Matt Monoogian, folk-indie multi-instrumentalist and resident of the city of Guelph, has recently released his debut album, Hide. Monoogian plays in multiple Guelph bands, including Lowlands, Alanna Gurr and The Greatest State, and Odd Years. This is his first album as a solo artist.
Hide takes its listener on a sultry wave of heartbreak and reflection. Opening with “Sentimental Sounds,” the track paints a picture of leaving something behind, and realizing something bigger about life. The idea of wanting to wake up from a dream haunts the album, with lyrics like ‘Shake me up/I’m tired of sleepin’ in/just waiting to begin/yeah I’m waiting to begin’ and ‘waiting on a dream’ in the track “Wake Me Up.” The album ends with the tenth track, “Lonesome Ashes,” leaving its listeners with a feeling of longing. The album also talks about travel and demonstrates a kind of searching that someone on a long and lonely road trip might experience.
Monoogian also strived to make the pedal steel guitar—an instrument that he feels strongly about—an important theme throughout this album.
“I think to throw out the pedal steel as an inspiration is a good thing. That hasn’t been included at all in some of the reviews, and I think that that was a big process in getting the album written—just the connection to the instrument and learning it. It’s a big part of the sound.”
In light of the release of Hide, I had the opportunity to talk to Monoogian about his intentions behind the album, and past experiences that contribute to the album’s message.
Danielle Subject: What did you want to communicate through this album?
Matt Monoogian: I would say it’s basically a pretty honest kind of confessional. I spent a lot of time on it and I want it to come by as not pretentious, but more honest about some of my personal experiences with travelling and dealing with some health issues.
D.S.: I understand that you have dealt with addiction and mental illness in the past—are you able to discuss some of that?
M.M: I spent a lot of my early 20s in the Yukon, and during that time—since I was 16 I was having seizures, I had epilepsy—and I spent a lot of time up there, and I didn’t really deal with it too much. It kind of progressively got worse. When I decided to move back to Ontario is when I decided to focus on recording. I think a lot of the album is based on those experiences; I was digging from that stuff and personal experiences like that, overcoming it, controlling it here. A lot of the inspiration came from that—those trials and tribulations.
D.S.: What is your writing process like?
M.M.: I started off demoing a lot of the songs in my house—I run through a recording program here. I took it to Andy Magoffin and my friend in Cambridge at The House of Miracles. He’s the front man of The Two-Minute Miracles, a band that’s been around for a long time, and he’s recorded and produced a lot of people. In that I had a co-producer, Thomas Hammerton. We hashed out the songs, and we would take them to the studio and kind of build on them there. We would start it off, and then we would add layers to the songs. It was a process of about two years—it took a while—but I wanted it to be perfect, so if something wasn’t working I would redo it.
D.S.: Has Guelph influenced you as a musician?
M.M.: Yeah, it’s been influential for sure. When I first moved here I started playing with Alanna Gurr [and The Greatest State] and Lowlands. I toured with them and kind of focussed on that music and eventually that led to me branching out on my own. It’s amazing because I play in a band called Odd Years, and we group up together, all of those guys—they’re all from Woodstock—and so it’s been easy to jump into the scene without too much struggle. I think a lot of the people around Guelph are very supportive and it’s a great place to work on your craft.