Photo by Colleen Barrett
By Cadence Baker
On Saturday, November 23rd, KZSC Santa Cruz journeyed to San Francisco to attend Brooklyn-based digital hardcore band Machine Girl’s first of two sold-out shows at the Regency Ballroom. We sat down backstage with Matt Stephenson, Machine Girl’s lead singer and producer, to chat about live performance, music production, the Internet, and Ween.
Cadence (KZSC)
First of all, welcome back to San Francisco. What have you been up to today?
Matt (Machine Girl)
I slept in quite a bit, because it’s tour. The last two nights have been shows, so I’ve been catching up a little bit. So it’s been a lazy day, hanging out on the tour bus mostly. Hit a pretty good coffee shop.
Cadence
Where’d you get coffee?
Matt
I think it was Crostini & Java. I thought it was pretty good.
Cadence
We just went to Haraz down the street, and hit Farley’s earlier. We’re making a network of all the coffee shops in this area.
Matt
Nice. You go to school somewhere over here?
Cadence
We’re at UC Santa Cruz, so right over the hill.
Matt
We’ve been to Santa Cruz a couple of times. I don’t know if you’ve seen us there.
Cadence
Were you at the Catalyst?
Matt
A few times. It’s tough with San Francisco; we did Sacramento last night, and we could play either Sacramento or Santa Cruz, since so many kids from both cities go to the Bay for shows. I’m sure we’ll be back in Santa Cruz at some point soon.
Cadence
We look forward to it! I had some production questions for you. I’m a producer, so listening to your most recent project [MG Ultra] from that standpoint was really interesting to me. What does your current gear setup look like?
Matt
It’s 90% Ableton. A lot of it is stock VSTs in Ableton. I use Operator a lot—it’s a great virtual synth, and Analog is very underrated as well. And then just a bunch of plugins, like a lot of Waves’s stuff and random plugins that I’ll find free online. It’s a lot of resampling; using certain samples of rave stabs and drum machines. The biggest difference with this record was that we got the drums professionally recorded and mixed. So it was much easier to drop the live drums in and mix them into each production.
Cadence
In regards to MG Ultra, but also anything that you’re working on now—do you have any production choices or sounds that you feel yourself gravitating towards?
Matt
Not anything that’s significantly different than the past. It’s still a lot of acid-y bass sounds, and I like creating my own rave stabs. It’s fun for me. But the biggest difference now is just trying to incorporate more live instruments and vocals and stuff. I’m getting away from Ableton.
Cadence
Yeah. That adds a bit more of a texture to [the music], a complexity.
Matt
And more of a performance. That’s definitely one of my goals with moving forward in production.
Cadence
Are you creating more with live performance in mind now?
Matt
Definitely. Especially moving forward, it’s something I’m gonna really keep in mind.
Cadence
For sure. I was talking to some Machine Girl fans [in preparation for this interview] and one of them wanted me to thank you for being so engaged with your audience. Have you felt any shift in how the audience engages with you as your career has gone on?
Matt
Yeah. When we started out, we were performing much more to people that were closer to our age. So there was less of a ‘fandom’, you know? But between touring with The Garden a couple times on their gigs and some of our songs going slightly viral on TikTok, we now have a younger fanbase; teenagers and stuff. Naturally, they’re much more enthusiastic.
We’re lucky. I think I’ve really made it a point to keep my private life very separate from the band and whatnot. So we don’t get any creepy, stalkery [attention], which I’m thankful for.
But it’s definitely more what you’d imagine being in a bigger band is like. Kids, you know, waiting after the show to get things signed, wanting to get pictures. So there’s a celebrity-ish vibe that wasn’t there in the beginning.
Cadence
Do you think that’s emerged in the last couple of years?
Matt
Definitely. Since COVID, for sure.
Cadence
I can see that. I think you guys hit a second wave of recognition around, would you say, 2021?
Matt
Yeah, definitely. A lot of bands were, financially and career-wise, hurt by the lockdown. And we were a weird band, in that we actually got bigger.
Cadence
I remember that arc distinctly. I would think that having your music categorized alongside other really Internet-influenced hardcore acts would contribute to that.
Matt
Totally. And I think also we’re unique in [the regard] that we are considered a very “Internet music” band, but we’re also known for the live shows. We’re lucky that we have a good amount of hype or notoriety on both realms.
Cadence
I think that definitely sets you apart from a lot of other bands; your live presence really changes how your music reaches its audience.
Matt
Totally. It’s like using the Internet stuff as a gateway to get kids to come out to the shows. For me, the show is where it’s at; where I feel the most connected to the music is wherever I’m performing it.
Cadence
A lot of artists I talk to say that; I think it’s very easy for that connection to get lost otherwise. You don’t have a face-to-face experience in other instances, but in live performance, you cannot get around connecting with the audience when you’re looking them in the eyes. It’s crazy energy. I’m really excited to feel it tonight.
Some more creative questions. I was listening to the Neon White sound track earlier today, and I wondered if you would be interested in doing more soundtrack production in the future.
Matt
Yeah. Definitely. It was a great experience.
Cadence
One fan asked if you would ever consider rescoring the original Machine Girl movie that your name comes from.
Matt
Would I ever rescore Machine Girl? That’s really interesting. Yeah, maybe! One thing about that movie is, like, it’s really long. Longer than you think it would be. I haven’t watched it in 10 years, but I remember it starts to drag in the middle quite a bit. But maybe that’s where the new soundtrack could be. It could revitalize it a little bit and put it back on the map.
Photo by Colleen Barrett
Cadence
Do you have any influences on your music that a casual Machine Girl fan might not expect?
Matt
Definitely. I don’t really know what a casual Machine Girl fan is, though, But one band that I love dearly, that’s definitely an influence, is Ween. Old movie soundtracks, too. I love finding weird old ‘60s-to-’80s movie soundtracks, and a lot of them I’ll resample in our songs. [I’m also influenced by] modern day, for lack of a better term, egg punk stuff. For the last couple of years, it’s been a big influence on my music.
Cadence
I had read Frank Zappa listed as one of your influences somewhere; I think that’s another influence that falls into that category of “makes perfect sense when you hear it, but not something that you would immediately think of when it comes to Machine Girl”.
Matt
Yeah. I was really into Frank Zappa when I was in high school, so that’s definitely part of my musical DNA.
Cadence
What’s your favorite Ween song?
Matt
One I’ve been obsessed with this year is this demo that they never officially released called “Kim Smoltz”. It’s really great. And, this track called “You Were the Fool”, from their country album.
Cadence
Yes. Oh my God. I love the country album. I like “Piss up a Rope”.
Matt
I was obsessed with that song many years ago. But “You Were the Fool” is genuinely awesome. It’s this pretty little folk song, and I’ve been listening to it a lot this year.
Cadence
How do you feel about “Push Th’ Little Daisies”?
Matt
That’s also a classic. Ween is an Aphex Twin-type musical group for me, because I’ve been into them since high school and every couple years I’ll go back and find a bunch of new Ween songs I never had heard before and get re-obsessed. I’m definitely Weenpilled.
Cadence
Based.
Lastly, I’ve got a couple rapid fire fan questions for you. What was the last piece of media that really affected you?
Matt
Before I went on tour, I watched Phantom of the Paradise for the first time ever. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a proto-Rocky Horror rock opera movie from the early seventies, and it’s really bizarre and surreal. It’s just so unique. It’s a weird deep cut that’s influenced a lot of random artists over a huge spectrum of music and art and movies. If you’re familiar with Berserk, the character design of Griffith—the crazy hawk armor—is completely lifted from this movie. It’s really short too; less than an hour and a half.
Cadence
Do you believe in divine inspiration?
Matt
Yes.
Cadence
This was actually the most requested question by far. What is the worst-smelling venue you’ve ever played?
Matt
The worst-smelling? We’ve definitely played some bad ones. But you know what, though? I see this joke online about Machine Girl shows, but I feel like the people who say that don’t go to shows. Because it’s gonna have a certain degree of stench anywhere you go.
Cadence
Of course. They say the same thing about The Garden, too.
Matt
The Garden, 100 gecs, Death Grips, they say it about all these bands. There’s probably like one or two people in there that have horrendous B.O. But that’s any show. I have personally never been to a show where my thought is, “oh, man, I need to get out of here. This is worse than normal.”
Cadence
The worst-smelling shows I’ve been to have been tiny house shows where it’s raining outside and everybody comes in and smells like pennies. But that’s not different from any other show, ultimately.
Is there any likelihood that certain unreleased fan favorites will ever make their way to streaming platforms?
Matt
I would just say ‘never say never.’ Are there any plans [to release them] right now? No.
But I’ve taken lots of demos and repurposed them and they’ve ended up on albums, so it’s definitely a possibility.
Cadence
Thank you so much for meeting with me. One final question for you. What’s your favorite Pokémon?
Matt
I’m not really a big Pokémon head, but, just because of Super Smash Brothers, I love kicking people’s asses with Pikachu. The GameCube version.
