Name: Matt Maltese
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Nationality: British-Canadian
Current release: Matt Maltese's Driving Just to Drive is out via Nettwerk.

If you enjoyed this Matt Maltese interview and would like to know more about his music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I’d say that so much of it for me has always been personal relationships, the people in my life and how I am affected by them. And my relationship with friends and partners and family is always the biggest source of inspiration.

Forms of art can sometimes shape those experiences into something with even greater meaning that you can then want to write about in that way. Often just so much of what I want to do is make the ordinary a bit more mythical, because I see it like that. But of course the world around me and politics also play their own part and get mixed in amongst all that.

It’s all muddy really in a wonderful way.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a ‘visualisation’ of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I’d say it’s not necessary for me to have concrete ideas. Sometimes you can start with a smaller strand and bring strands together whether that’s a voice memo of a melody or a lyric you already have.

I think I definitely do like to visualise a lot but I never find that my visualisation matches up to the end product of my work. It more just encourages you to believe that what you are making can be finished and become something, which I feel is always important to feel is possible.

As time has gone on I have treated writing a song a little bit more like a job in a sense that I just try and do a full days work every day and I think I find that that allows me to be more reactive to chance, rather than give chance a two hour window every other day to come to you.

Because I think that you can have an amazing idea come to you on the street and put it in your phone and then go see a friend but if you’re actually hanging out at the piano and you have an idea, you can make it into something there and then when it happens which i think can be a really important thing. It’s an endless balance finding two.

Planning and chance are both so important. And you have to step away sometimes to be able to step back in.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do ‘research’ or create ‘early versions’?

I would say that lyrically that’s probably the thing that needs to be most organised for me. I think that is very much a working document that lasts a lot longer than the actual song sometimes lasts. I have the same song laid out on my computer and on my phone and if I’m on the tube on my phone and I need to edit lyrics to a song and make them better I use a 20 minute journey and do that. I try to read as much as possible, I read poetry.

And I don’t really love to have an early version of a song in a production sense. I love to see the demo as the foundation for the finished thing, which is usually a mix of stems from a demo into a finished production. I feel it keeps it all as one journey instead of being too separated out which makes it feel a bit disconnected for me.

Not a hugely prepared phase for my process, but definitely a way of doing things.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

I am addicted to coffee. I tried to take two days off and it was a horrible two days. Exercise plays a huge part in my life. I love running, well, at least I love how running makes me feel. I do respond quite well to a home environment when I make work rather than a studio situation.

With the pressure being quite low, and being able to make like 5 teas a day and pop down to the kitchen. Being able to be distracted but still have a focus.

I haven’t got into lighting and scents, but I’m sure I will.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note? When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

Yeah, that first line of text can definitely be the hardest part. Lyrics kind of enter the picture at very random points. Sometimes it will be a lyric that I have on a voice note, sometimes it will be a title and a concept that I’ve had for a while, sometimes I’ll hear certain things said and they’ll shape how I then think about the topic and lyrics will form from that.

I think growing together with the music is great when they do, but I do think they also emerge from a place of their own at the time and sometimes a melody is so led by the lyric for me, rather than the other way round. I think that’s just because the words are more the thing I live or die by.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

That’s a very hard question. Honestly I think lyrics that make you feel something, it’s such a broad thing to say. For me, that’s often when there's a balance of darkness and lightness. And when they are brave in their earnestness, I just think the truth is so interesting. And the real minute truth is even more interesting.

I just try and say the things in a song that I would say in person, and not add too many metaphors or add too much of a sense of poetry to them just to add it. I think it’s really important to feel like something that I could just say to someone.

Maybe that’s why I find it quite hard to describe a song cause I don’t think I’m very mysterious a lot of the time, and it’s not really what appeals to me.

Once you’ve started, how does the work gradually emerge?

Ebbs and flows in many varying degrees. I think some songs grow incredibly quickly, and some songs are two or three years old. And sometimes a production is the thing that takes longer, or sometimes you can just have one incredible day that you don’t expect where you write the song and have most of the production ideas.

It’s also like a chisel and a block of marble. It’s slow a lot of the time, and it can be really tedious. Songs can sometimes be like puzzles, quite difficult sometimes to figure out and you just know when it feels right or wrong. Or at least you think you do. And that’s kind of all you have to go on, and sometimes that place of it feeling right just never comes or just takes a really long time.

It’s just persistence or faith. I think so much of making work is just those two things.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control over the process or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

I guess it depends which part of the process you mean. I definitely think that once something is made and it’s being produced with someone or even released in the world, in a lot of ways it can be really out of your hands. It’s kind of like a letting go situation.

But I definitely try as much as possible to follow things where they lead me and that sometimes is a meandering road or sometimes a really clear one.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

I guess I try to deal with it by just trying to be as open to things as possible and remembering that I’ve had a lot of pieces of work that I had incredibly different ideas of them at the beginning. I think you get used to the fact that there are roads that will come up that you had no idea were going to come up.

You just need to be objective as much as possible with your work and realise that if a new idea comes in that is better, you have to be brutal, even if another idea felt really good. And that’s often when other listeners come in handy, whether it's friends or other people you work with.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

I find spirituality a difficult word to attribute to it. There’s definitely a feeling of transcendence when you say something better than you ever thought you could say it. Those moments are quite rare and a lot of the time you are chipping away at things. But the brief incredible moments, the spirituality is there, it’s just in small doses I think.

But it feels incredible when you’ve made a song that just says right in relation to what you wanted to say. Again, it’s just a feeling you can’t describe and can’t rationalise. It just might come or it might not, and that’s scary but that’s what makes it so great.

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?

Finishing is the hardest part, definitely. I’d say that often you finish a work by being quite brutal and really closing the door quite forcefully yourself. Because that door is never gonna close itself. And whether that’s production and realising that sometimes you have to go with something.

But I don’t know if I’ve ever found that too difficult. I really love finishing stuff, it all makes it feel like I’m moving on and growing. I think that’s just such an important thing that separates me from being someone who just has lots of ideas but nothing to show for it,  and being someone who has a catalogue of work.

Sometimes you’ve got to accept that committing to finishing lots of things also means that there is going to be some stuff that in hindsight you wish was a bit different. But the fact that it even exists is often a triumph. It's being a perfectionist but not letting it stop you from putting anything out. That’s something I’ve always wanted to try and follow.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practice?

I think it’s really important to let a piece that is finished lie for a bit. Sometimes that’s not incredibly possible or realistic. But I do think, especially in the sense of a written song, it's great to have a space between writing the songs and producing them.

For me I think that often makes me realise if I’m satisfied with it, or if I’d never want to go back to it and never want to listen to it as a demo. It’s just being really honest with myself about  when I’m on the bus I think "do I want to put this song in my ears or do I not?”. I sometimes try to look at it as simply as that.

What’s your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

Yeah I think that production and mixing and mastering are obviously incredibly important. I’ve always been pretty involved with this.

I have a record that I have sort of produced myself completely and mixed some of it, I didn’t master it though, didn’t get all three! But I think that felt really good, but I also think it feels great to collaborate with people you respect because no one’s an island.

Saying that, I just think it’s really hard not to be involved in all of those things. I find it very hard to let go when you’ve been incredibly meticulous with the writing of the song. But I think it's all part of it and they can make such a difference and can elevate a song more than writing anymore on it can’t. I try to be involved as much as is humanly possible.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

Yeah I can definitely relate to that, I feel like all projects in our life are often what shape time and time is just this endless thing and that’s a lot more daunting. I think projects make life feel a bit more bite size which I think makes it a lot more digestible and easy to face.

I think that if you do these things enough and you make creativity a part of your life you sort of have to let go and believe that it will come back. And it’s hard to know what I do to return to that state every time, but I know that given enough space or time or boredom I will want another project in my life.

That’s kind of been the case for me for now and maybe one day it won't and my proiect-based life will be a little bit less project-based. And that will be its own new era, but definitely for now I love that being the case.

Saying that, I do actually think that I probably want things like a family and I always find meaning through my friendships and personal relationships in a way that I think need to be held to the same importance as my work. Which I sometimes haven’t been amazing at doing but is definitely something I want to be better at. Finding real meaning in something that isn't so project-based.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn’t or wouldn’t in more ‘mundane’ tasks?

This is a very interesting question. I suppose tasks like making a great cup of coffee have slightly more tangible ends. You know, it’s like, does it taste great? Whereas a song where it doesn’t make you feel great is a lot more of a vague end. You can express a lot more feeling through something like a song. I guess they’re both also making something.

I suppose I wouldn’t drink my music with breakfast and I wouldn’t put a cup of coffee on Spotify. Sorry, bad joke.