Following the release of his new single ‘Even If It’s a Lie’, we caught up with Matt Maltese.
The 19-year-old has already self-released his debut EP, as well as supporting the likes of Lauren Aquilina and Tom Williams and the Boat.
We had a little chat with Matt to find out more about his musical influences, dream headline venues and plans for 2015.
Can you tell us how you first got into music?
My mum was an opera singer and my grandfather was a semi-pro jazz trumpeter, so some interest in music was encouraged at first before I really gained a personal relationship with it. I learnt piano from a pretty young age, and as I found my own taste, I started writing songs and my attachment to music just grew from there really.
Which bands/artists are you inspired by?
It changes all the time, but songwriters like Paul Simon, Nina Simone, Leonard Cohen; I¹ll always be into I think. More recently, I’m really into guys like Father John Misty and some folk stuff like Vashti Bunyan and Flo Morrissey. Since moving to London, I’ve also become a lot more aware of the South London music scene which has some genius songwriters in it like Alex Burey and Loyle Carner.
How do you go about the songwriting process?
It’s usually just by sitting at a piano or a guitar and not thinking a lot. I know some great songwriters who do really interesting things when they write, but keeping it kind of straightforward works for me for now.
If you were to headline a venue in the UK, where would it be and why?
I live near the Roundhouse in Camden and I’ve seen some awesome videos of bands play there so that would be cool. Or a church venue like Hackney..
What can we expect from you for the rest of the year?
I’m really just aiming to gather a collection of songs that I’m happy with. I’m really picky and my influences are sometimes pretty momentary, so I think not rushing anything at the moment and just getting something I’m really happy with is a good place to strive for. I still want to be doing this when I’m 50 so focusing on quality and not the buzz side of the industry where artists cycles are a year-long is important to me. Maybe another Sound cloud demo in the summer though if it feels right.