Matt Lang is a Canadian singer-songwriter from Maniwaki, QC. Here, we interview Matt about his new record – More – and releasing the album during the pandemic, ahead of his performance as part of Destination Country’s ‘A Night In With‘ series.
Hi, Matt. Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
How have you been getting on the past year? It was a shame not to see you at C2C before it all ended, but it’s lucky you had music on hand to release this past year.
Well, I released the album in June 5th, following the plan, I needed to release my album. I think that people need some love and need some new music. I needed to keep that connection going with my fans as much as anything else. I released that album and after that, I did a lot of interviews because the album was going great, so I practised my English too.
I wanted to ask about the evolution of your music. I know you started off with French Quebecois music. So what made you decide to make the move to country?
Okay, so well, in Quebec, country music is really different than the rest of Canada – it’s more Western and it’s French, so it’s really, really different. I think it’s really cool. I think my sound is more vintage, because we still have guitar and fiddles and banjo. So the country music scene in Quebec is popular and really different. It was a very natural decision to move from French Quebecois music to country. When I was young I listened to some Dwight Yoakam stuff and now I guess I listen to all the vintage American sound and I really like the American slang. At the same time, it was a big challenge for me, because two years and a half ago, I couldn’t speak any English at all. So I moved to Nashville, another country and language. Of course, I can sing in English, but it was hard work.
Presumably it’s that much harder to express exactly what you need to say.
It’s just a good challenge for me.
What’s been the process for putting together the album and what did you kind of want people to take away from it?
I just hope the people are gonna love that kind of country music. I hope they love the whole album and the vintage sound. The genre is becoming so much more diverse, there’s so much more variety in there. As you say, we’ve got the really pop country sounds, but there’s a lot of other sounds and traditional sounds, so it’s a real melting pot.
I wanted to ask you about the song ‘Only A Woman.’ You’ve recently released the piano version. Can you talk a little bit about that track and why you wanted to release a stripped back version?
In country music, we talk a lot about alcohol and beer and alcohol, but that song is about love. I think it’s really good because it’s really different to the rest of my album, some is more honkytonk. The first time I heard that song, I was like, it’s really, really nice, it had a kind of Justin Timberlake feel and I loved that song. That’s why I chose that song, for the hook and the lyrics.
How did the track come to you then and why did you decide to cut it?Â
Tebey is one of my good friends. So one day, he sent me the song and he said ‘I think it’s really good.’ I listened to that song and I thought ‘Can I have that please?’ I’m in Nashville a lot with Tebey and we’re also on the same label.
It’s good to have people in your corner who understand your sound. So, do you have any plans in the pipeline for the rest of the year?
Right now I’m in my home studio and I learned guitar and I learned my English.
It’s a good use of quarantine time!
Of course. So, yeah, so I worked on my steel guitar thing and I also wrote some songs and I tried to keep myself busy, all of us are in the same boat.
Well, fingers crossed we get you back to the UK at some point and we’re looking forward to having you be a part of the show. So thank you so much for your time today!
