Matthew Sweet

When we created Ming Tea we actually had eight songs. We did a gig at The Viper Room before the first movie was made with Mike was dressed as Austin. It was like he was still working out the character. That was about as real as it ever got. In the second movie I think they might have used some of my scene break stuff, but there wasn’t any Ming Tea in it. Then for the third movie they brought back Ming Tea. But in that case we didn’t do any actual hanging out. Mike and I wrote the song and then we did it in the studio and then sang it for the movie. I guess what I’m saying is that the greatest era of Ming Tea was long ago.

We met long before that. I think around the time I was making Girlfriend we met because Fred Maher was producing something of hers for a soundtrack or something like that. I remember talking to her on the phone during that time. We may have talked about writing something and then I ran into her again once I lived in LA. By the mid-90’s we were both living out here. At the time I met Mike Myers, Sue brought him to a show of mine at The Cave, this acoustic club out here. Sue was sitting in with me singing background vocals. Then I wrote some songs with her and Charlotte Caffey of the Go-Go’s.

I never had written songs with anybody so I was so nervous about it. They got me to go out to lunch with them and then they confronted me, like “Write songs with us” [laughs]. That opened me up to writing more with other people, which I think has been a good experience for me. Not so much because I used that stuff for my own records or anything but it opened me up musically a little bit.

Yeah I think so. Sue was talking to our label Shout Factory about doing some solo thing and she mentioned me producing her. I’d said many times that I wanted to because I liked her voice. They suggested we try to do something collaborative that and then the idea of doing a cover record came up and we just ran with that because it was something that was easy for us to do. We could just do it at my house and it was really fun because we have such similar taste in music. The most surprising thing is that all we both like so many of the same songs from that era.

That just how they’re doing it now. There’s been this big shift and it’s been terrible for big studios. My very favorite studio in LA, which most recently was called Cello used to be the western side of United Western Studios. That’s where they made all these classic recordings like Beach Boys and Sinatra records. One of my favorite, if not my favorite engineer in the whole world, Jim Scott, worked only in those rooms and that studio is gone. They couldn’t keep it alive because of the advent of home recordings. The quality of which has gone up to where you can do a really good recording at home. For us it meant not having the pressure of a big budget.

That’s great to hear. I’ve made a lot of demos over the years and really starting with the new millennium, I’ve made a couple records in my house. This is the first record I’ve done where it was like something other than me. It was a little bit scary in terms of that but I just tried to make it sound as cool as possible.

I use a Macintosh based Pro-Tools system. It’s not a super complex one. In fact, the thing that I do that’s sort of unorthodox is that I still mix completely within the computer so I don’t go back out of digital once I’m in there. Maybe if I make a ton of money I’ll get some more outboard gear.

That was really bizarre. It was He May Call You Up by the Left Bank. It’s only a really well known song to people who already know the Left Bank really well. It was an uncanny thing that set us off on a really good tone.

We sat down with CDs, lists and other lists our friends had given us. We picked things sort of randomly and after a while we would just not know what we were doing next and I would go, “What if we did a track for this song?” and Sue would be like, “Great.” It was pretty easy going.

I think everybody’s pretty used to how it is now. Everybody’s had these setups at home for several years but it’s just that now people are making the real record off them. From what I hear, a lot of the producers now and especially guys who mix records, have to have their own studio because record companies won’t pay both for an expensive studio and an expensive mixing guy. It is changing a little bit, in terms of what’s expected. For Shout Factory Sue and I couldn’t have really afforded to do it in an expensive studio because we were doing it for a low amount of money.

A lot of it’s my guys and that was decided from the beginning. I wanted to get my drummer Ric Menck and Greg Liesz to play on it. In fact, Ivan Julian and Richard Lloyd ended up on it because they were out recording a bunch of stuff for my next album and I just had them play on some of the stuff for this one. Susannah knows that’s those guys too so it wasn’t like I jammed all my guys on her or anything.

Van Dyke is an amazing guy. I did a lot of work with him on a record of mine called Living Things that came out a couple years ago. On this record he just did a couple of songs so he came over on one day and recorded. I’ve known him a long time and he isn’t just a musical genius. He’s beyond that, he’s just a genius in general. We didn’t want to have it slip by without having him work on the record. I’m sure we’ll be using him around more because I’m producing a solo album for Sue and I’ll get him to do some stuff on that as well.

I was always a huge fan of Sue’s voice and I really loved the Bangles as well. They’re awesome because they actually have a group sound. When the three main members get together they have this classic sound. I first fell in love with Sue’s voice on a thing called Rainy Day that was a compilation which was a David Roback based thing. It had a couple songs with Sue singing the Bob Dylan song, I’ll Keep It with Mine.

No, that’s not true. Well, I don’t love flying or anything.

I went for about eight years not flying at all. From about 1994 to 2000 or somewhere around there, so it’s true I had terrible fear of flying. Then I dealt with it and got over it. I’ve done a ton of flying since the turn of the century. I went all over the world with the Thorns three years ago. We opened for the Dixie Chicks in Europe and Australia. I went to Japan and Spain and toured on my own last year.

The Thorns opened for the Dixie Chicks in Europe. The Thorns is me and Pete Droge and Shawn Mullins. It’s sort of country rock. We sold almost 200,000 records.

Not really. Only by virtue of Sue and I doing this thing together did I end up producing it. I’m still focused on doing my own stuff as much as I’ve been doing all these side things. I have a new album that I’m working on finishing right now. I would produce if it was with the right person and if they didn’t care about doing it my way [laughs]. I don’t know if I have really enough patience to produce something unless I really am a fan.

I’m not sure, either later this year or early next year.

Sony got my catalog because BMG and Sony merged. So they’re releasing a reissue of it, I think, this summer. I’m going to try to get it out sort of in the wake of that. We may still be touring some of Sue’s stuff in the fall so I don’t know if it makes sense for me to put it out until next year.

I did most of the groundwork for it last year while we were working on this record. Now I’m more into doing more singing and finishing that stuff. A lot of it’s done, but just not totally done. I have to get a sense of what it is and I have the luxury, because I’m at home. The funny thing is, the record itself is extremely raw, crazy and off the cuff.

That’s not new. It is called Good Friend and it is a disc that existed back then. During the prime of Girlfriend, one of the grassroots promotions that was really helpful was store play. There were still a lot more Mom and Pop record stores back then and even record chains had a little more about of that mentality than they have now. I was out touring at the time and the label wanted to put together some that would be a thank you to the in-store play people. That’s what that CD was.

Also we’re hoping to do a five point one surround sound mix with for Girlfriend but that just hasn’t worked out yet.

I know. It’s so much that I can’t even really count myself as being in any way current about it. My real craze was before it was ever in the mainstream culture here. I still love the style and all of that but I don’t keep up with it in the way I used to. We still see Miyazaki movies though.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck