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sinceileftyoublog · 2 years ago

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Quiz Show Interview: Montclair-ians Who Rock

BY JORDAN MAINZER

When you haven’t played music for 25 years and get back into it, you take nothing for granted, from the voice memo feature on your smartphone to the ability to self-release music. That was certainly the case for Chris Matthews, the former Shudder To Think guitarist whose official last show with the post-hardcore greats was in 1992. Since then, he played a couple songs at a reunion show, but had mostly, for all intents and purposes, quit music. Fast-forward to the late 2010s, Matthews was living in Montclair, New Jersey, working as a professor at Montclair State. He had been added to Parents Who Rock, a database of Montclair-based parents who happened to play music, in any capacity, and received an email from another person in the organization, none other than Guided By Voices drummer--and former Shudder To Think member--Kevin March. They laughed at the connection and began jamming. Matthews asked his neighbor Frank Gibbons, who had played in bands in college, to join on bass. Quiz Show was born.

When in Shudder To Think, Matthews never sang or wrote vocal melodies, as that was Craig Wedren’s lane. He stuck to guitar parts. Originally, March was the lead singer of Quiz Show, but during a recording session with Montclair-based Ray Ketchem at his studio Magic Door, he found himself singing backing melodies, then asked by March and Ketchem to become the lead singer. Why the hell not? He hadn’t done much music-wise for 25 years. The first song that really clicked with Matthews as singer was “Pom Pom Boy”, his gentle vocal harmonies surfing on top of a disco-rock beat. When he realized that the band could self-release, Quiz Show started uploading songs as they were finished. The first was “Sound of Kissing”, though “Pom Pom Boy” was close to follow, as were the scratchy “Big Bank Theory”, post-hardcore callback “What If?”, slow-burner “Dime A Dozen”, and more.

Eventually, though, March became too busy with the ever-prolific GBV, and Gibbons backed out after COVID hit. But Matthews was having too much fun. March essentially handpicked drummer Joe Billy (also from School of Rock Montclair) to replace him, and Matthews realized that Jesse Krakow--yet another former Shudder To Think member--lived nearby. When Krakow came on board as the new bassist, the new lineup in a couple years recorded and released two EPs, Geographic and Stole the Sky, under Ketchum’s newly minted Magic Door Record Label. Then, in a roundabout way--fitting for the loose, ramshackle nature of how Quiz Show came to be--Ketchum suggested Quiz Show rerelease all of their old lineup recordings under the label, as their debut LP. After a couple hours of remastering, their self-titled debut full-length was born, finally out today.

Though Quiz Show are undoubtedly looking forward, because the band is essentially Matthews’ first lead project, the songs on Quiz Show jive with the spirit of the new lineup’s first two EPs, even when March sings, like on the subdued “Always Waiting”. Deftly journeying from chugging and wiry punk to power pop to dirges, the collection highlights Matthews’ masterful-as-ever guitar compositions and introduces him as an eternally emotive lyricist.

A couple weeks ago, I spoke with Matthews over the phone about the history of Quiz Show, the new lineup, his newfound appreciation for writing lyrics, and the process of making the band’s look-back of a debut. Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: Was it always the plan for Quiz Show’s debut album to be a collection of all its previously released singles?

Chris Matthews: No--when we started playing, we were putting things out on our own, because you can put it anywhere without a label. We were recording one or two songs at a time and releasing them as singles. It was exciting to put something out every three or four months. Along the way, the owner of Magic Door, where we record, Ray Ketchem, decided to start the Magic Door Record Label for bands that record there and want to release under his umbrella. He invited us to do that. We released two EPs under that label, and Ray said, “Now that we’re doing this, maybe we should rerelease everything on Magic Door and have everything under the one name.” In the beginning, we didn’t have an LP in mind because we were going song by song. It’s nice it’s lasted this long and we have enough music to put out an album.

SILY: Why did Frank and Kevin leave and Jesse and Joe come in?

CM: The band started with Kevin and me. Montclair is an interesting suburb. A lot of people in media and the arts end up here. I teach as a professor at Montclair State; I just happen to be a musician as well. Kevin lives in town, and we found each other through an organization called Parents Who Rock, which was organized by a woman who realized a lot of the musicians in town had been devoting a lot of their time to raising their kids and didn’t get a chance to play music. She put together events where people, low bar, could play together. Kevin found my name on there and reached out, asking, “Are you that Chris Matthews who was in Shudder To Think?” I wrote him back, “Are you the Kevin March who was in Shudder To Think?” [laughs] We figured it out and started playing music together. It kind of clicked. Kevin’s a super enthusiastic person. I told him, “I haven’t played music in 25 years. This is kind of fun, but I don’t really have the chance to do it.” He said, “That doesn’t matter. You have to come back into it and start writing songs again.” He liked what I had come up with, and we started to put a band together. Frank lives around the corner from me, and we know each other from the neighborhood. I said, “Do you want to try playing bass with us?” He said, “Sure!” He’d been out of music for longer than I had, and he was never really in music beyond college bands. We put that together.

Kevin is the drummer for Guided By Voices, who release a new record every 3 weeks. So he just got busy. He couldn’t commit to doing it. He’s also the general manager for the School of Rock Montclair. He’s got a full-time straight job, running that business, and then is in [GBV]. He didn’t have enough time. With the pandemic, things slowed down, and Frank backed out. At that point, I didn’t want to stop. I knew Joe from School of Rock. My older kid took classes there. Kevin recommended Joe take over for him as the drummer in the band. In a roundabout way, Jesse, who also played with Shudder To Think on tours, ended up living nearby. When I reached out to him, he said, “Hell yeah, I’d love to play!” So that’s who we are now: Joe, Jesse, and Chris, and we’re staying that way. At least for now.

SILY: Had you and Kevin ever crossed paths in Shudder To Think?

CM: One night on a reunion tour in 2010-ish, they played the Bowery Ballroom in New York, and I was living here. Kevin was in that band, so I came up and played a couple Shudder To Think songs with the band just for the fun of it. He and I played two songs together. I hadn’t met him before and hadn’t seen him since. It was a surprising situation. I give Kevin all the credit. He said, “You’re gonna be surprised how much people like having you back in the scene making and playing music.” He’s just been a big fan.

SILY: You’ve said that this band has made you realize you enjoyed singing as much as playing guitar. How did you feel about both before?

CM: I was just a guitar player and hadn’t sang on anything, and you know Shudder To Think well enough to know that you don’t really enter the space occupied by Craig Wedren and his vocal talents. You just let that be, and I did the guitar parts, and it worked great. But when we started playing as what became Quiz Show, Kevin was doing vocals. You can hear him singing on “Pom Pom Boy” and “Withstand” and “Always Waiting”. Even with “Withstand”, I sang in the middle. Kevin and Ray, who we were always recording with, said, “You should just sing. Make this your thing.” I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ll give it a shot.” I do like it. It is fun. The best part is not the singing, because I don’t think I can pull it off very well, but I like coming up with vocal melodies and having that be an extra piece of creative work. Craig always wrote vocal melodies, because that was his job. It’s been fun to do that as part of the process. The guitar is just fantastic. One of the things that surprised me was that I played now and again in the 25 years since I was in a band, and you’d think I didn’t remember how to play, but I never forgot. I was able to pick it up as if I never put it down. I’m doing some of my best playing now.

SILY: What would you say is the biggest difference between the remastered versions of these songs and the originally released versions?

CM: I was with Ray, and we didn’t do much. We listened to each song and picked out a couple of really minor things that weren’t mixed just right or had always been bugging me. But we didn’t try to change much of anything. The remastering was just to make them feel like they were all together when recorded, like the tonal mixes, so there wasn’t anything that was radically out of line. It wasn’t like that anyway, since we recorded everything at Ray’s place, so it took [just] a couple hours of work. We weren’t intending to create something new, but to create something more coherent from start to finish.

SILY: In between now and the last time you were writing music, do you have any newfound influences?

CM: Musically, the things I started listening to after leaving the band haven’t really influenced me. I lived for a while in New Orleans and really loved brass band stuff, probably because it wasn’t the same stuff I was playing, and I wasn’t watching it critiquing the guitar player. But I don’t think it had any influence on the way I write guitar. After hanging up the guitar, Built to Spill was the first band I really discovered. They’ve remained a centerpiece kind of band doing it exactly right. I’m always happy with where they’re going, and the feel of their songs--especially the guitar. Bands come and go, but I always stick with Built to Spill.

SILY: What did you think of their most recent record?

CM: I’m not sure I know their most recent record. I’m a terrible music fan. [laughs]

SILY: Did you lead off this record with “Sound of Kissing” because it was Quiz Show’s first-ever released song?

CM: We had always decided on it. Ray especially had influence on it. He said, “That’s your best song!” [laughs] We recorded “Withstand” and “Pom Pom Boy” first but didn’t release them, because we didn’t know what we were doing. At that point, I didn’t know you could just self-release, sign up for a distributor, and it’ll end up being on Spotify, and you’ll be a real band. But “Sound of Kissing” was the most exemplary of what we were trying to do, bringing these three musicians together as a sound. That’s why I’m the only vocalist, because at that point, they had said, “You should just sing.” I’m waiting for someone to say, “You should stop singing,” but as long as they don’t say that, I’ll keep going. It makes it easier. I don’t have to find someone else.

SILY: Did you approach the sequencing like you were making a mixtape of your own songs?

CM: Yeah, Ray and I did that. It might be a small number of people listening to an album in order, but we had that thought of what should come next. We wanted “Mannequin Sun” at the end because it was the only unreleased piece [on a Quiz Show-only release].

SILY: It’s also a good closer, a tonal wildcard, and in terms of pace.

CM: Yeah. It’s a weird song.

SILY: Are you playing these songs live and writing new material with the new lineup?

CM: Yeah. We’re definitely still playing many of these--not all of them. That’s only because some of them I can’t pull off with the vocals and guitar live, and others we haven’t had time for the new guys to learn. The three of us have written, recorded, and released two EPs, and we’re still writing. I love writing music, and the voice memo phenomenon on my iPhone, I remember how many times I sat down to write, put my guitar down to go eat something, and came back and it was like it was never done. Being able to have it as a shitty little voice recording is great. I have dozens of songs we can work on. It’s a matter of finding the time and finding what’s a right fit for this band. After this, we have three songs ready to record, and I don’t know whether we’ll do another EP or collect them as a new LP with the new lineup. We’ll keep releasing, for sure.

SILY: Do you often find yourself coming up with a melody, recording it, and realizing later it’s from something?

CM: That hasn’t happened. I always start with the guitar. The vocal melodies are always built on top of an existing guitar idea. That’s how I’ve always written. I have a three-quarter size acoustic guitar in my office, and that’s how I do most of my writing. I’ll break from whatever I’m doing, pick up a guitar, and that’ll be the start of a song. I don’t think I’ve ever recorded something and thought, “That already exists.” But if I was singing, I’m sure I would do that in a heartbeat. It’s so ethereal, versus your hands doing something.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?

CM: Like everybody else, I love the new world of television shows that you can watch. I’m watching The Last Of Us, and I’m not sure I like it. It’s a bit of a strange show. I think I thought it would be something else, and I’m coming to terms with what it is. Reading, I do all my reading for work, so I don’t spend much time reading other things. But I did just read a book by Dan Chaon, a murder mystery. He wrote one called Sleepwalk which was also very strange, which I recommend. I’m also a big Carl Hiaasen fan, if you like trashy Florida man stories. Music-wise, I don’t know if there’s anything new that I’ve paid attention to. There’s a lot of K-pop coming from my house, because my daughter’s a BTS fan, along with everybody else on the planet.

SILY: Do you have a favorite song on the Quiz Show album?

CM: “Pom Pom Boy”. The music, the vocals, the feel of the whole song. I’ve always loved that. It could be the one where even more than “Sound of Kissing”, we realized we knew what we were doing. There were a couple of other songs that don’t exist anymore where [we didn’t.] I love playing “Almost Famous”.

SILY: It’s very hard-charging.

CM: It’s a ton of fun, and I have a couple of friends who love it. “Big Bank Theory”, we don’t play it because I can’t do the guitar and vocals, so I’m trying to see if Jesse on bass can do the guitar line. I really love that one. It’s a quieter song, but I feel like the way it came together as a written song, I’ve always been happy with.

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