TRANSCRIPTION
SERIES 1, EPISODE 1
MATT FISHEL
Matt Fishel Nobody will ever buy music sung by a man singing about other men, it just will not sell, period, no discussion. Let's not try let let's not discuss it. It's not going to happen.
Dan I'm Dan Hall. I'm a gay man and I love my music. However, I've spent my life translating hetero normative content into my own story. So I'm speaking with queer musicians from around the world who mirror and inspire my queer journey.
Dan Welcome to In the Key of Q.
Dan Across three albums, Matt Fishell has produced a catchy blend of Euro Pop and Green Day Rock and nestled in his great melodies and fantastic harmonies, are proudly queer lyrics that aren't afraid to tackle difficult and controversial subjects.
Dan Matt, welcome. Hello.
Dan So then for those who don't know you, who is Matt Fishel?
Matt Fishel I came bouncing out of performing arts school. I went to Lipa in Liverpool, ready to take on the world and to get a record deal and to get a publishing deal. And I was incredibly shocked off the bat when.
Matt Fishel I got a few I landed a few really good meetings with basically most of the major labels in the U.K. at the time, and one by one they all started saying the same things to me.
Matt Fishel It was it was always men. It was always middle-aged men in large, large, large rooms with.
Matt Fishel One huge chair that they were on to me on a small chair, and they would all listen, you know, and they'd be nodding away and looking kind of like, hmm, like you could see them looking kind of off into the distance, thinking what they could do with these songs.
Matt Fishel And then every single one of them basically said to me, great melodies. You've got a good voice. You obviously are very good at telling stories with your words, but you got to cut the gay content. Nobody's going to buy it. Nobody wants to hear it.
Matt Fishel From their perspective, they would always push it that art has to sell and you can make all this great art all day long. But if no one's going to buy it, no one's going to buy it. And nobody will ever buy music sung by a man singing about other men. It just will not sell. Period.
Matt Fishel No discussion. Let's not try a let, let's not discuss it. It's not going to happen.
Dan What. Not even to other gay men.
Matt Fishel The discussion was always and whenever I would bring that up, the discussion was it's such a small minuscule percentage of a buying audience that we don't care. We're interested in the big, big, big money. And the big money is not with the gays. I mean, I just sit there like incredulous just every time, just being more and more like down as I would come out and I feel like each time I left one of those meetings, just another piece of me was chipping away.
Matt Fishel And I was just thinking, but I'm gay. And I would have spent my hard-earned money or whatever, but I was younger on this music.
Matt Fishel If it was out there, like I was like, I would buy this. Why are you telling me no one will buy my music? And so I was faced with a choice really early on.
Matt Fishel Do I do as I was told I had recommended to me and remove all descriptions about gay relationships and remove all the pronouns to males and make all my songs generic? So I was like, why would I change and double down my experiences or use clever metaphors and subtle, subtle imagery to help people?
Matt Fishel So people have to read between the lines. When I was like, I am proud and I want to express that and I realise I'm going to have to just do this myself.
Dan But were you coming out of those meetings feeling disillusioned because you were tempted?
Matt Fishel Oh, I don't think I. Yes, sometimes I did. And even, you know, friends and family at times would say, you know, don't you just want to, you know, give up the whole gay thing? But then I just there was always something deep inside of me that realised that where I found my happiness was making that kind of music. And I just never really wanted to have a massive hit single about a girl or about or singing about something that I knew wasn't really what I wanted to say.
Matt Fishel I just I felt uncomfortable that it didn't sit easy with me. And I like I said, I've always loved the artists that I felt had integrity. And I felt like it would be selling out before I'd even done anything.
Dan There's an interview with Paloma Faith in the podcast, How I Found My Voice, where she talks about an incident where her American record company really loved one of her singles. They're like, this is going to be the song, the breaks you in America. Could you just do one thing for us? On your music video you're kissing a black man and we need you to reshoot it.
Matt Fishel I mean, that's just fucking racist and despicable, and I wish I could say I was shocked, but it doesn't surprise me at all. This the assumption that you have to put profit before art is one thing, but the assumption that a buying and a listening audience are racist and therefore proves your point is just.
Matt Fishel Yeah, it's horrendous. It's horrendous. I would say I'm shocked, but I've had it with the gay thing for my whole life.
Matt Fishel You know, that sucks for her. I hope she stuck to her guns.
Dan Totally. She did. She did.
Dan And she said, you know, how can I make money off the back of this? It is dirty money.
Matt Fishel Yeah.
Matt Fishel I was really, like, optimistic and happy and kind of positive and excitable, like a young kid, like up until about the age of like 11 or 12, and I was always singing and dancing and performing.
Matt Fishel And I just thought that's what everyone did. I mean, I was obsessed with Madonna. She was my world back then. And I I'm glad about this.
Matt Fishel But I question in retrospect, it's appropriateness. But I used to watch repeatedly from the age of nine, probably once or twice a week, non-stop "Truth or Dare" or "In Bed With Madonna", as we call it here.
Matt Fishel What a movie.
Matt Fishel As you well know, all of the gay scenes, the Pride march in the middle, but then Slam and Gabriel kissing at the end. I always knew and had no understanding of that was what I loved about the film. And so that was always there. But then I naively that went through living my life, you know, up until the age of 12, probably being really camp and quite obviously-.
Dan Going Get, get, get, get, get, get, get.
Matt Fishel Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Matt Fishel And wanting to do all the kissing with my younger friends and stuff, but instinctively just knowing that I kind of couldn't and never really grasping why. It wasn't like, oh you can't be gay. I didn't know there were gay men. I had no idea anyway.
Matt Fishel And then obviously, you know, puberty hits and then I started dating girls like all the other boys in the year did.
Matt Fishel My secondary school was a school for just boys, and it was a very repressive school, very strict, very strong uniform codes. And, you know, even in the summer, you couldn't take off your blazer even if it was boiling hot. And I basically just constantly rebelled. I was always in trouble. I was always angry. I was always frustrated. And essentially I was really sad and repressed.
Matt Fishel But then I was started to become bullied quite a lot. And I almost had that joy kind of bullied out of me. I then became a bit of a recluse and I kept myself to myself at school and I didn't really want to talk to anyone. And I shied away from life for a bit. And I got I had a really bad experience in town where I got really seriously beaten up in Nottingham. And then I became - by gang that I didn't know.
Matt Fishel And then I became a total recluse. I didn't leave the house or talk to anyone. And then I discovered alternative rock music. And that kind of became my crowd.
Matt Fishel And then the kind of the quiet boys at school who are into that, who I'd never really been friends with before from around the age of 14, 15, I kind of gravitated towards those also with the boys that were more open-minded and they're more cooler. They were into like Nirvana, who famously said, you know, anyone who's homophobic can't be our fan.
Matt Fishel And all along the while, outside of that horrible repressive boy's school environment, I was finding outside of school people to experiment with and do things with. And it was a very dangerous world because you never know if you're going to get a smack in the face or if somebody is going to rip off their trousers.
Dan That sense of that mild threat constantly that we can face reminds me a bit of those people who pretend to be friendly, but say things like, oh, you know, it's fine what you're doing behind closed doors. You just keep it there.
Matt Fishel Absolutely.
Matt Fishel And I think I think we all, as a as queer people have heard this, which at some point in life, which is essentially this idea that like, "Yeah, I'm cool with you, that's absolutely fine.
Matt Fishel Like, I've got no problem. As long as I don't have to see it, as long as I push it in my face, you know, like, yeah, you can be gay just like I don't want to know about it.".
Matt Fishel And somehow people who say this thing that they are doing some service to humanity, they're so like they're so wonderful and generous and kind by allowing you to be yourself, so long as you don't upset them with the visual of this disgusting act of like kissing another boy.
Dan It reminds me of when people used to say to me, when did you realise you were gay? And my stock answer to that always is it's not about realising you're gay. It's about realising that other people think it's wrong.
Matt Fishel That, yes, that's a really good way of putting it.
Matt Fishel I was horny for other boys. I was personally cool with it. You're absolutely right. What happens is you start to pick up very quickly and it's very subtle. But I think I realised in retrospect that it's constant in every area of like heteronormative society. You pick up the vibes that who you are is not considered OK by the mainstream and that you don't fit in and that other people don't like what you do.
Matt Fishel And that's an incredibly hard thing to balance when you're just finding out who you are, because you have to suddenly relate to the world in a way that it seems like your straight peers are not having to do, which is that you're having to work out how you fit in, where you fit in and where your tribe is when it's not really apparent, you know.
Dan Absolutely. And this is why the podcast, in a way, is about this. It's why it's so important that we see our own selves reflected back in our world.
Matt Fishel So important.
Matt Fishel I was I was desperately clinging all the time when I was younger for some kind of identity or to find to find hidden meaning between the words and to justify.
Matt Fishel Something to latch on to, to to be like, no, this person gets it. This person, though, they're singing about my experience. This is but I really wasn't there. And it wasn't it wasn't blatant. Some artists. You know, you have to some artists were doing it and were brave and were bold and were brazen, but they were lambasted and it was very difficult.
Matt Fishel Easy. You know, I've heard people before criticising other artists being from like, say, the 70s or 80s or 90s for not coming out. And whilst it would have been great and really helpful for people like us to have those people there, their careers were constantly threatened by the very people who were keeping them, you know, where they were.
Matt Fishel So that's not saying that everything has to be completely blatant and, you know, in your face. And if you don't say I love him as a male artist, then you can't connect with your gay following, obviously.
Matt Fishel But representation is key. It's so, so important to feel represented. And that's why I've always had respect for artists who, even though they may not have been gay themselves, they brought gay people into their work and into their world unashamedly, and so that people like us had someone to look up to.
Matt Fishel You know, Madonna was one of those people. And people forget that now about Madonna. But when it was not OK and not acceptable to promote the brilliant side of gay life, she was out there doing it.
Dan And you get those people who say things like, oh, things were different then. And I just think "Sod you. You know if you're behaving like an arsehole.".
Matt Fishel Yeah.
Matt Fishel I suppose when I was maybe 12, 13, I first got MTV and I first started seeing bands like Green Day and American rock bands basically, and that whole scene, it was just post-Nirvana. So like I was aware of Nirvana, but it was too young to me. It was just like, you know, angry loud noise. Obviously, since then I came to appreciate Nirvana in retrospect. But long story short, I was a Rock and a Punk kid. I was really inspired by that kind of music because but because I was so into Prince and Madonna and that kind of like sexual pop music, the two things kind of combined around the age of 13, 14.
Matt Fishel And then I just went into kind of like guitar music overdrive.
Dan Sorry sorry to interrupt you there. I've got to ask a Prince and Madonna fan, what did you think of Love Song?
Matt Fishel As in track three on "Like a Prayer"?
Matt Fishel The honest truth is, as a kid, I would always skip it and I would got confused and distracted by it and I didn't really want to listen to it.
Dan Did you think it was a genuine collaboration or something that the record company just kind of threw together to mix the fan base?
Matt Fishel I actually don't know. I feel like Prince is a musician, musician, and so I feel like he probably came to the table with the song.
Matt Fishel And Madonna's probably like, OK, that's not to undermine her influence.
Matt Fishel But so to me, it's a very Prince song. It's very musical.
Matt Fishel The way that the way that the especially the backing vocals in that track, so much of that song is very, very Prince. I hear a lot of him and I just hear Madonna's vocal.
Dan Absolutely. It does feel a bit like Prince is in the studio making a record and Madonna's just popped ahead around the door!
Matt Fishel Yeah. But also, it's a really, really cool thing to be on "Like a Prayer". I think it's a total like and then it's followed by I think it's it's "Till Death Do Us Part", which is.
Dan Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Fishel Exactly. You know, the glass smashing and I that but OK. So that was the long answer. The short answer is as a kid I hated it. As an adult I love it.
Dan Now, Matt, I grew up in suburban north London, and I loved listening to my Debbie Gibson on my Wet Wet Wet and my Stock Aitken Waterman, but there were ultimately all songs about straight life. And I never, ever heard my own Queer story back at me. Your album, "Not Thinking Straight" suddenly was the teen album I never had.
Matt Fishel Well, firstly, thank you very much for saying that. And that really means a lot to me because essentially that's what I set out to do.
Matt Fishel And that's the album I wanted to write that was essentially detailed songs about queer suburbia and my upbringing in a place that was not a very gay friendly place, ie Nottingham. There was no scene for me in the 90s as a teenager in Nottingham that I could find. Wvery gay experience I had.
Matt Fishel And there were quite a few roguelike. I had had a great time, but it was always behind closed doors.
Matt Fishel It was always desperately yearning. For the next time you could be near somebody and touch somebody all the time.
Matt Fishel Your friends around you, as I'm sure you experienced, are all having a great time in heterosexual ways with their other friends.
Matt Fishel And it's so difficult to be young and to feel like constantly horny and constantly open to meeting people and having sex and having a good time and just not being able to express it.
Matt Fishel And so having to be repressed and having to find it in secret. This is how many, many, many, many of us out there have experienced life.
Dan As a gay gentleman myself, who quite possibly is above the age of 21, there's a song of yours I wouldn't mind having a chat about. Let's hear a clip first.
Matt Fishel Wow. OK, "Twinks". "Twinks", for me is a cautionary tale, I suppose, about.
Matt Fishel What happens or how one shouldn't place looks and youth as being the sole important things that are going to get you by in life.
Dan Do you think this really is a problem in gay culture?
Matt Fishel If you'd asked me that question ten years ago, my answer might be slightly different, but now I would say it's a problem in all culture.
Matt Fishel Lots of time people will like express like disgust at people's age. Like, you know, you can't assume that, oh, my God, he's like 30 is disgusting. And it's as if, like, somehow you'd like you disappear and die and, you know, when you when you hit a certain age, I do think it's a problem.
Matt Fishel I think it's a problem of self-esteem.
Matt Fishel And you know how how we value ourselves as well as judging other people. You know, it's that age old thing.
Matt Fishel What you say about others is really what you're saying about yourself and don't focus so much about, you know, about looks, body image or that kind of stuff as being the sole thing.
Matt Fishel Of course, it's important. We all like hot people and we all you know, we all want to be hot and we all want to be young and all of this.
Matt Fishel But there are other things in life, I suppose, as well as just the way we look and how we have sex. You're going to get older, you're going to look different, you're going to change, and you're going to have to find a way to find happiness with that.
Matt Fishel Everything I do is always very visual, and it always has been, because I write from, I suppose, from the perspective of short films. And so when I'm writing a song, the lyrics and the melody and everything to me, I'm seeing the story. I would love all my songs to have a short form music video, because that's really how they're written in my head.
Matt Fishel So what I've tried to do as an independent artist is I try to make as many music videos as I can for each album, for the songs that I or for the singles within my means.
Matt Fishel So, yeah, "Football Song" where it all started. For me, it was my first official single as a as an artist running my own label that I put out myself.
Matt Fishel And I just wanted to recreate that experience of of being a young boy and having a huge crush on the captain of the football team at school. It's about you know, it's about what you do in secret by with somebody that you can never tell anyone about. And so I've used this music video to tell that story.
Dan Matt, I think it's fair to say that your third album, "M/F," is certainly more adult than your other two in terms of style, it's a lot rockier, but also with the themes as well. There's one song particularly on there that really stands out to me, and that is "Soldiers". Could you talk a bit about that?
Matt Fishel I think everybody, no matter of your sexuality or gender, remembers your first intense relationship when you were younger.
Matt Fishel And for me, this is I, I you know, I've experimented with and done fun things with and had sex with guys. But this was the first person that I actually had a relationship with, I would actually say was my boyfriend. And it's funny, isn't it, because time is so different when you're a teenager.
Matt Fishel So we were probably only together for about four to six months, but at the time it was like six years and it was so intense and like every like emotional. It was like insane. And like they didn't call me back at the right time. Like, what did it mean? I'll be breaking up, you know, is that kind of like really heightened emotion.
Matt Fishel And it was wild and it was very horny and it was very fun and it was very intense. And it when it was ended, I was an absolute wreck. And I was like traumatised and like, "I'm never going to find another gay relationship ever again!". But like, it was it was a really, really trying and difficult time.
Matt Fishel And then we kind of lost touch.
Matt Fishel But as I say in the song, you never forget your first boyfriend, and we reconnected again in around 2012 and started becoming friends and it was lovely to see him and catch up on his life and how he was. And then really sadly and tragically, he died in 2015.
Matt Fishel You know, everything comes flooding back. And I just wanted to do a tribute to, as I say in the song, to my first boyfriend, who I was in love with. I was obsessed with. He was a very special and interesting creature. I then was hurt by who I hated and I was such complex emotions.
Matt Fishel But every one of them was extreme.
Matt Fishel When somebody who you've been intimate with and had a really intimate, close relationship with dies, I think it's incredibly well.
Matt Fishel I found it was the first person who I'd who I had a sexual relationship with who passed away. And I it just brought up so many intense feelings. I found it incredibly difficult and challenging, emotional experience to get through because you've had a physical connection with another human being that no longer exists in that form.
Dan And it really is a smashing song, "Soldiers". I recommend people listen to it. And Matt, you've written a really quite moving legacy piece there.
Matt Fishel Thank you.
Dan So, Matt, we've spoken on the podcast already about the importance of being seen in our art, being seen in the world around us as Queer people. How does it make you feel as an artist, knowing that you are helping that visibility?
Matt Fishel I do it because, you know, I'm an artist that I enjoy and I love making music. But you want it to connect and you want people to to hear you and to feel heard and to feel seen. So when you hear that that has happened, it hits right in the heart and it feels really it feels really good and it feels really warm. I love hearing from people, you know, on social media or via email saying kind of things similar to what you've just said, because it makes it makes me feel that what I've done is worth something.
Dan How do you feel your 15 year old self would connect with your catalogue?
Matt Fishel I love that question.
Matt Fishel I mean, look, without without wanting to sound conceited, I think 15 year old Matt would be obsessed with my catalogue!
Dan That's a perfect answer!
Matt Fishel Yeah, he would be obsessed because, look, I was desperate.
Matt Fishel As I said earlier, at 15 years old, I was desperate to hear songs about queer life sung by queer people.
Matt Fishel I made these songs for 15 year old me. You know, this is this is why I wrote them for I when I made "Not Thinking Straight" I was suppose thinking at the time, 'this is the album I wanted to hear at 15 years old. This is the album that I wanted to hug and jump up and down and scream about.' So it wasn't there for me. So I'm going to make it. I could be like, 'Oh, you know, he'd be like cool'. But no, 15 year old me would be like 'This is the best album I've ever heard!'.
Dan One of my main ambitions for this podcast is to introduce audiences to new Queer music. And I do think the best way to do that often is by a specific song. So what do you think would be the gateway song into your catalogue?
Matt Fishel Hmm. I mean, I guess I'm going to have to go with "Radio Friendly Pop Song".
Matt Fishel I suppose it's the it's it was my fifth single, but it's the opening track of my debut album. It sets out my mission statement, I suppose, as an artist is who I am, where I've come from, the journey I went through, being told, you know, to eradicate all the gay content from my songs. And it's it's it's, I suppose, an acerbic tongue in cheek critique on certain music industry executives and A&R men who constantly told me, and I'm sure many other artists to remove all the gay content from their songs. And what the song does is it sets the scene and it changes perspective. It's from the perspective of them talking to the artist. But then halfway through, my voice comes out and I basically say, 'Fuck you, I'm gay, I'm open, I'm proud, I'm happy to be. And this is who I am as an artist. And nothing you do or say is going to stop me being me.'
Dan Matt Fishel thank you so much for coming on this very first episode of "In The Key of Q".
Matt Fishel Thank you. It's been a real privilege.
Dan Genuinely it was your music that helped inspire this podcast. So thank you so, so much.
Matt Fishel It's been amazing.
Matt Fishel Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
Dan You've been listening to "In the Key of Q" you can find Matt's music on the usual streaming platforms and check out his forever home at mattfishel.com. The opening theme is by Paul Leonidou at unstoppablemonsters.com. Check out the shownotes for links, including a Spotify playlist to complement this episode and hop over to our Patreon page for exclusive content. Many thanks to Kajunn Kantha and Moray Laing. This episode is produced by me Dan Hall for Pup Media Consultancy. Please follow us on social media. Subscribe and rate the podcast. See you next Queday!
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