Matt Goud talks about his life’s journey
Northcote’s Matt Goud first contacted me after reading a tongue-in-cheek listicle I published at my day job — working for AUX.TV — naming a series of Canadian bands with less-than-evident Christian roots. The Victoria-based troubadour wrote me on Twitter telling me not to hesitate if I wanted to talk some more about it. And that’s exactly what I did.
“The Christian thing will probably stick with me forever even if I’m on a different track now” he says while waiting to catch the ferry to Vancouver. “Though of course I’m still affected by [my upbringing] and I’m sure there are still… spiritual overtones in my music.”
Of course you might be wondering: Why in the heck are we talking religion in the first place? Simple: Before he penned anthemic punk-tinged folk songs with Northcote Goud led Means a post-hardcore band signed to Christian metalcore label Facedown Records. The band “weren’t overly Christian” he says but “despite playing with mainstream bands we kept on being pitched on church tours and Christian metal fests… which were all about secret agendas. It’s not really hardcore music if it comes with a sales pitch.”
Then he hit the existential crisis every 20-something experiences. “I’m not devout in any sense now” he says. “I realized that I didn’t believe that my faith was historically true. And from there you decide if it’s helpful or destructive. Some of it can be helpful but I decided a lot of it was destructive.”
It should come as no surprise then that Goud’s current crop of songs — the latest batch of which were released by Black Box Recordings — are about rebirth. But not in a spiritual sense. (“I’m different from David Bazan because he makes heady music. I’m not good at writing songs that are philosophical in nature.”) Instead they’re about reinvention writ large. Northcote’s giant anthemic folk songs are about discovering a new phase in his life. They’re about discovering music that spanned beyond the punk of his formative years. And they’re about moving to Victoria — Goud grew up in Saskatchewan — and finding his place in a foreign town.
“The record’s about a guy living in a new town. I was working at a casino here and that wasn’t so hot” he says. “People think that in moving around you’ll find this magic situation where everything falls into place. There’s so many people wandering around looking for that sweet spot in their life. Our generation we’re an anxious bunch.”
But there was a silver lining. In his spare time Goud began performing cover songs at local cafes eventually learning how to play different styles. He cultivated obsessions in Americana R&B and jazz citing Bruce Springsteen Otis Redding and Charles Mingus as luminaries. (“I never really listened to that stuff growing up” he says. “It was punk and hardcore and at home Christian music or country.”) Those songs are what would eventually grow into his current crop of songs which thanks to their raw singalong qualities draw favourable comparisons to Craig Finn Frank Turner and at his most grandiose the Gaslight Anthem. That and they’re drenched in AM-radio traditions.
“I’m still working on narrowing my musical personality. My new record’s a lot less muzzled a lot more confident. There’s a lot of blues in the songs” he says. “It helped that Blake [Enemark the über-talented guitarist for We Are The City] did half of the guitars on my record — it’s funny how two people can play the same guitar part on an album and it’ll sound completely different.”
But for all the talk of new influences and new directions (not in the Gorilla Biscuits sense but the literal sense) Goud still hasn’t fully dropped his hardcore roots. “I used to riff and mosh around while playing but when you’re solo you can still get physically engaged. A lot of [the similarities between folk and hardcore] comes down to the DIY side and the therapeutic side of music. I try to make cathartic songs in nature — kind of like how Bane sing ‘This is my therapy.’”
