Apple Music’s Zane Lowe traveled to Manchester for an extensive career spanning conversation with The 1975’s Matty Healy back where it all began. He discusses the groups longevity, being a “weird band”, early struggles, the power of originality and new ideas to change culture, how the band has defined his life, exploring Country sounds on the new album, and carrying on the legacy of the Manchester sound. He also opens up about his “junkie phase” and overcoming addiction, “nepotism baby” allegations, and why he hates meet and greets and his challenge to artists who engage in the practice.
Matty Healy on The 1975’s Longevity and Being a “Weird Band”…
People ask me quite often, "What is it about the 1975? Or why are the 1975 still big? Or why are they still relevant? People are asking…It’s hard for me to qualify, but if you ask me that question, I think, "Well, if you just subtract us from band and put us next to Taylor, Lana, Kendrick, Frank," I'm pushing it a little bit, but let's say put it in that, no one is asking questions about why they're still interested, why people… It’s because we're just four dudes with guitars and for nearly 100 years, no, 80 years, we've known what that is. We've known how long they last. We've known that they come from a scene. We know that the scene dies. We know that something else…The band thing is, we're a weird band. I'm not a weird artist. I think it's quite postmodern and meta and all these things, but we're all smart enough to understand that. But as a band, it's like, we're not like bands because bands sound like things, and we just happen to be four dudes who play recognisable instruments.
The 1975’s Matty Healy on The Band’s Early Struggles and The First Time He Heard Himself on the Radio…
...the truth is we couldn't get arrested. We were trying to go down that route that everybody was trying to go down in the late 2000s of getting a major record deal. That's what you did. We couldn't. Then we were like, "Right, let's start our own label," which we did over a bowl of pasta with however much money we had, which was nothing. But then you started Smashing “The City”, which became this cult hit. I remember the first time it happened because I remember texting Jamie because obviously everything that we'd done up until that point, we had tried so hard. You opened the show there.Zane Lowe excitement. Oh, beams of sunshine coming off this one or whatever you were saying. It was that Zane Lowe thing. I literally pulled the car over. I was like, "This is my band. This is me. This is me. That's me." Then I text Jamie and he was like, "Nah, nah, nah. Are you sure?” I was like, "Mate, I just listened to it." That was the start of it really.
The 1975’s Matty Healy on How Originality and Newness Change Culture...
You can't really do rap rock credibly after Rage Against The Machine because they did it. They invented it and they ended it. Bands like Slow Dive, great. But My Bloody Valentine started and ended something. Nothing changes culture that isn't new. Nothing. Young people are always at the forefront of cultural change. That's always the idea. But that's always because the economy has supported that. There's always been environments for that to happen. Whereas now young people, if they want to make art, a lot of them tend to have to make quite homogenous art, whether it be the flat design for the internet startup or the this or the that. It's like there's not many generative alternative scenes left because…Well, there's four websites now. The internet used to be this huge utopian mental, free source thing. Now it's four websites. If I wasn't encouraged by my surroundings, these places, if I wasn't in a scene. I'm not calling myself a genius. I am not calling myself a genius. But scene-ness is required for anybody to rise to the top.
The 1975’s Matty Healy on How the Band Has Defined His Life…
I'm a fan first. So I was obsessed with the culture for a start. But also, you can think about it like there being a plan. But it's considered in the way that a lot of people when they're older, they try and journal and they do it for a little bit and they can't. Most people that journal as an adult have been doing it since they're about 12 or 13. They don't really know why they do it. It's just ceremonial. It's part of their day. If they don't do it, they feel weird. Right? That's the 1975 for me. So with journaling, elicits a certain amount of self-analysis. Where am I going? What have I been doing? Where do I stand in the world? Now I've been in the 1975 since I was 13. So 12 isn't a person. So all of my self-analysis has been under the umbrella of what is The 1975? Who is The 1975? So of course, I've projected and placed us in places or I've been reflective or I've thought, "Yeah, well, this is what it's going to be."But it's because this is who I am.
The 1975’s Matty Healy on Convincing Band Member’s Parents To Let Them Continue Pursuing The Band…
It is because we'd been doing it since we were 13 and we'd been dedicated to it since we were 13. By the time we got to 19 and we were still just delivering Chinese and stuff like that, some parents were a bit like, "What are you going to do?" I was like, "Let's convince everyone that we should stay here so we can keep doing our thing." We did and we kept just playing and doing shows. It wasn't really going anywhere. Jamie, our manager, was putting us on tours with bands and we were getting a little bit of a following.
The 1975's Matty Healy on His “Junkie Phase", Intervention from Bandmates, and Overcoming Addiction
So the heroin thing was a problem because it was the first time where there had been anything that one of us was doing or was into that the others weren’t. So they weren't into that, they weren't attracted to that, for some reason I was. And so it was the first time I had to tell them something. So it was the first time that the idea of a secret existing even came out. So it's almost as if like, "Okay, well is there anything else that we've not known that you... Because that's a big thing for us to know.” I mean listen, the story goes, the famous story goes is that we were in Conway, we were trying to make a brief inquiry and I basically... The guys kind of called me out one night at dinner and they were like, "Listen dude, you know that we know what's up. We don't think you're in the right place to be making a record. And to be honest with you, it's kind of bumming us out being in a studio with you strung out, because this isn't what we do. It's not you at your best," and all this kind of thing. And I think I ended up saying something like, "Well, you know what? It's hard to be me. If you want me, this is me.” "Everyone's going to have to deal with this shit." It never gets to you, "Fuck you," or anything like that. But I was like, "No, you need to respect my drug addiction!” And I woke up the next morning almost with an emotional hangover and I was like, "Oh my God, not only was that the wrong thing to say, that was so cringe. Because I know that they will get over that, but that's going to be an anecdote that they'll take the piss out of me for years for, that's the first thing I need to think about.” But the thing that I learned is that when you get to rehab often you meet a selection of people who have lost everything. And losing everything has elicited this desire to change their life. Now when I got to rehab, I realized I'd not lost anything. I'd nearly lost the respect of everybody I loved, but I hadn't. Hadn't lost my career. Hadn't lost my possessions. Hadn't lost my money. I was just walking a very, very thin line. I think that I was lucky enough in my condition in the way that I am as a person to recognize that what needed to be done needed to be done. And also… when I was doing heroin I was really scared about people finding out about it. Not because of the moral outcry, because I didn't want to be a cliche. And you know why else? Because I didn't want to do a sober record. I didn't want people to think... Because basically, when I made ‘A Brief Inquiry, I was like, "Okay, I can take ownership of this narrative." If people had found out, I wouldn't have been able to… And also, it's like anything, I don't stay in many places for a long time, and I go through lots of phases. And the junkie phase was a kind of phase of mine. I'm always going to have an issue with substances, but I do a lot of stuff that I would do in place of drugs that I now do that I prefer… jujitsu, being in the gym. I know that sounds quite arbitrary…
The 1975's Matty Healy on Why He Hates Meet and Greets…
Well yeah, but it's people reaching for something, which is why I hate paid meet and greets. Because you've paid for the album, you've paid for the ticket, you've paid for the parking, you get them in the room and somebody's gone, "How do we monetize that bit?"You know the touchy bit?You know what the model should be? I tell you what, if you want to do paid meet and greets, do them. I stand by you, but you take the money. If you are an artist and you do paid meet and greets, do it cash, and you take the money off the fan. I challenge you to do that. Don't put it on… Don’t put it on the company, don't put the responsibility on someone else. It's absolutely fucking gross that you might... Now young people being convinced by adults that want to make more money and go, "Oh yeah, sure." I'm not judging them. I'm saying, trust me, do a paid meet and greet where it's 20 quid a meet and greet and every single fan before they touch you go, "Let me see that 20." And you'll do it for two minutes, and you'll never fucking do it again. Because you'll realise that it's disgraceful. And all that lot, that Jared Leto crowd who promote all that, it's a fucking abomination.
The 1975’s Matty Healy on Drawing The Short Straw in The Nepotism Baby Nursery…
I made a joke that I drew the short straw in at the nepotism baby nursery because there's so many famous kids out there. The nepotism baby concept is interesting though, isn't it? Because it seems to be something that people talk about when they're a little bit jealous. People grow up in cultures. Right? I grew up around artists. So when I was a kid I was like, "What does he do for job?" He makes art. "What does he do?" He's an actor. Right, okay? You just subconsciously take it in. If you grow up in a family of doctors, there's not many nepotism doctors. Right? A lot of the time, if your dad's a doctor, you're a doctor because you grow up in the culture. You know what I mean? So it's like that happens across the board. I grew up in art, so I made art. It is not that complicated.
The 1975’s Matty Healy on Pursuing Excellence As a Band…
I kind of understood what a front man was. I understood the difference between a democracy and an autocracy, not that an autocracy is a bad thing, but I don't want Dire Straits, I don't want Pink Floyd. Honestly, I want U2. Do you know what I mean? Where it's this sharing thing. And also the truth of it is, The Lost Boys in Peter Pan…. it’s only in eighties movies where there's four 13 year olds spit in their hands, they put it in the middle and they go, "We're going to stay together forever." Do you know what I mean? Just like an idealistic ridiculous thing. When that starts becoming a reality, then you're kind of getting away with murder and then you’re just having fun. And I remember in one of our early interviews like 10 years ago, I said, " I think what we are doing is we're in the pursuit of excellence," which sounded really lofty, but what I really meant is we don't really have any other pursuits left. We've pursued getting big, we've pursued signing to a major. And the thing that actually works was when we just didn't care and we'd been together for 10 years and we now own our own label.
The 1975’s Matty Healy on Exploring Country Sounds on the New Album…
The country thing comes from being from the north of England because I really resonate with, I've spent a lot of time in America. And the South of America is very similar in ways to the north of England. It's underfunded. It has its own folk music. It has its own language. It has its own political beliefs. Do you know what I mean? So I grew up in the Northeast and then moved to the Northwest. Now the Northeast has a lot of folk music. And what the north of England has is a lot of politics. It has a lot of history. It has a lineage of all those things. And I think that country music comes from the same thing.If you take out the obvious Black influences that are in '75's music, it's country music. Look at, well, especially songs Be My Mistake, but even It's Not Living If It's Not With You. Sure, we do it Psychedelic Furs post punk, but if I play that on the acoustic guitar, that's a country song. But it's music. The genre is almost so surfaced to me because it's eight notes. It's eight notes and you can do whatever you want with them. But at the end of the day, it's shiny stuff. If it's a beautiful melody, I like it. I don't care if it comes from the right hand of Miles Davis or the left tweeter of Aphex Twin or it doesn't matter. It's music. I understand... I'm not particularly interested in cultural sensitivity. I'm interested in authenticity. So there's certain things that I wouldn't do just because it wouldn't be authentic.
The 1975’s Matty Healy on Carrying on the Legacy of The Manchester Sound...
Matty Healy: It wasn't subversive to be a band from Manchester that sounded like a band from Manchester. Because this is the weird relationship we had with Manchester now. Now we're super embraced… now you go on the street, today it's madness. So many people coming over. I love it in Manchester because people are so ... There is this Manchester pride thing, but at the beginning, you had the Buzzcocks, you had the Smiths, you had Stone Roses, you had Happy Mondays, you had Oasis, you had Doves, you had Weather. The reason that those bands were massive is because they didn't sound like anyone else. And They changed stuff. That's why they were celebrated. So after the Oasis, the Manchester Sound had been so established that people walking around dressing like Ian Brown in a parka were looking for the next obviously recognizable thing. I was a bit like, "Well, nah, we are the next Manchester band because we're as new as The Smiths were."
Zane Lowe: That's true. People talk about following in the footsteps of giants or standing on the shoulder of them while we're talking about Oasis. I think where there's a confusion there is people feel like be influenced by that and embellish it ever so slightly. No, what it means is stand in their footsteps for a minute and then take footsteps of your own on that path.
Matty Healy: Don't copy them.
Yeah, that's exactly it. Don't copy other bands
The 1975’s Matty Healy on Band Economics…
Zane: So wait, are you saying you split everything fairly as a band?
Matty Healy: We have done up until this album and then the guys changed it. And we're totally open to talk about everything. So it's always been known that me and George are predominantly the main songwriters.But we've essentially split all of the songwriting money equally.Up until being funny, because it's not just about my ability to write songs, it's the environment that is nurtured for me to do that. So if there was ego or resentment or anything else going on, I wouldn't be able to do my job in the 1975. And then as an example of how mature our relationship has got is that we never spoke about that. We never said why we were doing that. It's just what we were going to do. We'd literally slept on each other's laps for 10 years. And what? I'm going to take more money than Ross because I’m…Who cares? Why would I do that? That's my boy. And also when there's four of you and two people start saying, you go like "Whatever." You know what I mean?
The 1975’s Matty Healy Shares His Pick For The Greatest Rapper of All Time...
Lil Wayne
