Post by JessieLou on May 21, 2020 16:19:39 GMT -5
i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/k7qqde/the-1975-matty-healy-exclusive-interview-notes-on-a-conditional-form
Matty Healy picks up our video call in a two-piece pinstripe suit, smoking a joint. It’s a Monday and it’s just gone midday. The world’s most talked-about modern frontman is holed up in a house-slash-music studio in the countryside with his dog. In 11 days, Notes On A Conditional Form, the new record by his band The 1975 will be released. “f*cking hell,” he says, considering the countdown. “It feels like it’s taken forever.”
Notes on a Conditional Form is the fourth album by a group who have famously skirted definition and pigeonholing. They are a pop band but they’re not. Matty Healy is a rockstar but he isn’t really. The expectations of what sonic world they will explore next are limited only to their tendency to be endlessly unpredictable. This record speaks to that. 22 tracks long and stretching out over 80 minutes, it’s a far cry from the high impact, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pop albums of today. Instead, it’s something their millions-strong fanbase from around the world will live inside and explore. A dozen rotations in, and you’ll still be discovering things that are present but hidden on your first listen.
Each song acts as a skittish red herring for whatever follows it. It switches from spoken word to screamo, folk ballad to dancehall. To call it an experiment would be untrue; an experiment exists to prove a hypothesis. The 1975, in their eyes, don’t have anything to prove: “Instead of looking out and seeing what everyone thinks,” Matty says, “[we went] home and made the weird records we enjoy making.”
The follow-up to their critically-acclaimed 2018 effort A Brief Inquiry to Online Relationships focuses on the anxieties and hallmarks of life in the here and now: FaceTime sex; an unfurling ecological disaster; addiction; getting canceled online. The latter subject Matty is used to by now. As much as he’s an enigmatic deity to a million teenagers around the world, he’s vocal, perhaps too vocal, and acts on instinct. His intentions seem good, but often feel skewed and questionable once they’ve left his mouth. He’s been criticised for making jokes about independent musicians calling out for support during the pandemic. He kissed a boy in the crowd at the band’s Dubai show, prompting a debate about the safety of the band’s queer fans in a staunchly anti-LGBT country. (He’s since spoken to the boy, who left the show afterwards and went on to have “the best night of his life”, according to a recent interview.) His comments on being able to criticise religion have gone viral online.
But Matty Healy, frequently framed by his naysayers as a narcissist (though you imagine he’d admit to possessing at least some flecks of that sensibility), is now ruminating on life without a crowd to perform to. The present and future look fascinating for a band whose artform is deeply intertwined with both IRL and online stan culture, one that’s taken them from pubs to international arenas in the past decade. So over the course of an hour-long conversation, Matty spoke to us about that, as well as Notes on a Conditional Form, wrestling with ‘wokeness’, and his endless appreciation of queer culture.
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The whole interview is too damn long to post, so I'll just get to the part where he talks about not liking interviews.
You’ve been very vocal in the past, have f*cked up, and then have been vocal about f*cking up. Have you reached a point where you find it easier to go back on things you’ve said?
I’m not afraid to apologise or change my mind in public. People are terrified to do that, in case they lose ground. I’m just a person. I can only know a certain amount of things, and if one of them’s wrong, what can I do? I’ve got to grow and say ‘That was stupid’, and that I’m sorry. Luckily I’m never saying anything mad! Sometimes it's tonally off but fortunately it’s all in the context of not saying that much. Actually, no, I do chat quite a lot of shit!
This is gonna be one of my last interviews. Well -- not one of my last interviews, not ‘Matty turns into Prince’. I’ll do stuff that I want to do, but it’s not really worth it that much for me anymore. I like having a chat with someone who likes art and music, it’s a nice thing to do. But it’s going to be way safer for me to just put out records.
Matty Healy picks up our video call in a two-piece pinstripe suit, smoking a joint. It’s a Monday and it’s just gone midday. The world’s most talked-about modern frontman is holed up in a house-slash-music studio in the countryside with his dog. In 11 days, Notes On A Conditional Form, the new record by his band The 1975 will be released. “f*cking hell,” he says, considering the countdown. “It feels like it’s taken forever.”
Notes on a Conditional Form is the fourth album by a group who have famously skirted definition and pigeonholing. They are a pop band but they’re not. Matty Healy is a rockstar but he isn’t really. The expectations of what sonic world they will explore next are limited only to their tendency to be endlessly unpredictable. This record speaks to that. 22 tracks long and stretching out over 80 minutes, it’s a far cry from the high impact, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pop albums of today. Instead, it’s something their millions-strong fanbase from around the world will live inside and explore. A dozen rotations in, and you’ll still be discovering things that are present but hidden on your first listen.
Each song acts as a skittish red herring for whatever follows it. It switches from spoken word to screamo, folk ballad to dancehall. To call it an experiment would be untrue; an experiment exists to prove a hypothesis. The 1975, in their eyes, don’t have anything to prove: “Instead of looking out and seeing what everyone thinks,” Matty says, “[we went] home and made the weird records we enjoy making.”
The follow-up to their critically-acclaimed 2018 effort A Brief Inquiry to Online Relationships focuses on the anxieties and hallmarks of life in the here and now: FaceTime sex; an unfurling ecological disaster; addiction; getting canceled online. The latter subject Matty is used to by now. As much as he’s an enigmatic deity to a million teenagers around the world, he’s vocal, perhaps too vocal, and acts on instinct. His intentions seem good, but often feel skewed and questionable once they’ve left his mouth. He’s been criticised for making jokes about independent musicians calling out for support during the pandemic. He kissed a boy in the crowd at the band’s Dubai show, prompting a debate about the safety of the band’s queer fans in a staunchly anti-LGBT country. (He’s since spoken to the boy, who left the show afterwards and went on to have “the best night of his life”, according to a recent interview.) His comments on being able to criticise religion have gone viral online.
But Matty Healy, frequently framed by his naysayers as a narcissist (though you imagine he’d admit to possessing at least some flecks of that sensibility), is now ruminating on life without a crowd to perform to. The present and future look fascinating for a band whose artform is deeply intertwined with both IRL and online stan culture, one that’s taken them from pubs to international arenas in the past decade. So over the course of an hour-long conversation, Matty spoke to us about that, as well as Notes on a Conditional Form, wrestling with ‘wokeness’, and his endless appreciation of queer culture.
--------------------
The whole interview is too damn long to post, so I'll just get to the part where he talks about not liking interviews.
You’ve been very vocal in the past, have f*cked up, and then have been vocal about f*cking up. Have you reached a point where you find it easier to go back on things you’ve said?
I’m not afraid to apologise or change my mind in public. People are terrified to do that, in case they lose ground. I’m just a person. I can only know a certain amount of things, and if one of them’s wrong, what can I do? I’ve got to grow and say ‘That was stupid’, and that I’m sorry. Luckily I’m never saying anything mad! Sometimes it's tonally off but fortunately it’s all in the context of not saying that much. Actually, no, I do chat quite a lot of shit!
This is gonna be one of my last interviews. Well -- not one of my last interviews, not ‘Matty turns into Prince’. I’ll do stuff that I want to do, but it’s not really worth it that much for me anymore. I like having a chat with someone who likes art and music, it’s a nice thing to do. But it’s going to be way safer for me to just put out records.