The decision to tour their sophomore album,ΜύGrand, in full to commemorate its 10-year-anniversary wasnβt an obvious decision at first for indie-pop band Matt and Kim. βWe battled it for a little bit,β says Matt Johnson, who serves as the duoβs vocals and keyboard player alongside Kim Schifino on drums. βWe didnβt want to look back, but that album changed everything for us.β A decade after its release, Matt and Kim have five more albums under their belt, but the adoration forΜύGrandΜύand the albumβs single βDaylightβ β which reached No. 6 on Billboardβs Hot 100 chart when it premiered β remains strong. βPeople tell us about these experiences they had, and all these lyric tattoos from songs,β Johnson says. βWe canβt let this anniversary go by without doing it.β
A stop at Royal Oak Music Theatre, on Oct. 21, is part of theΜύGrand β 10 Year Celebration Tour. Along with performing the album in full, the band will play other fan-favorite songs and tape an episode of theirΜύMatt and Kim PodcastΜύin front of a small VIP audience before the show. In anticipation of all of the above, Johnson spoke withΜύΒιΆΉ·¬ΊΕ DetroitΜύon what makes the Detroit area one of their favorite stops and why he thinks the material onΜύGrandΜύstill resonates with fans.ΜύΜύΜύ
ΒιΆΉ·¬ΊΕ Detroit: Is it true that you havenβt played all the songs offΜύGrandΜύlive before? And, if so, what are you excited to play this time?Μύ
Matt Johnson:ΜύItβs true, yeah. For some reason, weβre not one of these bands that when we put out a new album we play the whole thing. I like to know songs when I see a band live, so we warm up to it slowly and sometimes we never play them all. Thereβs an instrumental [on Grand] called βCinders,β which is one of the fastest songs weβve ever wrote. Thereβs a slow song called βTurn This Boat Around.β I mean, βGood Ol Fashion Nightmareβ has been this beloved Matt and Kim song for many years. It comes in and out of our set time and time again because we just havenβt quite figured out how to tackle it correctly on stage. I think we nailed it this time.
Aside from playingΜύGrandΜύin full, how else are you celebrating this anniversary during the tour?Μύ
Weβre always adding new things to our shows. We now have these terrifying naked blowup dolls with our faces printed on them that we send out into the audience. The new one has been this 6-foot inflatable unicorn. You hook a hose into its butt and it sprays water out its horn (laughs). Weβve been bringing that on stage. Our whole thing is how to break that front wall of the stage where itβs not just about whatβs happening on stage but itβs about whatβs happening the whole room. I put the Detroit area in my top five cities as places to play because of the energy of the crowd. Thatβs everything to us. People are jumping around and moshing and crowd surfing and getting wild. If I was looking out at an audience and they were just bopping their heads it would be like a comedian telling jokes and nobody laughs. I can see the immediate reaction and feedback of people singing along and yelling and dancing and jumping around and all of that. thatβs everything that fuels the show. We get that there, so Iβm excited.
How do you think youβve evolved since the album came out in 2009?Μύ
Evolution is a weird thing. I donβt like to think that weβre evolving in one direction. I put up [on Instagram] a month or two ago how crazy it was that βDaylightβ hit 100 million plays on Spotify when Spotify wasnβt even out in the U.S. when it came out. Itβs about people who just kept coming back years later, and now I was just on Spotify the other day and it got another 4 million plays in the last couple months. Itβs just so wild. I donβt know if we were ever meant to have a song like that. Weβre a proud indie band that is happy to have a sort of cult thing, and itβs weird to have that one song that found its own life. People are still walking down the aisle to it. Itβs unbelievable for a song that me and Kim were sitting in a bedroom in Vermont writing (laughs).
Why do you think the material is still resonating?Μύ
I assume maybe its authenticity and honesty. I think thereβs a beauty, for a lot of bands early on, when they have no expectations of having a big single or whatever. Theyβre just honestly making the music thatβs within them without other expectations. Sometimes I find that bands have a tough time recapturing that because they have all these label people around them and people that are searching for a certain sound when itβs not what just comes out. [Grand] was our second album, I donβt think our first album is that great. I donβt think there was much expectation for it when we made that album. Going back to me then and saying, βin 10 years from now, youβre going to be playing rooms of thousands of people and playing this,β yeah, he wouldnβt believe it if I told him (laughs).Μύ
What do you have going on past this tour?Μύ
The podcast has been a weekly thing that weβve been doing. Weβre having fun doing it. Itβs just casual and a fun way to put ourselves out there aside from the music. We are working on new music; weβve been in the studio quite often. Some of the songs, I think, are going to terrify Matt and Kim fans and some of them are going to be perfect for them. But I donβt know exactly what the plan is. Iβm not in a rush to make a new album. I want to do some collaborative stuff. Iβm excited to be making new music but I canβt say there are any real plans for it.
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