this is a transcription from a mediaperson's recording of matt's new music west speech in may of 2002. it has been edited to the best of my ability, but some of the recording wasn't clear, making it difficult to transcribe some of the speech to 100% accuracy. matt is introduced by george strombolopolous of muchmusic *applause* i did not deserve that. i did not deserve that.. i was sitting upstairs just now, actually reading the festival program and i noticed that they called me a little while ago and asked what was i going to talk about, and i gave some big convoluted answer and i read what gene said, and it said "whatever he wants." so i have to remember to do that in the future. i can just talk about gilligan's island reruns. it'll be fantastic. um, i'm here to talk to artists; musicians in the room, thats my agenda today. i'll try to leave most of the corporate crap out of it. and uh, yeah because you're going to get two varying opinions today which is good. one from me and one from gene. we kind of agreed with each other on either side of the spectrum. and there you go. i'm matthew good by the way, for everyone here who's in the kiss army and has no clue. *applause* and i'll be playing a little too. *whistles from audience* no now. *laughter from audience* charles du bois once wrote the important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are, for what we might become. and i can think of no better characterization of what an artist's purpose is than described by that quote. and i can also think of no better characterization of how distant the business of music is from those who strive to make it in that quote. the obvious truth of the matter is that whether you succeed or fail in this business is inconsequential. whether you succeed or fail with yourself is of great consequence. and success is tricky like that. in many cases the gains as never as monumental as the loss of self required to attain them. for the past couple weeks i'd sit down to write this speech and to be honest with you, its been difficult. i kind of told myself in the last couple days i'd wing it, but i tried my best and i'd sit down and i'd start writing and every time i looked up i noticed that it came across sounding very, very confused. and so i'd give up and go watch television because its been a great couple weeks for arsenal. *laughter from audience* and uh, one person got it. there you go. but after awhile i came to the realisation that confusion is exactly what i should be talking about. because if there's one thing that dominates the life of an artist, especially in the early stages of a career, its confusion. confusion about what the industry is looking for compared to what artists are looking for. confusion about one's sense of artistic self-worth and the pitfalls that come with altering one's vision to gain mass appeal. and a general confusion of what has become a blanket definition of artistic success. there's little point in running around trying to dramatically impress yourself upon the business, in truth. given the fact that there's no industry without artists, the business should be trying to run around and impress itself upon you. before you start trying to think about some scheme to get noticed by whomever you think is more important than yourself in the scheme of what it is that do, remember that without artists, there is no business. without artists the entire industry from exceutives, to regional sales staff, to radio djs, to radio stations, to the media to muchmusic, to mtv, all of them are out of a job. make you feel a bit better. the only thing that keeps them in business is some bizarre notion that somehow they are more important than we are, and we need them more than they need us. the wonderful thing about what it is that artists do is that we can take nothing and turn it into something. whether it to be make others think, to evoke emotion to simply entertain, to have fun, whatever it may be. we have the ability to take intangibles, and turn them into tangibles. and if everyone could do it, i suppose it wouldn't matter that much at all. if everyone can do it, there wouldn't be a billion dollar industry built upon those that can. so, i'd kind of like to pose a question here, and i'm going to start taking some questions, getting some feedback from you guys because you know what there's a whole bunch of people that are in the industry in this room and a whole bunch of you who are looking to get in to it. and the best way to make your point is by asking me some questions and making yourself heard on your concerns, really. but i'd like to pose a general question because its an interesting answer, every time you do. if you had the choice to be responsible for white light white heat, or the milli vanilli record which would you choose if you if you had one record to do it? from a guy in the audience: "white light white heat!" which would it be? would it be white light white heat? i'm hearing that more and more from everybody. white light white heat. follow, follow, stop. follow... *as matt walks across stage* why is that? everyone loves money, right? the bottom line we're in the music business, its the music business. everyone loves the bottom line. but i ask that question and automatically white light white heat is their answer. is it because 20 years from now white light white heat will be a musically relevant record, and the milli vanilli record won't be? is that why? and is that more important than money? is that more important than the loss of your integrity, or is money? which would you rather have? a huge ass mansion in the royal canyon somewhere, you know, a villa in tuscany, or your integrity and white light white heat? from same guy: "white light white heat" *laughter from audience* you know, i'm not going to deny its an idealist way to think. everyone needs to live, and everyone needs to eat, and there obviously is a marriage, a tenuous one, between art and commerce, it just depends what your goals are, right? i mean, if your goal is basically to get into the music industry to sell a shitload of records, then you know, go for it. but if its not, if its to say something or if its to basically stick to your guns and do what it is you want to do, i think that given the current state of the music industry in this country, and especially around the world that that is something that needs to be addressed. we kind of as a band, as the matthew good band, were very lucky when we started. we made last of the ghetto astronauts for probably about $7000 and got very lucky at radio with CFOX's help in vancouver. we got very lucky and it kind of spread across the country. we signed on a record deal with bmg in los angeles that went south because we were on a subsidiary that got sold, and we were dropped, which allowed us to make underdogs with our own money. and while we were making that record, we were out at greenhouse in burnaby, i had a whole bunch of a & r knocking on the door, just showing up. and i can't tell you how absolutely glorious that feels right? no sending cds to people, no begging people to come see my band, everyone was just showing up. and it kind of points to the fact, if you believe in what you do and you do it well, that's a reality. it doesn't have to always work the other way. but there's one trick to it, and its this: the first 100 songs you write are going to be shit. and thats a, and that could be a dangerous thing for new artists, right? i mean hey i'll admit, it the first song i wrote i thought it was the greatest piece of music ever constructed, in the history of the world. i've written about 900, and to be quite honest with you about 890 of them were terrible. you know, just my opinion, probably shared by many of you. *laughter from audience* but anyways.. *more laughter* obviously.. *more laughter* touched, touched on something there really that i shouldn't have. i wrote a song about it it goes something like this... *more laughter* good art defies convention.. *laughter and applause* you know actually back then i think one thing that donned on me more than anything is that good art defies convention despite the unpopularity that comes with it. and i really believe that the dumbing down of content only leads to an ignorant audience. i really believe that, but then again, i'm a firm believer in the fact that as a cultural gift to the world, music is one of the only things us north americans have given to the world. i mean we're really not responsible for opera or for a lot of fine art even though of course we've built upon the shoulders of others, but based on jazz and blues as the roots, we've given pop whats considered popular music and i use that term broadly and not in any n'sync sense. umm, to the world its what we've done, and it has the ability to say things. and the great thing about art is that if you can talk about it, you can talk about other things. that's its purpose in society. if you could discuss art, love it or hate it, you have the right to like or hate anything. but if you can discuss that openly with people, you can discuss more important things, like politics, like the world around you. and thats the purpose that it serves. to me, i feel that should outweigh entertainment. thats just me. other people believe that it shouldn't. i mean its kind of an interesting thing. if you kind of want to distance yourself from that and be an entertainer then that's absolutely fine as well. but i think that we kind of live in a day and age especially in rock and roll music where artists were sold as saying something and they really don't. i don't know if you've noticed this, but if you take a look at a lot of rock bands today, does anybody kind of notice this thing where there's kind of a bad boy, bad ass thing projected but they're supposed to be, you know, people also want them to be the guy next door, who's nice. you know, its the best of both worlds. i've got news for you, artists are bi-polar people. they're crazy. that's the way it is. bacon, the painter, he would rent and entire floor out in paris, and he would go and do a series of paintings. he wouldn't leave for for two months, three months. he would piss and shit on the floor. raging alchoholic. he would destroy the place. he would take a sledgehammer and make huge holes in the walls so he could walk back and forth between rooms. right? its true, its true. three months later he would walk out of there with pure genius though. strangely enough, because of his medium, the public public doesn't demand anything from his because of it, just the final product. his quirks, you know, they make that final product. but strangley with musicians, they have to produce something that's challenging and yet remain what you want them to be. it's a very dangerous thing to do because what it does is it breeds mediocrity, its champions mediocrity. one day you wake up and all the bands in the world are mediocre. they don't say anything new. they don't stand for anything new. they're called punk bands, and punk happened 20 years ago. you know, i have a lot of friends that are punk rockers. i have a lot of friends who to this day are punk rockers, and that used to mean sleeping in the street, right? there was no glory to it. they weren't playing gm place and jumping around with spiky hair. right? even as convoluted as punk rock was in the beginning cause let's face it if you go back and take a really closer look at it its a marketing ploy you can thank malcolm mclaren for that, can't you? but, you know, but it really comes down to that, it really depends what you want to get into it for. you know i've.. like george said in the opening, i take a lot of heat for saying what i do. you live once. why bend your opinions to what others want to hear? or, even better why mask what you think, why.. to defer you opinion is going to be uncomfortable to other people. because at the end of the day whether it be in music, the entertainment industry, or government or on whatever level. note: recording not clear at this point. so it can be a very dangerous thing. so why bother? what do you really have to lose? sales? what people think of you? you know, i mean, its no secret that in the past i've given my opinions on certain things and people have gone off about it, maybe even threatened me. true. great message to send to kids by the way. conflict resolution. kick the shit out of someone. fantastic. its a john lennon afternoon. but you know, if you took it all away, if you took away the financial comfort, if you took all of it away, what would you rather be left with? your integrity? or this huge pit inside of you that you wish you could fill, if you just had the opportunity back. you know, i would suspect that there are probably many people in this room disagree with a lot of things that i've said in public and of course you must remember that certain things i've said have been chopped up piece meal, print media loves that. in two or three years what will come of it? will i be respected for having said it, or will it still be remembered as being negative? and that can apply to everything you do in this business, i'm just using myself as an example. it can apply to writing songs, it can apply to listening to what others think. its kind of funny the other day i went on the new music west message board and i was looking at everyone bitching that didn't get into nmw. about how the judges and the panel members had written asinine replies to why they didn't get in. i think dave talked about it a little bit. you talked about it a little bit before i got out here? david hawks: "no i didn't." no you didn't? you're on there though defending yourself like hell though aren't you? you know.. dh: "defending you actually." really? you got that cheque right? dh: "no." you know, the thing about it is really, is that who gives a good god damn what anyone thinks about what you do? is that why you do it? because you want people to like what you do and accept it? or do you do it because it is what you do? do you do it because you're chasing something? or do you do it because something internally haunts you and you have the gift to grab something out of the air and turn it into something? you know, when you sit down to write the next song that you write think about that, and you might notice that a massive ____ is thrown off you, which is kind of what its all about. and consider mortatlity really, because in doing so you realize that we're doomed to failure anyway. so why is it that when it comes to the projection of our inner selves, those images and sounds and thoughts that result in the remembered definition of our species, we apply the need to have them governed by the principles of gain? as artists we have to redefine what success is and strive to achieve that new definition. because its only then that it can serve to speak to people, instead of inundate them to the point where they're programmed to consume. that's pretty much it. *applause from audience* matt fields questions from the audience after the speech. hopefully i can put them up sometime soon.