Name: RIZTS
Members: Connor Childs (bass), Connor Powell (drums), Billy Mattock (guitars, vocals, drums)
Interviewee: Billy Mattock
Nationality: British
Current release: The new RIZTS single “Parasite” is out via Krautpop!

If you enjoyed this RIZTS interview and would like to stay up to date with the band and their music, visit them on Instagram, and Facebook.



Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics or poetry? How and when did you start writing?

For sure! I come from a musical family, my parents brought me up listening to some good music, mostly punk and reggae. My older brother plays in a band too and I remember sitting down at the kitchen table with him for my first writing session.

I was about 7 or 8 years old and didn’t have much going on in terms of highbrow lyrical ideas - I think I wrote a song about how my mum got stuck on a waterslide earlier that year haha.

It is sometimes said that “music begins where words end.” What do you make of that?

While I agree to a certain extent, with music being able to conjure emotions that sometimes words cannot, words / lyrics / poetry can certainly do things that music cannot. When they work together, a whole new world of possibility opens up.

You add a completely new dimension to your work and the piece of music can become a lot more powerful.

Entering new worlds and escapism through music and literature have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to writing?

Writing lyrics or creating any kind of art is an act of opening up your soul and displaying it publicly. It completely exposes you to the outside world and that's exhilarating. It’s exciting to hear when people are interested in your art but also devastating to hear criticism.

Eventually, you learn to become neutral to both and accept praise and criticism with an open, analytical mind. Through this, you learn to present yourself through your art without apology and without altering yourself to please others - this is how you get the purest form of art out of yourself.

What were some of the artists and albums which inspired you early on purely on the strength of their lyrics? What moves you in the lyrics of other artists?

I have a wide range of interests in music but when I think of the greatest lyric writers and poets in music, I always think of Nick Cave first. I love his 1986 album, Your Funeral … My Trial.

For me, this is the peak of storytelling lyricism. He paints a picture so beautifully and poetically, balancing good and evil, light and dark, in lyrical themes as well as the music itself. One of my favourites from that album, ‘Stranger than Kindness’ was actually written by Cave’s ex-partner, Anita Lane.



It was written about the stresses of dealing with being so close to Nick Cave in the height of his drug abuse. Nick Cave performs the song himself and I think there's something beautifully retrospective and humble about exposing yourself like that. I highly recommend giving it a listen.

When working on music, 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?

I often experiment with different ways of writing lyrics. Sometimes I have an instrumental that needs lyrics and I’ll sit there, recording vocals but not actually singing any coherent words. I just make noises that sound like words that happen to fit very nicely with the song. I’ll listen back and form lyrics from that.

For the upcoming RIZTS album however, the most common way for me to match lyrics and instrumentals was to write both completely separately, as if I was writing an instrumental and a piece of poetry separately. I then picked from my bank of lyrics and my bank of instrumentals and matched the ones which fit together the best. Sometimes I’d have to alter the lyrics slightly to get them them to fit right and sometimes I’d add an extra beat to the instrumental, depending on which I thought was more important.

A couple times, the songs came so naturally that I had a line in my head and a whole song stems from that, such as the song ‘Still’ in the second half of our new album.

Upon release of this interview, the album won’t be out yet so keep an eye out on October 4th 2024 for the album!

When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words? What's your perspective in this regard of singing someone else's songs versus your own?

I think for me, it would be pretty strange to hear someone else singing my words. In RIZTS, we don’t even have backing vocals. I think the words are just too personal for that.

That's not to say I’m completely against it, I have another band called the Doinks - we had three lead singers! We were always singing each other's songs and singing songs together.



That project deals with a lot less serious themes so maybe that's why it feels right.

In how far are you consciously aware of the meaning of the lyrics you're writing during the creative process? Do you need to have a concrete concept or can the words take the lead?

With RIZTS, I am absolutely aware of the meaning of the lyrics I am writing, otherwise, what's the point of writing them in the first place?

I feel like having a concrete concept or at least an end-goal message that I want to convey really helps my productivity and directions when writing lyrics too. With a destination in mind, it doesn't really matter which direction I take as long as I get to where I need to go.

What is the value of song lyrics or hip hop bars outside of the music?

Lyrics are one of the most powerful and widespread forms of art. They can be used for protest, can be the thoughts and feelings of millions conveyed in a single, immortalised message.

You don’t need to look too far back in time to see countless times songs were used as catalysts for political movements. From the mass movement of Woodstock promoting peace and protesting the Vietman war in the 60’s to the huge parades of people chanting lyrics from Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Alright’ during the height of the recent BLM movement.



Lyrics are also a powerful tool for internal protest. If you feel a certain way about yourself which may not be what is expected of you by society, your friends or your family, but there’s an artist who sings and presents themselves in a way you relate to, it can be very empowering.

You become aware that you’re not alone. Bowie was an expert at this.

Please recommend two pieces of art (book, painting, piece of music) to our readers that they should know about.

I’d love to recommend that Nick Cave album but I’vealready done it haha. You spoke about using art for escapism earlier, if anyone else is into that, you should definitely check out the film, ‘Mulholland Drive’ by David Lynch. It transports you to a different realm entirely, more than once over the course of the film!



I suppose as a musician I should come up with another musical piece of art. I’ve really been getting into the self-titled album by a band RIZTS played with recently. They’re called Avalanche Kaito and if you ever get the opportunity to see them live, I’d really encourage you to take it! It was an experience like no other.