Matthew Sever, also known as Matt The Electrician, is a singer-songwriter based in Austin Texas.
He’s got Oregon roots, with family living in Corvallis. He’ll be playing at the Majestic Theater in Corvallis on Friday. Thursday he’s at the Hybrid in Eugene. And—full disclosure—Matt is a friend of mine.
But, I wanted to catch up with the former electrician to ask about what it’s like working as a touring musician these days. I spoke to him as he was driving north on I-5.
I asked him what it’s like being on the road.
Sever: Well, there’s a lot of time sitting down in a car. It’s a lot of time being by myself.
And so there's the kind of the challenges to the physicality of my body as it ages. Apparently, it doesn't love sitting down for hours at a time. But, I do like kind of being in control of all of the things I get to bring on the road with me to kind of make, to make the trips a little more fun and, and kind of combine being on the road these days with playing shows, but also sightseeing and going to baseball games and visiting friends and family. And, I think when I was doing more flying to get around, it is a little bit quicker, but it limits what you can do. These days I can throw my skateboard in the car. I can sometimes attach my bike to the back of the car. I can bring my baseball glove and there's just lots of extra things I can travel with and a lot of food. I travel with a lot of food as well.
McDonald: You have a new album out. What is it like to put a new album out and, and try to get people to notice it?
Sever: I mean, I don't even know if challenging is the right word. There's times where it just seems almost impossible. I don't think it's always been any easier necessarily for independent artists, independent musicians, to get much in the way of help with promotions or publicity.
On the one hand, I think it's a little more challenging now because we're dealing with new, relatively new, paradigms. Meaning just kind of social media and internet stuff in general, which I know, for a lot of people and a lot of musicians I know, that's the only thing they've known. And so there's a kind of a despair, I think, to approaching it.
And there's an unfairness to it because a lot of these social media platforms, you know, in the time honored tradition of the drug dealer, started with, you know, the first joint is free. And then after that, once you're hooked on Facebook or whatever, and you've got all your people. There they go. Well, now you need to pay for ads.
And I think as someone who came up in an era when there were a lot of magazines and a lot of newspapers and all these other different outlets that when the internet came along and when social media came along, it was so much easier across the board than dealing with all of the physicality of mailing physical compact discs and pictures and printed-out quote sheets to all these different outlets.
They weren't gonna cover you anyway. It was such a bigger money spend and such a bigger time suck to do all of that...trading that for being able to cut and paste an email to a bunch of people all at once. It's so much easier, even if it doesn't work as much of the time, it still feels better to me.
McDonald: Well, you have a new album, like I mentioned, “The Ocean Knocked Me Down.” Would you describe it for us?
Sever: Sure. It's 16 songs. Some of them very, very, short, some of them very, very, ridiculous. But, they were all pretty much written during the pandemic, you know, the first couple of years of the pandemic. And so it's a collection of stuff from that time frame. The title track, “The Ocean Knocked Me Down” was really a very simple song about trying to go swimming in the ocean. Actually in Pacific Grove, California, where you and I went to high school, trying to go swimming in the ocean without any real knowledge of swimming in the ocean.
And then, of course, being knocked down and it's perhaps obviously a metaphor for all sorts of other things in general. But also, you know, what was going on during the pandemic.
And, just that idea of wanting to feel like you know how to approach a thing that you absolutely don't know how to approach. And it is so much bigger and stronger than you.
Matt Sever is the singer / songwriter Matt the Electrician. He’s playing in North Bend on Wednesday evening. On Thursday, he’ll be at the Hybrid in Eugene, and Friday night he’s at The Majestic in Corvallis.
