THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Matt Langley

Matt Langley from Dunedin, New Zealand is one of the smaller but brightest lights on the musical landscape. His debut EP Lost Companions was critically well received but his album Featherbones showed the full measure of his talents which touch on folk, blues and alt.country.

He does things the old fashioned way which others are now discovering or having to re-learn: He has toured solo or with a band for the past 10 years and you sense his time has come with Featherbones. You can get a free download EP from here too.

Matt is another to answer the Famous Elsewhere Questionnaire.

The first piece of music which really affected you was . . .

My Dad playing guitar and singing Beatles songs, Ticket to Ride, A Hard Day’s Night, Eleanor Rigby, stuff like that.

Your first (possibly embarrassing) role models in music were . . .

Dad, (not embarrassing, amazing.), radio horrors like Huey Lewis and the News, some good stuff leaking through...Cream, Jimi, Herbs, Spilt Enz etc

Lennon or Jagger, Ramones or Nirvana, Madonna or Gaga, Jacko or Jay-Z?

Lennon, Nirvana, Gaga, Jay-Z.

If music was denied you, your other career choice would be . . .

Something well paid and with high social status... like a poet/street preacher.

The three songs (yours, or by others) you would love everyone to hear are . . .

The Lonely One (Wilco), Time (Supergrass), Radio Dreams (Me)

Any interesting, valuable or just plain strange musical memorabilia at home?

Nothing of monetary value. I have a first edition of John Lennon’s A Spaniard in the Works which would qualify as an oddity, weird Spike Milligan-type humour. I got given a nice copy of Muddy Waters on vinyl. The Beatles bible I stole from Dad. All valuable to me.

The best book on music or musicians you have read is . . .

The 33 1/3 series is great, especially Exile on Main Street. Positively George Street by Matt Bannister is also very good. The Neil Young biography Shakey’.

If you could get on stage with anyone it would be . . . (And you would play?)

Back in Black with AC/DC if Malcolm would show me the rhythm guitar bits.

The three films you'd insist anybody watch because they might understand you better are . . .

Pulp Fiction, The Fountain, Heat.

The last CD or vinyl album you bought was . . . (And your most recent downloads include . . .)

Arrows by The Eastern (CD). Mean.

One song, royalties for life, never have to work again. The song by anyone, yourself included, which wouldn't embarrass you in that case would be . . .

 

If everyone could put up with me playing Stars & Guitars forever, I could do it. I’m a sucker for a love song.

The poster, album cover or piece of art could you live with on your bedroom forever would be . . .

I miss my big Jimi Hendrix poster of my teens, the one with all the cables in his face.

You are allowed just one tattoo, and it is of . . .

A Thunderbird (not the puppets, a real one).

David Bowie sang, “Five years, that's all we've got . . .” You would spend them where, doing . . .?

At home and abroad, travelling and playing. Pretty much just like the last five years and the five before that...

And finally, in the nature of press conferences in Japan, “Can you tell me please why this is your best album ever?”

Because it’s the latest release right? It got to be the best...until the next one! I think it’s a simple album of song and that’s all it needs to be.