The gospel according to Matthews

English singer-songwriter Scott Matthews has been creating quite a buzz in the 12 months since the release of his debut album, Passing Stranger.

A charming collection of blues, country and folk, the record has been championed by influential DJs like Zane Lowe and Jo Whiley who've both invited him to play sessions on their shows. Indeed, radio exposure resulted in the Wolverhampton native supporting the Foo Fighters on their short acoustic tour of the UK last summer.
“Dave Grohl had heard some of my stuff on Radio 1,” Matthews explains, “and the Foo Fighters then announced two acoustic shows in between dates on their ‘rock’ tour. This was a week before the Hyde Park gig that they subsequently released on DVD. I did two shows with them at the Ipswich Regent Theatre and the Apollo in London. Both were sold out, with 2,500 people there each night. It was something else.
“Meeting Dave Grohl was fantastic; he was a very warm chap. But it’s funny, we had a hardcore crew of three people, and there’s Dave Grohl with his four tour buses! We turned up in a Renault Megane!”
It turns out that the ex-Nirvana drummer is not Matthews’ only A-list fan.
“I played Later With Jools Holland at Christmas with Scissor Sisters and The Good, The Bad And The Queen,” says Scott. “I knew the roadie with The Good, The Bad And The Queen. He’s from Wolverhampton as well. He came over to say 'hello' and told me that Damon Albarn really loves what I’m doing. In fact, you can watch the performance on YouTube, and during the applause at the end, the camera pans away and you can see Damon Albarn standing almost right in front of my performance. The feedback we got from him is that he’s really digging what I’m doing.”
Matthews has some other interesting musical connections. San Remo, the label through which Passing Stranger is licensed to Island, was set up (essentially to release Matthews’ music) by Martin Davies and Marco Thomas, the latter of whom was bass-player in brilliant ’80s indie outfit Felt, a favourite band of both Death In Vegas’ Richard Fearless and Belle And Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch. A guest musician on the album itself, meanwhile, was Sukhvinder Singh Namdhari, of Ravi Shankar’s Orchestra.
“Well, we were looking for a tabla player,” recalls Scott. “I really wanted that instrument on the record, because of the Led Zeppelin stuff I’d listened to and grown up with. We got a couple of numbers and one of them happened to be Sukhvinder Singh. He teaches in London but also in Birmingham as well, which was where we recorded the album. As luck would have it he was right around the corner from the studio! He also played with Ry Cooder on A Meeting By The River, which was up for a Grammy. He’s been around and he’s a fantastic musician.”
Despite the high-profile company he’s been keeping of late, it turns out that Scott hasn’t fully adjusted to life in the limelight yet.
“I’m still a bit uncomfortable with the idea,” he admits. “It’s kind of nice to be playing in Ireland and starting out as an unknown again. Like, we played the Other Voices show before Christmas with Amy Winehouse, and saw Damien Rice’s show, and the intimacy of performing in that chapel in Dingle was brilliant.
“It’s some of the other stuff that goes along with making music...we’re doing another video on Friday and already the dread is kicking in. It’s like, ‘Shit, man, I don’t wanna do this; it’s gonna be embarrassing.’ Although, luckily, I’m not really gonna be in it, so it’ll probably be alright!”