Make a wish, Matt Pond
By Julie Garisto
Published March 7, 2008
It's Matt Pond's birthday on March 8, the date of his band's concert at New World Brewery. He's happy to celebrate the occasion, but refuses to say how old he will be.
"I don't like to talk about age," Pond said during a recent phone interview. "My birthday exists. How old I am doesn't."
The frontman for semi-eponymous indie pop-rockers Matt Pond PA speaks like someone who's very opinionated about not being opinionated.
Pond gives off a Northeastern stoicism met with an anything-goes, transcendental hippy-dippy vibe. It's a compelling contrast that might explain his dualistic approach to music, especially on the band's 2007 LP, Last Light, a roughly polished gem of twilight moods, both lyrically and instrumentally.
It's a CD that, with its varying intensities and poetically revelatory lyrics, is more stripped-down than previous albums.
"We're keeping things straighter to find out how to make them purer and then pushing out from there," he said.
Stripped down, yes, but simpler, not exactly; on Last Light, the songs are dynamic in tempo and arrangements, with a detailed production that emphasizes resonant guitars and powerfully dry-sounding beats. He says the balance of texture and minimalism was purely accidental.
"I'm just not technically proficient enough to pull off things in any other way than just to get really excited about something and do them, or destroy something out of frustration," he said.
The New England native formed Matt Pond PA a little more than a decade ago in Philadelphia (hence the inclusion of the state postal abbreviation). He's had a revolving door of bandmates, recorded nine albums and several EPs, and moved around a lot (Philly, Brooklyn, New Hampshire). His tunes broke the mainstream sound barrier when they showed up on The O.C.
There's an undeniable openness and sincerity to Pond, even if he does at times come across as a bit of the tortured artist. (A writer for the uber-hip music site Pitchfork Media once mused that the PA in Pond's band name stood for "pretentious asshole.") He's like a cat, always in the moment - philosophizing before the show but participating in a drunken dance party afterward.
"I feel like if you're trying to define things so that it makes it easier for you to sleep - like if there are sea monsters or there are not sea monsters - those are ways of protecting yourself so you can put off what's inevitable," he said. "You can't put off what's inevitable, so you have to, I would think, constantly live in the moment. It's not painful. It's just not always comforting. ... I'm not believer in anything than anything except for the immediate."
Pond somehow took a break from his unplanned existence to do some major planning. On Last Light, he not only wrote the songs, he co-produced them for the first time, enlisting several high-profile performers to pitch in, including Neko Case, who sings on the stunning duet Taught to Look Away; Isabel Sollenberger of Bardo Pond and Kelly Hogan.
Does he feel at ease using both sides of his brain in dealing with the creative and business sides of making a record?
"I think it's two sides fused together and not in a perfect way," he says with self-effacing humor. "They kind of fight and spew things out."
Matt Pond PA
The band plays with Mouse Fire and Pemberley at 10 p.m. Saturday at New World Brewery, 1313 E Eighth Ave., Ybor City. $10. (813) 248-4969.