Profile of Matthew Good on Famous Like Me

Matthew Frederick Robert Good (born June 29, 1971, Burnaby, British Columbia) is a Canadian rock musician. He was the lead singer for the Matthew Good Band, one of Canada's most successful alternative rock bands in the 1990s, before dissolving the band in 2002. Other band members included drummer Ian Browne, guitarist/keyboardist Dave Genn, and original bassist Geoff Lloyd, later replaced by Rich Priske. In the years since the Matthew Good Band's disbanding, Good has pursued a solo career and established himself as a political activist.

Matthew Good Band

Good's early career in music involved a variety of folk demos and a stint as the lead singer of a folk band, the Rodchester Kings. The Matthew Good Band was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1995. That year, they released their debut album, Last of the Ghetto Astronauts. Although initially popular only in the Vancouver area, the album began to catch on across Canada in 1996, with the singles "Alabama Motel Room", "Symbolistic White Walls", and "Haven't Slept in Years" becoming significant hits on radio and MuchMusic. Last of the Ghetto Astronauts, made on a budget of roughly five thousand Canadian dollars, eventually set the mark as the highest selling independent label release by a Canadian artist.

The band's 1997 album Underdogs spawned the hit singles "Everything is Automatic" and "Apparitions", the latter of which remains the band's biggest hit. Good's political outspokenness and brash confidence were unusual in the Canadian rock scene of the 1990s, and he was soon recognized as much for his seemingly difficult disposition as for his musical talent. As a nod to his reputation, Good sold t-shirts that read "I Hear Matt Good Is a Real Asshole" at MGB shows. He also maintained a subversive image, sometimes posing for publicity photos in a gorilla mask.

Beautiful Midnight followed in 1999 and became hugely successful via singles including "Hello Time Bomb", "Strange Days", and "Load Me Up". The album skyrocketed the band's celebrity status and earned them two Juno awards in 2000, for Best Group and Best Rock Album. (Good himself boycotts the Juno Awards, and guitarist Dave Genn has been quoted as saying that he only attends for the open bar.)

After touring Beautiful Midnight for nearly two years, the band set to work on The Audio of Being. The album's creation came amidst a difficult emotional period for Good, where he struggled to deal with the band's success. He was also diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a disease that causes lesions to form in the lungs, prompting him to quit smoking altogether. Following throat surgery to remove a nodule from a vocal cord, Good holed up for three weeks in a hotel in Whistler to work on songs. Good later wrote that he spent much of the time "trying to keep down food supplement bars, trying to forget the growing tension within the band, the high expectations of needing to produce 'hit songs' (whatever they are these days), throwing up, and trying to find some semblance of direction in my personal life."

The band entered the studio in 2001 to record the material. The sessions saw a great deal of inner-band turmoil, with Dave Genn quitting the band before the album was complete. He returned a few days later, however, only to quit permanently not long after the album's release that October. Following Genn's departure, Good dissolved the band in 2002.

Solo Career

Good released his solo debut, Avalanche, in 2003. The album featured major stylistic differences from those recorded with the previous band, and featured the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on several tracks, including the first two singles, "Weapon" and "In a World Called Catastrophe". Good recorded the album with long-time MGB producer Warne Livesey, who earned a Juno nomination for the effort.

Good and co-director Ante Kovac were also nominated for a Juno Award for Best Video of the Year for "Weapon". Ante Kovac received the award alone on stage. Good later revealed in his blog that he had actually fired Kovac half way through the making of the video. In later commentary, Good related that Kovac's first edit of the video was far too standard, with gratutitous and generic fades. After firing Kovac, Good flew to Toronto and worked with video editor J.D. Shaw to re-craft the footage. While working on the edit, Good began to experiment with overlaying text and adding still frames and stock photos to help deliver the message. Good noted that he felt that the video was his favourite from his catalogue.

Good's second solo album, the politically-charged White Light Rock & Roll Review, was released June 15, 2004. Video singles included "Alert Status Red" and "It's Been a While Since I Was Your Man". For the album, Good elected to take a decidedly stripped-down approach. Rather than record each instrument separately, Good and his band (including Priske and drummer Patrick Steward) recorded the songs as a unit, with Good adding vocals and additional guitar parts later. Good later noted that he loved the freedom of being able to write a song, enter the studio, and have a recording completed almost immediately, rather than having to deal with the sometimes arduous process of recording layers and layers of music for a single song.

Good encountered controversy with the video for "Alert Status Red". Initially, the video was intended to be a concept piece, directed by Good. However, upon entering the editing stage, he realized he hadn't shot enough footage to make his concept work. He opted to turn all of the footage over to Kyle Davison, who directed the video for "In a World Called Catastrophe", to see if anything could be made out of it. Davison came up with his own concept, edited it together, and sent the finished product to Good. Good approved of the video, and made it available for download on his website. Good, however, was unaware that Davison had utilized several short clips of surveillance footage of the Columbine High School shootings in the piece. Upon hearing about the clips from individuals who felt the use was insensitive, Good pulled the video from his website. After watching it again, he decided to enlist the opinions of others, including MuchMusic, to see if they had any objections. Most felt it was reasonable, granted that the use wasn't exploitative and helped to support the message of the video, a message that they believed was decidedly relevant. Good agreed. He then returned the video to his website and expressed his support for the work of his co-director.

In March of 2005, Good brought in Ryan Dahle and Meegee Bradfield of Limblifter to join his band (replacing Christian Thor Valdson and Rich Priske). Good noted that he was concerned his previous line-up had run its course creatively, and that, as a solo artist, he was graced with the freedom to change direction by involving different musicians. He hoped that Ryan and Meegee might be able to lend a new perspective to familiar material. In April, the lineup entered the studio and recorded two tracks for the Matthew Good best-of, "Big City Life" and "Oh Be Joyful". However, when Good undertook a brief tour of Ontario in July of 2005, he was rejoined by Priske and Valdson.

A compilation of Good's work with the Matthew Good Band and on his own was released in September 2005, titled In a Coma: Matthew Good 1995-2005. The first single from the album, "Oh Be Joyful", was released at the end of July.

Good took particular care in the production of the expanded deluxe edition of In a Coma, which included an additional CD and a DVD. In April of 2005, Good entered the studio and recorded nine songs from his catalog, reworked and performed acoustically. As a nod to fans who were unable to find them, the CD also included the out-of-print EPs Lo-Fi B-Sides and Loser Anthems. The DVD featured the complete library of Good's music videos, including a new video for "While We Were Hunting Rabbits" from Avalanche developed by animation students at Sheridan College.

Writings

Beyond his music career, Good has also been a writer and blogger. From late 1997 through the end of 2000, Good published a series of monthly manifestos on the band's website. These were later compiled and released in his debut book at last, there is nothing left to say, published in 2001 by Insomniac Press (ISBN 1-894663-08-X).

Throughout his life, Good has found a passion for politics and history. In recent years, he has made his political views far more public, and has used his blog to express his opinions about the Canadian government, the effects of the United States' foreign policy, and world crises like the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Good has also been heavily involved with Amnesty International, bringing Amnesty representatives on the road with him during his 2004 tour and offering a limited-edition jersey on his website with proceeds going to Amnesty.

Future Work

As far as the future, Good has been demoing songs, but presently has no concrete plans for a new album. While promoting In a Coma, Good noted that he might use the release of the compilation to mark the end of the first era of his career, where he could then move on to write "weirder" music. In a recent interview with a fan site , Good also mentioned that he would like to undertake an acoustic tour in 2006, and may spend the rest of the year reworking songs in his catalog to fit such a tour.

Discography

Matthew Good early demos

• 1993 - Left of Normal
• 1993 - Broken
• 1994 - Euphony
• 1994 - 15 Hours on a September Thursday

Matthew Good Band

• 1995 - Last of the Ghetto Astronauts
• 1996 - Raygun
• 1997 - Underdogs
• 1998 - Lo-Fi B-Sides
• 1999 - Beautiful Midnight
• 2001 - Loser Anthems
• 2001 - The Audio of Being

Matthew Good as solo artist

• 2003 - Avalanche
• 2004 - White Light Rock & Roll Review
• 2005 - In a Coma

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