Interview with Mt. Joy’s Matt Quinn: ‘I had an opportunity to dig myself out of the rut and to build a life that was more sustainable’

LA-Philadelphia based indie rock band Mt. Joy has had a whirlwind four years since their debut single ‘Astrovan’ exploded into our lives in 2016. Here, their frontman Matt Quinn talks to us about the conflicting nature of fame and how he is learning to carve out a more sustainable life for himself.

Their latest album, Rearrange Us, came out in June and Quinn, who is the songwriter of the group, says that he wrestles with his own conscience, processing tragedy, society and love in his songwriting: ‘When we sat down to write it, we had a bit of an idea but it’s hard to imagine how it will sound. You start arranging and recording and then seeing how it will sound with a speaker in the room,’ he said. ‘The songs that make it onto the record are really personal, I do it subconsciously. I’m writing, trying to figure out what something means. They’re like self-help for myself and you straighten it out in a song.’

‘It’s like someone picked up all the different pieces in the puzzle and put them back in a different place’

He describes the album as ‘a break-up record in a sense’, given that he had recently gone through a break-up with someone he’d been with for many years. ‘As we were making the album, it became clear that some of the songs were about something bad but I also saw that I had an opportunity to dig myself out of the rut and to build a life that was more sustainable, that it was time to look forward and put new things into my life. You think how will I ever get over this but eventually you do. It’s like someone picked up all the different pieces of the puzzle and put them back in a different place.’

Quinn says he was ‘in such a dark place writing the record’: ‘But the songs came out happier on this one because I was trying to get myself out of the rut.’

Mt. Joy started off as a rekindling of shared musical ambitions between Philadelphia high school friends Quinn (vocals, guitar) and Sam Cooper (guitar). Reunited in LA, the pair met multi-instrumentalist Michael Byrnes through a Craigslist ad. They called themselves Mt. Joy as an ode to a mountain in Valley Forge National Park near Cooper’s childhood home and together with Byrnes’ roommate Caleb Nelson producing, they recorded three songs and sent them out into the world in 2016, hoping for the best. ‘I knew I still wanted to write songs, but the realities of life made that dream seem pretty impossible,’ Quinn said. One of the three songs, ‘Astrovan’, became a huge hit on Spotify, racking up millions of hits, allowing the group to go full-time in 2017, adding Sotiris Eliopoulos on drums and Jackie Miclau on keyboard.

One of the catchiest songs on Rearrange Us is ‘Let Loose’, a sweet love song, which has a bluesy, late summer evening kind of vibe and a massive, hooky chorus: ‘I wanna get lost, I wanna get loud with you, when I get low, I wanna get high with you, watch that snowfall on the remains of our youth, just pull me in and don’t let loose.’

‘I love ‘Let Loose’, we’ve played it over the last couple of weeks (at drive-in gigs). ‘Let Loose’ was always our nod to being Deadheads (Grateful Dead fans), we’ve improvised it and jam live. So far, that one seems to connect with people. I really do love a bunch of them but my favourite is ‘Bug Eyes’. It has all these different parts and it has some dynamic changes.’

‘It was this idea of trying to make light of anxiety, depression, that cocktail of emotions you feel after a break-up’

Another track, ‘Death’, is far more upbeat in terms of the melody than the title implies. ‘It was this idea of trying to make light of anxiety, depression, that cocktail of emotions you feel after a break-up. Why can’t we as humans accept that something bad has happened after a break-up? It’s about the feeling of being scared, this fear now that I might as well die, I’ve failed at the purpose of life. You forget how amazingly positive it is to be alive. You can step back and see all the people who love you in a life that is inherently worth living.’

The song reflects that: ‘There are holes in your eyes full of impossible light, learn to laugh when you cry, make a rainbow in your mind, get your life right, boy, there’s so much more.’

The end track ‘Strangers’ is about moving on and references Quinn moving to New York for a spell after the break-up (he has since relocated back to Philadelphia), with the poignant line ‘well, I guess I’ll have to fall in love with strangers’. The song actually evolved over the making of the album. ‘Jackie and Sam came over and we were all together working on this idea, a Vampire Weekend type tune. Jackie’s piano line in the song was sort of the theme of an extended jam. I had moved to New York and was trying to get back on my feet, dating, which is weird when you haven’t done it for several years. You’re trying to separate yourself from your old life but the more you tell yourself that you can do it, the more you realise you’re not quite there. It made sense to end the album with this song.’

For Quinn, right after they’ve released an album is one of his favourite times to write songs. Incredibly, they put together Rearrange Us in just six weeks when they got back from a tour. ‘I’d written a bunch of songs. The tour ended in April last year and we were in the recording studio in June. It was an intense rush of 12-hour days! We’re working on new music, too. I’m full steam ahead! We’re finishing up a song that’ll come out at some point, so I’ve been locked in on that.’

For the three years prior to the pandemic, they were touring almost non-stop. In 2017, when their touring kicked off, they played tour dates alongside the likes of The Shins, The Head and The Heart, The Lone Bellow, and Whitney, and popped up at some of the summer’s biggest festivals in the US, including Bonnaroo, Newport Folk Festival, Lollapalooza and Made In America. ‘We were put on some big shows very quickly,’ he said. They eventually caught the attention of Dualtone Records and began work on their debut album.

However, the success on the road understandably had an impact on their lives. ‘We were mostly going on tour, it shook up my life. I was never around, it took every aspect of my personal life. You tour for three years but at a great cost of losing a lot of other things that were important to me, beyond the break-up. The music was my dream coming true but at the expense of some things that I wasn’t sure I wanted to give up.’

‘I had very full days and something had to go’

In 2016, Quinn was working as a legal assistant by day and going to law school at night, whilst writing songs on the side. Once the success of ‘Astrovan’ suggested that they might be able to make a go of it as a band, he dropped out of law school: ‘I had very full days and something had to go. I don’t think I was doing any of the three things very well [laughs].’

Despite the obvious pleasure they get playing live, the three years of touring felt like a really long time, to the extent that time ceased to have much meaning, according to Quinn: ‘We were actually talking about that and saying that the pandemic reminds us of that feeling. I’m not comparing our tour to a pandemic but you lose all concept of time. When you’re going through these things, you have a hard time psychologically. Every day can feel like a year. It’s exhausting. Our tour had a similar effect on us, it was all encompassing.’

The title track, ‘I’m Your Wreck’, on their eponymous album from 2018, is a tribute to Quinn’s grandmother. The song describes ‘monsters in (the) closet, using up the wi-fi’ as it cycles from its spiralling verses to its swinging, optimistic coda. Quinn describes it as ‘a triumphant song’: ‘I was in a state of anxiety, I had all these things going on but it’s a “stick with me” love song, a kind of “you chose me, that’s who I am”. I was juxtaposing that to the most peaceful person I know, my grandmother. She’s elderly, she’s a widow, she has all the reasons to be the anxious one but she’s so serene. She knows it’s about her. I don’t know if she gets it but she’s thanked me for it.’

Another track on the same album, ‘Sheep’, with its collapsing, hoarse-voiced cry of ‘freedom was paid in blood’ is essentially a post-Trump salvo on the responsibilities of the fortunate to overcome political and social despondency. And on ‘Silver Lining’, perhaps the album’s most upbeat moment, Quinn surveys the damage of hard drugs and the vicious cycle of addiction, as the song’s melancholic sentiment kicks into its defiant chorus and shout-along vocals.

Quinn describes his founding influences as being from the 60’s and 70’s, citing Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Etta James ‘and other soul stuff’: ‘I’m an old soul musically for sure,’ he laughed. ‘I got into The Grateful Dead through my dad and I’ve been very inspired by their lyricist Robert Hunter. I know everyone says they have eclectic taste but I can go from New Orleans funk jazz to Joni Mitchell on the same playlist.’

If he could tour with anyone, he picks The Grateful Dead: ‘For me, there’s something about what The Grateful Dead were able to do and their success over such a long period of time – I’m talking about the original version. Just to exist on a stage before them and to see if our stuff would be up to snuff!’

(Photo from left to right: Michael, Jackie, Matt, Sam and Sotiris)