It’s a no-brainer that musicians are inspired by other musicians. But for singer/songwriter Matt Nathanson, a musician that grew up listening to hair metal, inspiration came from some surprising muses.
“I was never that good a guitar player,” Nathanson begins via phone while waiting for a flight in the Detroit Metro Airport Monday. “I could never scream like that, I never looked good in leather pants so the whole hair thing didn’t work.”
What worked, however, were musicians like Tracy Chapman, Indigo Girls, 10,000 Maniacs and Sinead O’Connor.
“In a weird way, it kind of empowered me,” Nathanson says. “To see the Indigo Girls play live as just a duo and be so powerful and so potent — their songs were so potent acoustic — that was got me off of the Poison/Whitesnake train and onto something that had a little bit more depth songwriting-wise. I really related to it. I’m so Lilith Fair.”
Nathanson will bring his version of Lilith Fair to the University of Scranton’s Long Center this Saturday, March 29 at 7 p.m. when he, along with HoneyHoney, will open for Lifehouse.
Nathanson had a bit of a reality check being an opening act again, especially after headlining a tour in support of his sixth studio album, “Some Mad Hope,” released in August.
“The first day or so was kind of an adjustment period,” he explains. “There’s this moment where you’re like, ‘This isn’t really my gig, and these people don’t know who I am.’ I can’t really assume that there’s going to be an energy there without having to work for it. The first show was like, ‘Uh-oh, learning curve.’”
Regardless of his stage slot, there’s no question that Nathanson’s music speaks to people. His songs have been featured on shows such as “Dawson’s Creek” and “One Tree Hill” and, like the tortured characters he’s soundtracked, his lyrics seem to resonate with listeners of all ages.
“I wish they came from somewhere other than my life,” Nathanson says of his lyrics. “I was reading this article where Michael Stipe [of R.E.M.] was like, ‘I’m not a very good autobiographical writer, I’m much better at writing character sketches of other people.’ And I thought that it must be so nice to not have to slit open your chest and be like ‘Here it is! This is how I’m feeling!’”
He likens writing lyrics to writing a letter to someone articulating his feelings.
“This whole last record was pretty much a bunch of letters and the idea being I didn’t want to be misunderstood,” he says. “I really wanted to get my point across to these certain people or person.”
Getting his point across took two years. Much of the delay in recording “Some Mad Hope” was Nathanson trying to keep the songs’ sounds consistent from the studio to the stage, something he wasn’t able to do with his previous recordings due to time and money constraints.
“For this, I got out of my deal with Universal. I just said that I’m just going to make a record and keep hammering away at it until I figure out what it is I’ve always wanted this record to do,” he says. “I didn’t want to settle for it being ‘good enough.’”
Some of the album’s 12 songs were recorded two or three times with different versions, allowing the songs to grow.
“That was really essential,” Nathanson says. “I finally wanted to make a record that I felt like from start to finish, I didn’t wince when I listened to it and the live version wasn’t different than the recorded version. These are the main versions of the songs I wanted them to be, and it felt good to finally birth something that I was unashamed of.”
That’s not to say he was unhappy with his five previous releases — sort of.
“At the time, when I finished them I thought that it was good, but it was never sort of what I wanted, it was always sort of what it was,” he explains. “Some of them I’m really not happy with. I’m proud of the songs, just not super proud of the presentation.”
Nathanson has been writing a lot lately, something he’s finding very freeing, and when he’s ready for album number seven, he plans on recording it in the same organic way as “Some Mad Hope,” only a little quicker.
“I figured out the process for me, which is really why I did it,” he explains. “It was almost like going to a masters class in what I wanted a record to be.”
The process also allowed him to find out what his strengths and weaknesses in the studio were.
“It was a learning process, so for this next record I can’t see it taking this long because all that knowledge is in there from this one … but who knows, I could be like Guns ‘n’ Roses. My next record could be like ‘Chinese Democracy,’” he says, laughing as he refers to Guns ‘n’ Roses 10-years-in-the-making album that might never come out.
“I am the first one in line for that CD, holy crap,” Nathanson is quick to add, proving that even with being Lilith Fair, those hair metal roots still grow.
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go:
Who: Lifehouse, Matt Nathanson, HoneyHoney
When: Saturday, March 29, 7 p.m.
Where: Long Center at the University of Scranton
Tickets: $15, must be 18+ to attend
Info: 570.941.6233, uspb@scranton.edu, www.myspace.com/mattnathanson, www.mattnathanson.com