Sevier Weathers

Back in the barely burgeoning spring of WXPN’s singer/songwriter thrush -- June 1993, to be exact -- Philadelphia coffee-house smoothie Matt Sevier released Faultlines to the sort of universal local acclaim now reserved for The Roots. Sevier, not ready to deal with hype and one man’s savage criticism (mine), nor a much-publicized battle between him, scumbag management and yours truly, retreated into what he does best: writing and singing songs of depth-defying literacy and emotion without ever winding up weepy. Sweet, brave and never bitter, Sevier -- whom I applaud for both his record and this interview -- has finally released his sophomore effort, Champion the Underdogs, on Hardlove records.

Matt Sevier: It was your basic, garden-variety invaluable learning experience. I made numerous mistakes recording, funding and promoting it, mistakes that I'm hopefully not making with Underdogs. I wound up getting a lot of mileage out of that CD, though, including two trips through Europe and a publishing deal with Sony Music.

MS: I really wasn't equipped for the attention. My experience with music had always been very personal. Suddenly I felt this glare. I tripped and fell a few times, publicly, and I was very hard on myself about it, and wondered if I had made a poor career choice... to put it mildly. Over the years, I've grown increasingly grateful that anyone ever discovered me in the first place and learned to forgive myself for my mistakes.

CP: Is it fair to say you got caught, too, in the hyped-up middle of the singer-songwriter movement?

MS: I don't know about this one. It was more like I felt the undercurrent of that movement at my feet. Quite frankly, that movement helped to shape me as a musician and as a person. I've tried to forget about genres and trends over the years. I realized that I write for personal reasons, and whenever I've tried to pay attention to what was happening on a larger scale in the business, it was extremely distracting.

MS: The best thing is to remain process-oriented and always take pleasure in making music for its own sake. There was a period where my band was so focused on making it to the next level, we failed to appreciate or enjoy what we already had, which was a loyal regional following. By contrast, I made this new CD without any particular goals or expectations other than to challenge myself to do well, and I wound up having a blast. The worst thing: my tendency to self-destruct. It's a common reflex, like a preemptive strike on oneself to avoid complications which may accompany success. I'm determined to make this inclination a thing of my past, but you can't move forward until you understand where you've been.

MS: If were to tell the whole story, I'd have nothing left for my screenplays. Broken contracts, lost recordings, bad accountancy, IRS mistakes, depression, enlightenment, a surprisingly rewarding new career as a children's entertainer under the pseudonym Matt-O, fronting a jazz-swing band singing Sinatra and standards and finally a brief retirement to an amazing DuPont estate in Wyeth country which was unfortunately cut short when my landlord was arrested for murder. In 2000, thanks to the Internet, I was rediscovered by a new manager who helped me get myself together and record Underdogs without outside pressure. You could say I had to be coaxed into returning, but it was inevitable, really, as my college degree is in music, philosophy and English, and there's no way you get a job with that.

MS: There's more generosity of spirit, less deliberate wordplay and more potential for individual interpretation. My earlier work was pointed prose: particular story, particular meaning. The new songs have far more ambiguity, reflecting the fact that the more I know the more I know I don't know. They're also less folk and precious than my earlier work was. I still try to write for intelligent adults, but I know it's only rock 'n' roll and I like it.

MS: A lot of things: fairness and humility, and the apparent lack of these qualities in the upper echelons of power, that the political is always personal in the end. The characters... have been through hell, some come back, some are still lost on unfruited plains, but all of them are American. They're alienated by a culture whose materialism reigns unchallenged, growing strong in the knowledge that the material world is a fleeting thing. This is a record about mistakes, self-incrimination, forgiveness, about overcoming nihilism in the face of a mad world and a stacked deck. This is a record about how small we are and how big our emotions feel.

CP: I'm going for broke: "Philadelphia" and "It's Over" are particularly bittersweet, often more bitter than sweet, which is fine with me. What should we glean about you from them?

MS: These are two of my most misunderstood songs. "Philadelphia" is about classic, Philly-style hard-ass love, the notoriously humbling eastern school of hard knocks. Philadelphia is a classic underdog town with self-esteem issues, severe class distinctions and a bad reputation. I feel at home here, and revel in this town as a microcosm of a larger America. It's actually a song of tremendous gratitude, but it's often heard strictly as sarcasm, because it has a lot of "attitude." It couldn't be an accurate song about Philadelphia if it lacked an attitude. "It's Over" is an attempt on my part to bring humor into a story of fairly typical failed love. I'm singing in an aristocratic accent adopted from early Monty Python records, and I even quote a few words of Python. The "rare Chinese metal dog" I refer to is an astrological reference thrown in to help reinforce the song's air of absurdity, which increases with each line until the lament, "I wish I could have known her," which closes the song, reveals that the narrator is laughing perhaps to keep from crying and that the sarcasm is all a defense.

MS: I use "champion" as a verb, as something you do, not something I am. I do identify with the underdog and always have, but I'm not even sure why. I originally learned the concept from my father, and from stories about his father, and how they'd drive around giving dollar bills to kids in poorer neighborhoods around Christmastime. I don't know if this is politically correct, but I know it came from their hearts, from a true generosity and empathy for the plight of others. I see society as increasingly fixed, rigged and co-opted by increasingly powerful elite forces. The poor and powerless are becoming so at an accelerating rate, and fewer and fewer people in power seem to care. I think we all need to look out for the underdog in an effort to keep our humanity and challenge the elitist influence on our culture, which would have a free country devolve into a virtual caste system. I'm no philosopher or politician, though. All I can do is sing about it.

Join the
City Paper
Mailing List




	search citypaper.net