"There must be something in the water in Birmingham. It seems like every time I turn around, I'm stumbling upon another writer, photographer, or musician who makes that town their home. And planted squarely In the midst of this creative community is Matthew Mayfield. He's an artist I've been keeping my eye on for a few years now…his track "Open Road" was a staple of my playlists long before I knew much about him. His music is like that... the longer you sit with it, the more you want to know about the guy who wrote it.

Matthew seems to occupy this unique space as a musician and performer. He seems equally comfortable as the frontman of a rock band as he is walking on stage with just an acoustic guitar. It's a curious dichotomy and one that causes to him stand out in a sea of weepy singer-songwriters and half baked rock bands. There is just something altogether genuine about Matthew. We think you'll agree."

-RB

Matthew recently stopped by the studio for a session, recording a couple unreleased tracks, as well as a few songs off his latest release, Now You're Free. Ryan Booth then sat down with Matthew to discuss writing from memory, chasing down ideas, and the importance of finding a home…



R: How did you end up deciding to try music professionally? It's one thing to play in a band in high school, but to try and make a career, to make a living out of it is an entirely different ball game.  How did you arrive at the decision that you wanted to try this professionally?

M: For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to be in a rock'n roll band. I put together my first band when I was 12 and we played everything. When I was in college, I put together a band and we played frat parties to birthday parties, mostly playing covers. But I was going to school at the time and it just wasn't working. I'd get home from a show at 6am and have class at 8. So, it was a bit of a leap of faith, but I decided to go my own way. I started touring full time, making records, and honestly, I lucked out. We got signed signed to Epic records when I was 21. However, I ended up getting dropped a couple years later. I had to pick up the pieces and start out on my own. It has been a lot of ups and downs, but I love what I do now.

R: So, let's talk about that. In the early 2000s, the dream was still to get signed…it was still the definition of "making it." The bottom hadn't quite dropped out of the industry yet and this "we need to get signed to a major and they're going to dump a million bucks into us" thing hadn't completely run its course. What was that like to come in on the tail end of that?  I know that getting dropped is not an uncommon event, but can be such a defining personal event. Especially for someone so young. What was that process like for you, picking up the pieces, as you said. Tell me about that transition from a major to being independent.

M: I was young and naive and yeah, getting signed was the ultimate dream come true. In 2004/2005 it still was that standard record deal where they do pump tons of money into the project. We recorded in big studios all across the country and I think we made a good record. But at the end of the day, there are so many political considerations and so many people were getting fired. All of our cheerleaders at the label were suddenly gone and you find yourself left on your own.  It can feel like you're a slave to this big machine. When we got dropped I had a decision to make; keep going or try something else. For me, the decision was easy. Music is something that I would never consider giving up on. I just had to figure out how to make a record with my own money…which I didn't have very much of.

R: A little different when you're footing the bill, right?

M: I put out The Fire EP in 2008. I made it in my basement for under $1000, just me and my guitar. Then one day, Gray's Anatomy called and wanted to feature one of the tunes on their 100th episode.

R: Wow.

M: Yeah, that definitely was a big push in terms of sales and awareness of what I was doing. It was a really cool moment. It made it feel like all of this might actually pay off, in a sense. Since then, I've been paying my dues, just grinding away touring with the band and playing everywhere we can.

R: So you're on your own and Grey's Anatomy calls…are those the kind of moments that make you say, "This is hard, sure, but it's totally worth it. We have to keep going."  Do you need those kinds of moments to keep going?

M: Things like that are pick me ups, for sure. They're a little bit of affirmation that you're doing something right. This crazy circus act of a music scene, in the broader spectrum, can be really disappointing. You hear a lot of "no" and "I don't like this". So these moments are like a breath of fresh air. They can be in the form of a placement on Grey's Anatomy, they could be a sold out show. Last night we opened for NEEDTOBREATHE to a sold out Georgia Theater, and the crowd was amazing. 1200 people singing along with some of our songs and just really into it. It was a great night.  I think you have to take those little moments to make up for all the disappointment, all of the grinding, all of the late nights, all of the long days, and the long drives. This industry will chew you up and spit you out if you're not careful.



R: What's your professional education been like going from "I'm going to play music and it's going to be awesome" to the reality of the situation?

M: It's been extremely eye opening. When you're a kid, you dream of being a rock star, but then you begin realize that it's a bottom to top process. You have to grind away to make it up to the top. And the name of that game is time. After ten years of doing this, I'm still plugging away. I think at first you're a little green and you think i'll be a lot easier than it is. If you'd told me ten years ago that I'd still be struggling to pay my bills, I don't think that I would have believed you. But I've honestly never second-guessed my choice to do this for a living because it's everything that I love. Making music is just something that I have to do.

R: So it's ten years later and it's not what you thought going in, but that hasn't changed the decision.

M: Yeah man. It's my passion and that passion hasn't shifted since I was a kid. I started loving rock'n roll at a really early age, maybe nine or ten. I worshiped rock bands. I always wanted to be Slash (laughter)

R: laughter

M: I think seeing Slash in the November Rain video, where he gets up on the piano, as a nine year old kid, I knew I wanted to do that. It's funny for such a silly moment to be so inspirational, but when you're a kid it's a fantasy and I still believe in that element of magic. I see it. On certain nights, nights like last night is when I see it.

R: It's funny that up until the point that you leave school, everyone is doing the same thing at the same time. Everyone graduates at the same time and that starts the gun where everyone's path starts really diverging. They start going through life events at different times and you don't have that lock step that you've had up until that point. What is it like, as an artist, having friends who are all in different stages of their career. Like, you're friends with the NEEDTOBREATHE guys, right?

M: Yeah man, some of my best friends.

R: I mean they've had a crazy year. Do you feel like it just doesn't matter what level you're currently at, there's still that grind you have to keep pushing through. Those guys are opening for Taylor Swift, playing to huge crowds in huge arenas. What are your conversations like with friends who are in different places, cause everybody's in a different place now. Do you still feel that common feeling to keep pushing?

M: I do. The NEEDTOBREATHE guys are some of the hardest working musicians that I know. They've been doing this a few years longer than I have and they just recently started filling up venues. Same thing with the Civil Wars, who are also good friends of mine. John Paul's been at it forever, grinding it out. Playing these huge shows and having all these people singing all the words to every song, I think that is what we all hope for. It's kind of mind blowing because they did what I'm doing for so long, paying their dues playing to tiny crowds. But now, for those guys, they're thinking about how they'll have to notch it up next tour, bring out more production. All they talk about is pushing forward.

For me, when I'm playing a sold out theater with some friends of mine, I'm looking at them thinking thinking that they're crazy. They've arrived! There are thousands of people out there singing all of their songs. But I know that if I got there one day, I'd be eyeing the arena down the street, planning what I'd need to do to get there. That's part of what keeps you going, keeps you inspired, keeps you motivated. The best musicians won't be content with where they are. They're always going to try and take it to a level where no one will ever forget the work you do, the point where you actually make a mark on peoples lives. That's pretty powerful.



R: You strike me as a "band" guy. Even though you are putting out records under your name, I don't necessarily see you as the Nashville, singer-songwriter type of guy who just grabs a few guys and scales up and scales down as need be. I don't know, talk about that. I know you were in a band before, do you still see yourself in a band even though you are putting music out under your name?

M: Absolutely, man I still see it as a band, even though it's under my name. I feel way more comfortable as the front man for a rock band than I do as a singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar. I never was that growing up. I was first and foremost a guitar player. That was always my first love. I love Jimmy Page. I love Slash. Guitar players were my heroes. But then slowly, songwriters started becoming guys that I looked up to. And then performers like Bruce Springsteen. That guy strikes me as a band guy putting out music under his name.

For me, there's a more interesting experience to be had as a front man for a band as opposed to the guy with the acoustic guitar. And I say that as someone who does both. Sometimes it's cheaper for me to be on tour, just me and my guitar, so I'll do it. On those tours, I usually play smaller venues. It's such a great exercise because at the end of the day, you have to be able to play the big version of your song and the tiny version of song. It has to translate. Great songs can be performed with one or two people, even if on the record there's a lot more going on. I think there's going to be tours where it's going to be more me and my guitar and there's going to be tours where it's going to be a rock and roll band.

R: That's a great answer because it definitely more like a business decision for you. With some guys, it feels like it's pulling teeth for them to play with a band. Like they are begrudgingly playing with other musicians because they don't necessary like giving up control of the song that they wrote, because the song is really written to be small. It was really written to be the tiny version and so to scale it up at all feels somehow painful to them. I don't see that with you. It seems like your songs are good songs, so they can scale down. They can play along that entire length of that - acoustic guitar to full production.



R: I kind of get the sense that your heroes, the guys that you looked up to when you were young, are definitely in, for lack of a better phrase, 'screw you' rock and roll bands. How does that reconcile with the lyrics? It seems like there's a tough exterior on top of these pretty intimate lyrics about very personal situations. Does that feel like a juxtaposition or does it just make sense to you?

M: Thats a great question. No, It's definitely a strange merging of those two worlds, but I feel like that juxtaposition is what makes me, me. When you've been through a lot, you've lived a decent amount of life, there's so much room to explore. The heavier things in life, that we've all been through, these are the things that tend to spill out. They may be super high energy and angry or they may be tender and full of pain. Or they may be full of grief or angst or desire. Rarely do you find a great song that doesn't have an urgency to it. I've heard it said that to be a great songwriter, you don't have to be miserable, you just have to have a great memory. You may write a song one day a full year after an experience is over…long after you're done grieving the situation. And then one night at three am this song may suddenly pour out, even though you thought it was over.

On stage there is a lot more of a rock tendency. I think that's just from recycling my influences and hopefully spitting them back out in a way that is original. I love hearing about where artists came from, who they were inspired by, and then listening to their music. Do I hear their influences? Maybe not, but it's interesting how all of those different ingredients went into a particular singer and then got filtered, spun around, and spit out on the other side.

R: Do you feel like its dangerous to have something very specific to say? Do you think that it is a good idea to start from a place where you're saying, "Ok, today I'm going to write a song about X?"

M: If you have a really specific situation or feeling that you need to process, and a burning or urge to sing about it, then yes. For me, there are songs where I sit down, I have a lyric that I love, and I know where I want to go. I'll just write from that head space. But other times I might only have a general feeling with just one or two lines. But there also might be a situation going on in my life…something I'm wishing for, hopeful for, or disappointed by. And I just play around with the specific and the general until the song begins to write itself. Most songs come to me in increments. I may sit down one night and get two lines in two hours. I may get a whole chorus in an hour and then I won't get the rest of the song for another two weeks or another month or in some cases another year. You just have to follow through. If it's something that you believe in, then you can't leave it alone.



R: For you, as a writer, what is your process like? Are you the guy that's like "Ok, I'm gonna sit down and write a song today" or could you go eight months not writing anything, and then all of the sudden write an entire record in three days? What's your writing process?

M: I'm the kind of guy who never sits down intentionally. I've just never been able to do it. For me, it usually starts with melody. Whether it's something I'm just singing in my car or something that hits me sitting on the porch. Usually the melody just comes, and maybe I have a lyric or maybe a few notes so I'll record it on my on phone. Then I'll go home and take that tiny little spark and chase it to see if it turns into something. More times than not, it doesn't. I'm the type of writer who only chases the ones I really believe in. I don't want to waste my energy and a great lyric on a shitty melody. And vice versa. I police myself when it comes to that, you know. Some nights, like last night, I got in at five am from a long night of driving and a melody hit me and I stayed up for another couple of hours even though I was exhausted, but you know that was the time to chase the idea. I probably got a chorus and a great verse and a great direction. Just from a random 7am, blood-shot-eyed session in my head. It can come anytime. You just gotta be willing to take it when it does.

R: Do you feel like you've gotten better at learning when to chase and when not to? When to let it go?

M: I was going through this miserable situation where I had essentially waited three years for this girl who was telling me that she was going to be there at the end of the day. She said that at the end of this long road I was going to have her but then after all that time, she said that she just couldn't do it. I went to Muscle Shoals and I sat down with my good friend, John Paul of the Civil Wars. We talked through the situation for hours over coffee. He kept saying, "man let's go write it, let's just go write it." It was literally written in an hour. We had the whole thing in an hour because the idea was that strong and the feeling was that intense. It just spilled out. Some things are so urgent you just can't help it. It just pours itself out all over the page. Those are the ideas to chase.

When I was younger, writing was so new. Any idea could be the topic of a song. I guess, now, I have a better filter. I think I can sit back and listen to it and hear if it isn't working or if it isn't something special. If the song doesn't knock me down, why would it knock anyone else down? So, that's my process so when I do a record or when even when I just put a song out a free single or B-side type thing. I still want it to be something I'm proud of. I still want it to be something that I feel like will stand up next to my other tunes.



R: I really do think the business part of it for musicians has changed a ton and can be really tough for artists. But I'm not sure there has ever been a better time to be a music fan. Artists don't have to put out ten songs just to put out ten songs. If they have five songs they're putting out five songs. If they have eight songs, they're putting out eight songs. I feel like the overall quality is fantastic. I remember being a ten or twelve year old and hearing a song that I loved on the radio and then I'd go spend my fifteen bucks on the CD only to find that there is nothing else on the record I would ever want to listen to. And I just remember, even as a twelve year old, being pissed off, feeling like they just stole my money. I think the a la carte nature of how people can interact with music now has definitely made it a necessity to only put out strong work. You can't make filler.

M: Whether it's an EP or a full length, you have to make a great record. It can't have any throw aways on it. It can't have any skippers. It's gotta be something fans want to listen to front to back. It has to be great. The labels say that it's all about the single but that's because it's all about singles for Top Forty acts. It's all about singles for people that are trying to be on the radio but for me, I want to have a career. I want make fans who are fans for the long haul. I want people to sing Track 9 off my third record, and know every word. That's what it's all about…when you go to a show and everyone is singing every word to every song. If you have a hit single, that's great, and certainly there are always going to be those songs that people connect with more than others. If you can write twelve songs and play them all at a show and see every one of them connect with different groups of people then that's when you've made it.

R: Does it make you uncomfortable, if you're writing from such a personal place, to give up control of that song. Once it's recorded and it's out there, it's not really yours in a certain way. You're giving it to other people and not just other people, but complete and total strangers. Does that leave you feeling a bit vulnerable or exposed? What is that like for you to see something so personal go out to all these people?

M: I mean it certainly makes you feel vulnerable because it is so deeply personal. But that vulnerability allows people who are going through something similar to really connect with it. Honestly the beauty of being able to share your music with people is also that the meaning grows and changes over time. Like my song Element meant something specific when I wrote it. But I'm not in that place anymore. I've grown up and I've changed. In many ways, it's like a new song now. The song is still relevant to me even though it may be in a different area of my life. It may have shifted to another place in my heart. You can let it change. I'm sure that the bands that are still playing songs that they wrote twenty, thirty years ago are in the same boat. They can't necessary be twenty again when they're forty. But the song that keeps you feeling young or the way that people have taken it over the years changes meaning. And that eases the vulnerability I think.

I remember seeing Storytellers with Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder is talking about that song 'Alive.' He said, "When I wrote that, it was a really sad, brutal story about a boy who's been lied to about his father his whole life. But then twenty years later It's a huge anthem about the beauty of being alive on this earth." I'm sure for him, that it is a really magical, powerful thing that he wrote it from a tough place and then twenty years later he's a grown man and he's singing an anthem of life for younger generations. I think that is just one instance of something that is so cool and powerful about songs.



R: Talk about Birmingham - such a cool city. I feel like there is this current in Birmingham of musicians and photographers and artists. Is that city important to you? Talk about the community there and why you've decided to make that home.

M: Absolutely. Birmingham…it's my roots. I was born and raised here and it definitely is something special to me. I've always been a homebody and I enjoy this place. Familiar streets. I enjoy knowing where to go to get a drink. I enjoy familiar faces and voices and smells and sounds. And yeah, there's definitely a very rich scene here. There's so many artists here that are super talented and they're not just musicians. Writers, painters, photographers. There's such a rich culture, such a rich history. You just have to dig for it a little bit more than you do in a city than like say Austin, New York, or LA.

Birmingham for me will always be home. I sing about it a lot. I sing about the idea of being home a lot. I think that it comes out in the music and I think it also comes out in my personality. I'm the guy that if we are out for a month, pushing to get home that same night. I'm grateful to have a place that I want to come home to. There are definitely things here that haunt me and that I do sing about, but, as a whole it's a beautiful and rich place.

R: So whats next for you? What do you got coming up next?

M: Man, I'm wrapping up this tour and I'm going to take some time to write and collect myself the last part of the year. I don't know, I may make another record. I've got a lot of tunes and I really have that bug again. I want to make another record. I just don't know how to pay for it… (laughter)

R: That's always the trick... (laughter)

M: I'm not sure, but the idea is there. I'm leaning towards getting back in the studio cause these songs, honestly the twenty or so that I've got that are in idea form or completely finished are really different. They're something else…so different from 'Now You're Free' that I almost feel a duty to get it recorded. It does feel like something that kind of gnaws at you. You get the itch and then it kind of takes over.

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CREDITS:

Music by:
Matthew Mayfield

Music performed by:
Matthew Mayfield
Clint Wells
Wil Drake
Bryan Rust

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Directed by:
Micah Bickham

Produced by:
Ryan Booth

VISUALS:

Cameras:
Micah Bickham
Daniel Karr
Zach McNair
Ben Wyman

Edited by: Micah Bickham
Graded by: Cody Bess
Titles by: Tyler Swanner
Photos by: Micah Bickham

AUDIO:
Engineered by: Jay Snider
Mixed by: Jay Snider
Mastered by: Daniel Karr

Illustration and Design by: Tyler Swanner


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*AUDIO ONLY VERSIONS