Interview by Rachel Jablonski
Emanuel now on tour with 30 Seconds to Mars and will soon be on tour with Taking Back Sunday. I spoke with vocalist Matt Breen about the band's upcoming events.
Rachel: Hey, what’s up? Where you at today?
Matt: We’re in Houston or something today… Dallas! Dallas!
Rachel: Cool. You have a show tonight?
Matt: Yeah, with 30 Seconds to Mars. It’s awesome. It’s like summertime down here. It’s fucking nice, sunny, and warm.
Rachel: No fair.
Matt: I know, sorry.
Rachel: Your debut album, Soundtrack to a Headrush, is said to be the soundtrack for a messy time in your life. What events spawned such drastic frustrations?
Matt: We had grown up in a town and we had been playing together for years and had never really gotten any credit. We were just smoking tons of weed and being bummed up. We had just graduated high school and everything was kind of listless. The songs are just a testament to those listless feelings and times in our life when we were 20 and wrote this record.
Rachel: You started the band when you were 13 years old roughly?
Matt: Fourteen, yeah. Four of us have been a band since ‘98/’99 and we just added a new guitar player this year.
Rachel: What have you done through the years to be what you are today?
Matt: We played a ton of local shows. We booked shows with Midtown when they were on their first tour, shows with Coheed and Cambria when they were on their first tour, made a lot of friends. We are really young and so these bands would say “keep at it and you guys are going to be really good some day.” So we did.
Rachel: What is the scene like in Louisville, Kentucky? Is that where you’d play most of your shows or did you have to go somewhere else?
Matt: The scene there is kind of divided. It’s kind of an older scene, but there are a lot of really early hardcore bands that came out of there like Endpoint, Elliott, but there are a ton of other bands like that. All those bands kind of have their own thing now, but there is a new generation of kids who are coming out to shows and supporting it. I was really surprised at how many kids come out to shows in Louisville, it’s totally amazing. There’s not a lot to do so it’s cool that the kids choose to support music.
Rachel: The song called “Buy American Machines” has a good sound. What is the song about?
Matt: That song is just about a list of things I don’t like. I wrote it sometime around 9/11, not that I even tried to write about that shit, but I was sick of evangelistic Christians, Republicans, and all that shit. The general feeling of the country, of the world I lived in at that time, that’s what I tried to capture; my personal anxiety and the anxiety of the whole country around me.
Rachel: I recently reviewed The Killer in You: A Tribute to Smashing Pumpkins where you cover “Mayonaise” which displays quite distinguished vocals. How did you come about being a part of this tribute album? How has Smashing Pumpkins influenced you?
Matt: They’re one of my favorite bands ever without a doubt. They’re a big influence because it’s melodic rock. Lots of guitar work and we have a lot of guitar work in our songs and a lot of really passionate and dynamic, emotional music with them. Reignition Recordings approached us and asked us to do a song. We has just recently covered “Disarm” for an EP we put out which was pretty good. They told us not to do “Disarm,” I don’t know why. I thought someone else was probably doing it, but it’s not on there which confused me. We got to do our second choice which is “Mayonaise” because I fucking love that song. The song is really close to me because there’s a crucial line at the end where he just yells I want to be me. That seems to be how people feel around the age that I was writing Soundtrack to a Headrush. That phrase kind of goes along with it so we chose that song. We tried to make some changes to it but we ended up playing it almost just like they played it. We approached it like ok if we were going to write this song from the get go how would we do it, what kind of rhythm, what kind of tempo? It ended up being exactly the same way.
Rachel: Your song is one of the best ones on there. What is the significance of the band name Emanuel?
Matt: It means a lot of different things. We’ve told a lot of different stories about it like drug dealers and all kinds of shit. But the one I like right now is that I think it’s Hebrew, it translates to “God among the people” which I think is interesting. I don’t think I’m a god among people, but I just think it’s a neat concept.
Rachel: You’re currently on tour with 30 Seconds to Mars and then will be with Taking Back Sunday. How has the tour been so far and what can we expect from the band on these tours?
Matt: This is our second show of the tour tonight. It’s pretty cool. The Aiden dudes are awesome, 30 Seconds to Mars dudes are nice, and it’s been good so far.
Rachel: Is Jared Leto really dating Lindsay Lohan and if so would you knock some sense into him please?
Matt: I haven’t seen her yet. I hope that Lindsay will show up!
Rachel: What is the reason for the change in tours towards the end of your time with 30 Seconds to Mars?
Matt: I don’t know, we have to hop off the date at a certain time. Unfortunately we’re going to miss some of the Midwest dates, but we’re going to come back around and hit those cities in May. We’ll play longer sets when we come back anyway.
Rachel: What do you hope to accomplish most this year?
Matt: I hope to write another record in the fall after Warped Tour.
Rachel: Is there anything else you want to talk about?
Matt: Go out and see us live and have a good time with us!
Rachel: Thank you very much for your time.
Matt: Thank you very much!