “Oh my god you guys are going to be huge and you are to be amazing” and you have to work to filter that all out.
 

SN: What has been your biggest achievement so far? (personal or career)
Matt: I will go with the career route here. I think the album actually going gold was a huge wake up call. I would say it is our biggest achievement. I would say there are a couple of things that are up there like Jay Leno and lollapalooza and things like that stick out, but I think the biggest sign of achievement was when we received our gold record, when we were in NY last time. And there are certain ways into getting things done, and if you know the right people you can appear on a TV show or you can get on a big radio station or this or that, and that’s always going to be the case. But album sales are undeniable. If you sell a ton of albums you are doing your job and that was a really solid feedback saying, “hey you can’t fake this.”

SN: What has been your "biggest break" so far? That kind of made you feel like you were going somewhere with your band.
Matt: To be honest with you it is kind of bitter sweet for me because I actually left the band for a couple years. I left in 2002 and I went back in 2004, so I went back before this album was recorded. I played on all of consent to treatment, half of the next album, then I left, then I came back before we did this album. And a lot of it was very personal stuff and I was going through hard times and a lot of self-doubt. And what is kind of weird because when I left the band was starting with a new manager, and I was at the point where I was going to leave either way, so I didn’t pay attention (to the new manager) and it seemed like the guy was really cool and the band was really into it, and they know what they are doing and everything and I had already had my mind made up. And when I was gone I saw how Scott was handling things and he really had this uncanny knack for getting everybody’s head straight. And he seemed like he really brought out a lot of good things in the band. And I think there are a lot of managers that are out there that are really in it just for the money or for themselves and they didn’t seem to really care about the music and I remember when I was gone for awhile I started to recognize it and thought “man maybe I should have waited longer!” you know to see what this guy was doing because he did really amazing things for the band. And when I went back to the band, I just had seen everything that the management has brought out of the band and how they supported the band and I think in that sense the band hooking up with the management that we have now has been a huge break, because without them we wouldn’t be where we are now.

SN: How has the crowd turnout been for your shows? I was at the Anaheim show and was blown away by the amount of people there! Has the mid-west and east coast been as crazy? (good crazy!)
Matt: There are certain cities we have been attacking since day one, and we have grown to expect it because we have busted our asses for so long. The difference with this last tour is instead of going and playing the cities and getting a big crowd in the cities we have been to and then going to the new cities and have a so-so crowd. We actually played some cities we never been and it was huge. We did the northwest this last tour and we hit Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland to the beautiful area and we never played those cities before and all three were packed! And it was amazing, you know from kind of going from playing in front of 150-200 kids to 900 to 1200 kids. I mean ok it was nice! But we really didn’t mean it to be that way. Not that we are not working for it, but we didn’t have a whole lot of radio support before so we couldn’t just go into a new city like. We had to go in there and build a crowd from a root level, and now with radio behind us it has defiantly opened a lot of doors for us, and I think that has been the big difference from the last tour.

SN: Does Justin write all the lyrics?
Matt: Justin does all the lyrics. As far as the music, I like to say and a good way to sum it up is that Justin is the primary songwriter. Blue October is his baby and I completely understand and respect that. He started the band, it is his vision, but it is also not a band that lets one guy call all the shots and does everything and everyone else kind of pokes along and goes “okay” and does their thing. This is a band full of musicians, you know it is one thing that I love about the band is that everybody in the band can hold their own on their instrument. You know I think that everyone is talented and good at what they do, and we are also like family and we definitely discuss things a lot and we work things out together a lot. And as far as writing music we do work collaborative, we sometimes, not a whole lot, but every album at least has a couple of songs on there where we collaborate. Justin and I actually wrote the first track off of foiled together, we wrote, “she makes me smile” together. And then CB and Justin wrote the last song “18th floor Balcony” together. One thing we have been doing a lot lately is during rehearsal we have been jamming more together, and I think the next album musically will be a lot more collaborative nature.

SN: What have been the most exciting, personally rewarding moments of creating?
Matt: I think when you hear a song and are in the studio…first of all let me just say the creative part for me is the best part. A lot of people live to be on stage and I don’t want to take anything away from that, but being in the studio is something that I can do for the rest of my life. That’s why I am actually getting into producing and I am learning a lot more about recording and studio work, because that’s something I want to do forever and that’s something I can do when I am older I can still be in the studio recording and being creative and that’s my favorite thing to do. But I would say the best part of that is when a song is complete and you just KNOW it. Because certain songs can take years and there have been songs that I have written that finally went into the studio recorded, re-recorded again. You know that song I told you me and Justin wrote together “she’s my ride home” we wrote that song together in 1999. And then when we went into the studio 5 years later and actually put it down on tape and actually go “wow!” this has been through so many different incarnations and it is complete. That moment when you feel that is actually done, it is kind of indescribable. It is joy and it is relief at the same time.

SN: What is your dream gig/tour (who would be on it with you)? 
Matt: For me personally, I would love to tour with the pixies. I am a huge pixies fan I have been my whole life and when they got back together and put on I show I went here in Austin. And man I can’t think of another show I would rather do to be honest with you. But I am sure the rest of the band has their own personal bands they want to tour with!

What do you enjoy most in life?
Matt:(laughs) I don’t think I have never been asked that before! That is hard to answer; I think I enjoy nothing more in life than making people happy. So whether that is seeing them from the stage laughing or crying or just having a blast, making someone laugh, just doing something to brighten someone’s day. I think that it makes me feel a lot better to do something for someone else.

SN: Do you guys have any nicknames for one another?
Matt: yeah (laughs)
SN: Can you share any of them?
Matt: I have so many I don’t know where to begin! They are so inside it is so hard to describe you know what I mean? Because we spend so much time together it is kind of scary! But we call (laughs) CB likes to call himself big sexy. (laughs) that is kind of self-explanatory. He became an uncle not too long ago and we changed his nickname to “Big Unc.” (laughs) Ryan is probably the most regular used the most, which is Rza D., and awhile back I was giving everyone rapper alter egos kind of like if we were all in a hip-hop group you know like the Wu Tang Clan. His was Rza D and mine was Lmno P, which I thought was somewhat clever. Especially because when we went to Nebraska and some people heard about it and they were laughing and as warm up music was going on before we got on stage to do the show, a bunch of them were up front and started chanting Lmno P, and Justin just looks at me and shakes his head at me like “what have you done!” (laughs)

SN: What is your favorite color? Tell me about it.
Matt: Orange is my favorite color and always has been. My dad has this tape of my brother and I when I was 4 and he was 8 and I don’t know exactly what was going on, but my dad was recording us talking about stuff and some really embarrassing stuff that I hope never gets out! But I said my favorite color was orange. And I remember listening to it a couple years ago and I haven’t listened to it ever because I was little and I didn’t even know it existed. And I was totally blown away because I am like “wow, my favorite color is still orange!” and it really is and I guess it always has been!

SN: Where do you want to be 5 years from now?
Matt: Honestly this is going to sound really cheesy but I don’t care! I want ranch in Colorado. Me and my future wife and horses at the foothill of the mountains. Right near bolder Colorado!

SN: Do you have any advice for bands out there struggling to get signed and their music heard? (Especially those bands that have lost there record deals and are trying to get signed again)
Matt: Besides the obvious words of don’t give up and don’t quit, which this band is definitely a good indicator of that’s the truth. There are so many times we could have hung it up, but we didn’t and we are doing well. The one thing that I see a lot of young bands doing and I am sure that when I was younger I did a lot of this too is to find your own identity. Really find out who you are and when you are ready and when you know what you are doing is who you are and not what people want you to be. Then go out there and present yourself, then go out and market yourself and advertise yourself. And work work work. Go out there and hang flyers and pound the pavement to do what you need to do to make it happen, but make sure that in the meantime you are emulating your idols and not imitating them. There are a lot of bands/groups that in all honesty are not getting old, but you kind of look at and you can’t tell one from the next. They all have the exact same outfit or the exact same vocal style or same guitar line. And when you kind of lump everyone together sure you might have a couple hit songs if you are lucky, but I think if you really want to do something special and you want to do something that has longevity you are going to have to find your own identity.

SN: What album/artist has been on repeat on your IPOD/cd player these days?
Matt: There is this band called he Cooper Temple Clause. They are from the UK and never got all that popular over here and I have had that cd in my cd player in my cd player for about 2 years now. They are an amazing band I can’t get enough of them! Also while flying, I don’t know why but when I am flying I like to I listen sigur ros. They are like the perfect airplane soundtrack, especially if you have a crying baby-sitting next to you.

SN: Any last words/comments?
Matt: The one thing I hear from a lot of people, not so much from this album, but before is that even if you are kind of riding the fence with this band from what you have heard on CD or on the radio come check us out live. I think that is where our songs come across the best at our live show and that’s how we get people hooked! So if you’re not sure come check us out!

Check out Blue October:

Myspace: www.myspace.com/blueoctober

Official site: www.blueoctoberfan.com