Matthew Melton

Matthew Melton
Background information
Birth name Matthew Michael Melton
Born (1982-11-10)November 10, 1982
Memphis, Tennessee,
United States
Genres Rock, pop, garage, glam, lo-fi
Occupation(s) Musician, songwriter, record producer, photographer, artist
Instruments Vocals, guitar, bass, drums
Years active 2004–present
Labels Castle Face Records,
Burger Records,
Polyvinyl Records,
Southpaw Records,
Tic Tac Totally,
Red Lounge,
Goodbye Boozy[1]

Matthew Melton (born November 10, 1982) is an American musician,[2] songwriter, producer, and photographer based in Austin, Texas, originally from Memphis, Tennessee. He is best known as the vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter of Bare Wires and, currently, Warm Soda. In 2012, he started independent record label and recording studio Fuzz City where Melton is noted to have recorded and produced the majority of his music.[2]

Early Life

Matthew Melton stages own arrest at Memphis College of Art BFA exhibition, 2005

Matthew Michael Melton was born on November 10, 1982 in Memphis, Tennessee. As a child, he was trained as a choir singer, performing in various operas, including Carmen and Tosca, between the ages of 8 and 12. In the early 1990s, he joined John Denver as a singer in his children's back-up choir. His affinity for music developed throughout his teenage years as he was introduced to punk and rock music.

After completing high school, Melton was awarded a portfolio-based scholarship to Memphis College of Art, eventually earning a BFA degree in photography in 2005. During his time in art school, he gained recognition for his series of abandoned buildings in the vicinity of Memphis as well as his thesis project Cafeterium, in which he photographed every high school cafeteria in Memphis. The latter project, however, was lauded just as much for its stark images as Melton's iconoclastic display on the opening night of their exhibition. Intending to "imply that the photographs were taken illegitimately",[3] Melton staged his own arrest. "By attempting this, I was conducting an experiment that explored the way we value the image," he explained. During this period, Melton also gained traction in the local music scene, performing in the River-City Tanlines with Alicja Trout of Lost Sounds and his own band, the Memphis Break-Ups, while booking shows for Memphis venue XY&Z.[4] In 2006, he photographed Jay Reatard for the cover of his first solo album, Blood Visions.[5]

Bare Wires (2008-2012)

Upon his arrival in California in 2007, Melton was repeatedly displaced before finally settling in San Francisco, California. There he released a string of singles under the moniker Snake Flower 2. In 2007 he joined with drummer Will Axe and bassist Donelle Malnik to record his first full-length LP Renegade Daydream. Described as "the first batch of songs I wrote after I escaped from the South,"[6] the album was hailed as an "overdriven, romping-in-the-red hot-rod rawk for kids whose minds were forever fractured by dog-eared, rifled copies of Nuggets LPs, Steppenwolf's gnarlsome guitar tone, Roger Corman cinematic cheapie sleazies, and the Standells' heightened snot levels" by Kimberly Chun of the San Francisco Bay Guardian upon its release and later named one of the albums of the year by San Francisco's Aquarius Records[7] and national punk subculture music magazine Maximumrocknroll. Having recorded the album on a Tascam 388, an analog multitrack recorder, Melton was prompted to purchase his own machine, on which he recorded the first LP for his next project, Bare Wires.

Bare Wires performing live, 2010

Titled Artificial Clouds, the album marked his first foray into what he came to define as "smooth punk."[8] Its 12 tracks were mastered by the late Jay Reatard in exchange for writing, recording, and producing the Hunx and His Punx single Teardrops on my Telephone to be released on his label, Shattered Records.[9] In the years following the release of Artificial Clouds, Bare Wires produced just as many records as it did line-up changes, the relentless touring schedule following each finally culminating in the band's "meltdown" during 2012's SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas [10] following a lengthy European tour. As a result of what Melton described to SF Weekly as the "self-induced health-related concern" that rendered drummer Omar Hernandez incapable of performing during the festival, Bare Wires immediately disbanded and cancelled the remainder of their tour. "Bare Wires is over," he continued in his conversation with SF Weekly. "Some things aren't made to go forever."

Warm Soda (2012-2016)

On returning to Oakland, Melton formed Warm Soda.[11] Having already started moving in a creative direction with Bare Wires that combined influences of glam, power pop, and garage into what Melton described as "glitter fuzz,"[12] Warm Soda's first single, Reaction, marked not so much a departure from Melton's earlier work as a perfection of it.[13] Shortly after the single's release, the band announced that they were nearing completion of their first full-length LP, released March 2013 on John Dwyer's Castleface Records. Titled Someone for You, the album was described by the label as "a lean, mean gang of masterful power pop tunes with just the right blend of studio sweetness, teenage angst, and gritty bubblegum."[14] This "studio sweetness" resulted in no small part from the efforts of Melton and his guitarist Rob Good. In addition to playing on the album, the two recorded, produced, and mastered it at their Oakland studio, Fuzz City, using all analog equipment. The studio is also home to the label of the same name, which has released 7" singles from local acts including Burnt Ones and Part Time, as well as two volumes of its own Summer of Fuzz compilation cassette. Fuzz City's primary focus, however, is in recording music. As Melton explained to Paris-based Foggy Girls Club, "I love producing music and making sounds and am genuinely pleased by the process of creating."[15] In 2014 Matthew relocated to Austin, Texas, with wife Doris Melton where he reformed Warm Soda with an Austin-based lineup, continuing to tour the United States and Europe and release new material. In 2014 Warm Soda appeared on Last Call with Carson Daly.

Discography[1]

With Warm Soda

Albums

Singles

Compilations

With Bare Wires

Albums

Singles

Compilations

As Matthew Melton

Albums

Singles

Compilations

With Pleasers

Singles

With Snake Flower 2

Albums

Singles

Other Appearances

Television

References

  1. 1 2 "Matthew Melton". Discogs.
  2. 1 2 "Interview Still in Rock : Matthew Melton (Bare Wires, Warm Soda)". Retrieved 2016-08-04.
  3. ↑ Popper, Ben (December 9, 2005). "Arresting Artwork". Memphis Flyer.
  4. ↑ Lisle, Andria (July 30, 2004). "Local Beat". Memphis Flyer.
  5. ↑ Lisle, Andria (July 10, 2009). "Jay Reatard: Under the Covers". Memphis Flyer.
  6. ↑ Chun, Kimberly (May 20, 2008). "Motor Psyched". SF Bay Guardian.
  7. ↑ "Snake Flower 2 Renegade Daydream review. Aquarius Records.
  8. ↑ Child, Tom (June 9, 2011). "Bare Wires: No Real Test for LSD". LA Record.
  9. ↑ Henry, John (August 18, 2009). "Bare Wires: The Most Worthless Piece of Video". LA Record.
  10. ↑ Port, Ian S. (April 10, 2012). "Oakland Garage-Pop Outfit Bare Wires Breaks Up After Disastrous SXSW". SF Weekly.
  11. ↑ Pearis, Bill (February 1, 2013). "Warm Soda released their debut LP". Brooklyn Vegan.
  12. ↑ (May 31, 2011). "Questions with Bare Wires' Matthew Melton". Kind Turkey.
  13. ↑ (April 2, 2013). "Shake it up, live it up, with Warm Soda". Chicagoist.
  14. ↑ "Warm Soda – Someone for You". Castleface.
  15. ↑ Vallée, Clarisse and Ju (September 4, 2013). "Interview with Matthew Melton". Foggy Girls Club.

Other sources

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