Matthew E. White: Songs in the Key of Strife

You better believe Matthew E White thought twice about putting a song about child abuse on his new album. Firstly, he understood that, by including ‘Holy Moly’ on the record, he was condemning himself to spend the next six months explaining the lyrics to journalists.
Also, he’d have to go on the road and, you know, sing it every night. That shit can mess with your head.

“Actually I DON’T think I’ll be singing it every night,” says White (32), an affable Virginian who, with beard and mirror-shades, could pass for a long-lost member of ZZ Top.
“That said, it’s important to have serious material in your repertoire. Music can succeed at a variety of levels – there are unquestionably moments it works in a strictly aesthetic, on the surface way. However, on occasion, it’s good to have material that goes a little deeper. Which is what ‘Holy Moly’ does.”
He didn’t pluck the topic from the clear blue sky. Raised in an Evangelical Christian community, one of White’s childhood friends was sexually abused by a senior member of the church. He’d contemplated setting his reflections to music for years, always blanching. But, recording his new LP, a full-fat southern soul excursion entitled Fresh Blood, he felt the moment for unburdening was at hand.
“I wrote the song and then hesitated. This was heavy stuff. It goes beyond your experiences of being in the music business or your career or anything like that. It’s something that really comes from yourself.”
With ‘Holy Moly’ down on tape, his first inclination was to secrete it away in a deep dark room. He had exorcised his demons – did he really need to revisit the trauma night after night, interview after interview?
“Then I listened back and the music was just too good – and so fitting with the theme. Of course, there was the worry: ‘I’m going to end up talking about sexual abuse to 150 writers for the next six months’. At this point, I’ve already probably had about eight conversations about it with journalists. That isn’t something you necessarily wake up looking forward to.”
He went ahead and pushed the button anyway, hopeful ‘Holy Moly’ would help anyone struggling with the legacy of abuse. If he could reach out to just one person, it would be worth all the painful conversations and idiotic journalists.
“I would like to think [abuse victims] can relate to it and will find comfort,” he’s say. “Achieve that and it would be a worthwhile piece of music.”
One of the narratives that has already started to build around the booming, brass-infused Fresh Blood is that it represents an exorcism for White, a confirmed Christian struggling to process the evil he witnessed within his church. This is a source of some frustration – White was raised Evangelical but faith is no longer part of who he is, no matter that people continue to insist otherwise.
“I have to blame myself, in a way,” he says. “I was the one who, on my first record, put it in the one-sheet that I was raised in the Philippines by my Evangelical parents. The last song on the album finishes with me singing ‘Our Lord Jesus Christ Is Our Friend’. On the cover, I wear a white suit. I didn’t realize it at at time – but people saw a preacher connection. Had I understood, I probably would have worn something else.”
He doesn’t mind – not really. Still, it troubles him that his audience might approach his music from an incorrect standpoint.
“I was talking to a journalist from France – there was line in one of my songs about a tent and she assumed it was a religious reference, as in to do with a prayer revival. I was like ‘woah…we have to step back here’. You need to understand where I'm coming from.”
White is not annoyed, merely frustrated. A big amiable fellow, he is mostly inclined to roll with the punches. When The Big Inner became a surprise hit in 2012, first critically, then commercially, he accepted his good fortune but didn't allow himself to be carried away. Second time out, he remains implacable. He is immensely proud of Fresh Blood, like its predecessor recorded at White’s Spacebomb studio in downtown Richmond. Whether it triumphs or flops is out of his hands and fundamentally beside the point anyway. So long as he can stand over the music, his work is done.
“I was surprised The Big Inner found an audience,” he says. “That I made a good record wasn’t a shock to me. When you go into a project, you want to make something worthwhile that you can stand over. The fact it reached the audience it did was surprising – and very encouraging and reassuring.”
When it came to Fresh Blood there were no second album jitters. A laid-back individual whose speaking voice fully inhabits the cliche of the ‘southern drawl’, it is difficult to imagine what would cause White to feel antsy. He isn’t that guy.
“It’s all about high standards,” he says. “What’s really important is that you listen to good music. If you listen to mediocre music, then you're comparing your own stuff to something that is average. Whereas if you listen only to very good music, you're holding yourself to a higher standard.”
It came as a surprise to White that his first album was compared to the work of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. Sure, there were (very) superficial similarities. But nothing of substance.
“I’m not sure why people talk about me in the same breath as Bon Iver,” he once told me. “Don’t get me wrong – I’m a huge fan. I know Justin fairly well. In fact, he stole a member of my band. And it is fantastic to see someone who has achieved great success put it to such interesting use. He is trying create serious music, better music. Maybe that’s why we're always compared. I’m trying to do something similar with my sound.”
White was born in Richmond, capital of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. As very young child, he moved to the Philippines, where his parents were conducting missionary work. He came back to the US aged six. Even at that age, there was some culture shock.
“I remember small things really standing out. Like in the Philippines, where it is really, really hot, we didn’t have air-conditioning. To have AC in a house – in a car! – was astonishing to me. One day, in our house in America, I left a piece of toast on a table and went out playing. I remember and rushed back really worried. I was afraid ants would come in and eat it. Of course that doesn’t happen in America.”
“You realize you're part of a very specific place and time – and that there are other, very distinct, places and times. Just because you grow up in a certain way, isn’t to say everybody else lives the same life. In America everything is smooth – you can travel to the beach, to the suburbs. The traffic moves. It’s not like that in other countries. I’m not sure Americans always appreciate that. We are a continent with an ocean either side. It’s easy to be insular.”
White doesn't regard himself as a rock musician. He sees his music as belonging to the parallel tradition of soul and blues. Indeed, he is inclined to think rock and roll has reached a creative dead end – in 2015, what truly dynamic sounds are coming out of the rock world? He shrugs – nothing so far as he can tell. It’s a subject he addresses, with agreeable wryness, on the new song 'Rock and Roll is Cold'.
“The lyrics are playful, yet with an element of seriousness. We all like to talk this shit – we get on our high horse about music. I like to write in the vernacular. It’s enjoyable to me to put things in a song that you might hear in a conversation. People don’t expect that. It keeps it interesting.”