FEATURE:
The First Time with…
The Legendary Matt Everitt at Fifty
__________
WHEN his former BBC Radio 6 Music colleague…
IN THIS PHOTO: Matt Everitt with Ringo Starr in 2017/PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Everitt
Shaun Keaveny turned fifty earlier this year, I wrote a feature about his amazing work. Now, I want to turn my focus to Matt Everitt. He is fifty on 13th September. I am going to cover a number of things when it comes to him. Let’s get some promotion out of the way. He is on BBC Radio 6 Music with his long-running The First Time with… series. He interviews music figures about their first gigs and experiences. It is fascinating hearing the artists’ memories and the tracks played that soundtrack their unique firsts. I am going to come to a review and overview of the excellent book that came out in 2018 to accompany the series. As he is a Glastonbury Festival superfan, I would also recommend you buy The World's Greatest Music Festival Challenge: A Rockin' Seek and Find. I am going to go off on all kinds of tangents before I even discuss Everitt’s interviews, music and Beatles love! I do wonder whether a second volume of a The First Time with… book is planned. Maybe fitting that in around a busy career and family would be demanding, but his 2018 book was so popular and brilliant. A remarkable author in addition to broadcaster, I also think that there is a book in him about The Beatles. Everitt has (several times) interviewed Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr (separately). I predict that he has a wonderful book about them; his undeniable and infectious love of The Beatles is just waiting to get out. I recently featured Everitt as part of my forty-run feature marking Paul McCartney’s eightieth birthday. That milestone birthday happened in June, and it got me wondering whether Everitt will interview Paul McCartney again. He last chatted to him when the Peter Jackson Beatles documentary, The Beatles: Get Back, had its premiere last year. Let’s hope - for the Beatles fans’ sanity and satisfaction - there is an extended cut put out soon! I know Peter Jackson (who directed the recent documentary) is fighting for that. We know, and hope, if that dream does come to fruition, that Matt Everitt will have some part - whether it is interviewing McCartney/Starr or chatting with Peter Jackson.
Before drilling to specifics and such…why mark Matt Everitt’s fiftieth birthday!? Not to taunt the fact that the man is half way through his life. Hell, I am hitting forty next year and have achieved far, far less than he has! You just know that he has a couple more decades (at least) in him. Many more years of his wonderful broadcasting, journalism and producing. Well, as a broadcaster, Everitt (I am going to refer to him by his surname, as I think ‘Matt’ might be a bit informal) is hugely influential to me. I have met him a couple of times, and he has offered me assistance, kindness, support, and advice. A very accommodating and lovely fella, he also presents the New Album Fix for BBC Radio 6 Music (also worth checking out 2016’s The Business of Music with Matt Everitt; a really nice appearance on Fortunately…with Fi and Jane alongside Shaun Keaveny from 2017). A legend and cornerstone of the station, it is a shame that he no longer does music news for Shaun Keaveny’s show (as Keaveny left the station last year). It is clear that Matt Everitt is a very versatile and incredible talent:
“Matt is an integral part of the BBC 6 Music, researching, writing and presenting The New Music Fix. He has been at 6 Music since 2007, and he presents its major series, The First Time, which he also devised and produces, interviewing major artists such as Kate Bush (her first interview for 5 years), Ringo Starr and Quentin Tarantino. Matt regularly crops up on Radios 1, 2 & 4 and on BBC News/Sky/MTV and he has become the go to interviewer for music related live events. He has a book deal with Laurence King Publishing and so far he has written and published The First Time and Where's My Welly. Prior to joining 6 Music, Matt worked at Xfm and was a music journalist. Before all this, he was the drummer in Menswear”.
Before I move on to music and broadcasting, I want to track back to his The First Time with… book. It is one that every music fan needs to own. Recollections and transcripts of interviews some true heavyweights, icons and future legends. Not only is it a fascinating insight into the careers and experiences of artists that we know and love. The interaction between Everitt and his guests is beautiful and engrossing. This is a nice write-up about the book:
“Originally, a semi-regular documentary series on BBC Radio 6 Music, also hosted by Matt Everitt, within this new book release, Everitt interviews 40 stars about those seminal First Time moments in their lives such as their first gigs, first musical memories and the like.
Curated and interviewed by Everitt, the book is organised and laid out in a simple yet efficient fashion. Let’s take ex-Orange Juice lead singer and successful singer-songwriter, Edywn Collins as an example.
Each section begins with a specially commissioned piece of art featuring the interviewee set within a piece of colourful graphic art. After that is a brief introduction of a page or so and then there’s six or so pages of simple Q&A. Actually, there’s a bit less than that. Around half of the final page is occupied with that interviewee’s playlist, available on Spotify, of “songs that are discussed in the interviews.” Well, that’s not strictly true but it provides a flavour of the interviewee’s work and the music that person enjoys.
These lists can, in themselves, be enlightening. John Lydon’s includes tracks from Can, Miles Davis and Roxy Music but also Kenny Rogers, Hawkwind and Abba.
What is nice is the array of small vignettes that accompany each answer. So, Collins’ first remembered awareness of music was Donovan’s single Jennifer Juniper. A small picture image of the sleeve can then be seen adjacent, in the margin, adding a minor visual treat. The sleeve art is a regular visitor to each interview. Collins has 16 of them, Kelis has 13, Michael Stipe has 12 but each offers an insight into the interviewee.
But back to Collins, questions include: What was your first emotional connection in music, your first band, did you enjoy your first single success, first musical influence and the like (Answers: Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Onyx, yes and Creedence Clearwater Revival.)
So, as you can see, the questions don’t necessary fall into the practical, they plug into the emotional too and, because of that, the Matt Everitt textual style can often be a free-form and haphazard reportage.
For example Debbie Harry talked about her band’s first trip to London, “It was sort of traumatic but it was great. We were opening for Television actually and we got a great response. Television got a great response. It wasn’t like we were going out as brothers for the cause. It was a little bit too competitive. We had some really terrible reviews first off – I think after the first trip I stayed in bed for a couple of weeks with the covers over my head from some scathing review – but it turned around.”
Possibly my favourite is Ex-Specials/Fun Boy Three man, Terry Hall and his dry humour. As a child, his departing sister left him her record player and collection of David Cassidy and David Essex records, “…you can never go wrong with a David,” he said. Although Hall first immersed himself in Bowie, “…another David but different to David Cassidy. I remember reading an interview with David Cassidy in Blue Jeans or Jackie and refused to do a photo session because he had a spot. I thought that sounded a brilliant job. It’s like, ‘How do you get to do a job where you can refuse because you’ve got a spot?”
Oh, and the Matt Everitt interviews that got anyway? Nick Cave (“…looms in my nightmares”), Prince (“wouldn’t let me record our conversation.”) and Amy Winehouse (“every interview…cancelled at the last moment. Until she ran out of moments.”)”.
Many people like me might recognise Matt Everitt first and foremost as the drummer with Menswear and The Montrose Avenue (more on that later). Whilst he may be self-deprecating about his drumming talents, he is a brilliant musician (even when sort of self-deprecating; not sure about his crooning or how good he looks as Brian May!). As a little side-divert or thoughts, do go and check out as many snippets of Matt Everitt: My Mixtape on YouTube, as that is really interesting. Getting back to things. I know that he once played drums in front of Paul McCartney. As Macca is a superb drummer himself, I can only imagine how nervous Everitt must have been! As additional listening, I would also point people in the direction of the I Am the Eggpod podcast. Run by the sensational genius that is Chris Shaw, Everitt has appeared on it several times. I have dropped one episode in, but you can hear him chatting about Rubber Soul, The Beatles / 1967-1970 (part two), McCartney III, and The Beatles: Get Back (day 20). Not to hark on too much about The Beatles, but Matt Everitt brings their music, legacy and layers to life so beautifully and passionately. As part of researching for this feature, I have been listening back to those podcasts and smiling! I get a feeling that there is going to be a Revolver reissue, helmed by Giles Martin (son of The Beatles’ late producer Sir George Martin, he has remastered several of their other albums). There is no official news, but I suspect it will be similar to the reissues of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles, Abbey Road and Let It Be. I hope that this provides an opportunity for Matt Everitt to come back and talk to Chris Shaw. I am not done mentioning The Beatles - though I had that Revolver thought and wanted to include it!
I would legitimately highly recommend people go out and get the vinyl for Menswear’s Nuisance. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of their 1995 debut is a fantastic listen. Matt Everitt definitely adds to the brilliance and brew. I sort of envy him in a way! I was twelve in 1995, so I was quite young when Britpop sort of exploded and became a thing. Maybe people look at that time with rose-tinted glasses on, though it must have been wonderful hanging out with bands and making music then. There are a couple of interviews I have found when Everitt chatted about Menswear and Britpop. In 2010, Paul Morley spoke with him for The Guardian. There is an interesting video interview that goes with it:
“Matt Everitt is exactly what you would hope the former drummer in Britpop failures Menswear to be like now that he is a confident, articulate presenter for BBC 6music. The fact that he was the temporary drummer in what he now calls "a third rate Britpop band with no fixed ability" gives him just the right sense of having enough experience of what its like to make it, and what its like to plunge into obscurity. It makes his new role as self-deprecating but sure and confident observer of pop's enduring quirks and wonders the perfect punchline to his capering rock star adventures. He lived the life for a moment or two as though he was part of a group that would become a new Beatles, a new Jam, perhaps a new Tears for Fears, and lived to see the time, because it didn't take long, when they would become the Britpop Northside, a £1,000 question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, a minor joke, the Spinal Tap of the Blur/Oasis era, the missing link between the Rutles and Sigue Sigue Sputnik.
Somehow, the fact that he is such a sincere Radiohead head, and I happen to think that These New Puritans are actually the better example of post-synth, anglo-brooding transformative sorcery, doesn't hamper an animated chat about the role, point and danger of these self-fulfilling new polls announcing what it is that we will all be listening to in the coming months. The fact that, because he was born in 1972, and I was born 15 years earlier earlier, he comes at the history of pop in a very different way than I do – him from the Britpop isles and a sense of starting to listen to pop in 1980, me from deep post-punk space and a sense of starting to listen to pop in 1970 – doesn't mean we speak completely different languages. I introduce him to Sound of 2010 Ellie Goulding and the way he shakes her hand with very formal correctness reminds me of a politician.
Once, he was set up to be a part of the sound of some year or another. The fact that it didn't happen has left him with no discernible sense of bitterness or humiliation, just a basic appreciation of how nothing is for sure, and a cheery, practical sense of enjoying pop music for what it is. That means not using words like "transformative sorcery”.
In 2020, Matt Everitt was interviewed by the Ham & High podcast about twenty-five years of Britpop. As someone who holds a lot of love and fond memories from the time, the fact Menswear are still hugely popular and in-demand today speaks volumes about their quality and Matt Everitt’s role:
“It is 25 years since the musical scene known as ‘Britpop’ mounted an assault on the charts. For this week’s Ham&High Podcast, André Langlois speaks to Matt Everitt, who not only drummed for one of the defining bands of the era, Menswear, but through his role as journalist for 6 Music has seen the key figures emerge from the whirlwind that was Camden in the mid-90s.
On Monday August 14, 1995, when staff at HMV, Our Price, Tower Records, Virgin Megastore and hundreds of independent record shops were stocking the shelves with CD and cassette singles, there were only two releases anybody was talking about.
Whoever was the true driving force behind Blur and Oasis going head to head with the releases of Country House and Roll With It, as a publicity stunt it was a masterstroke. Blur won the battle, hitting the top spot, but both went on to even greater stardom.
Though not from north London originally, the bands, like many before and since, had gravitated towards Camden’s venues, pubs and indie discos.
BBC 6 Music’s Matt Everitt was one such musical migrant. From the Midlands originally, he arrived in London shortly after the 1993 release of Blur’s Modern Life Is Rubbish – a record that almost destroyed the band but instead set a template for much of what was to come.
Matt would go on to play in front of audiences of thousands with Menswear, but initially, he says, he just wanted to be part of Camden’s indie scene.
“It’s where everybody drank, as has always been thus and probably will always be to a greater or lesser extent,” he says. “Everybody went to certain pubs. You went to the Falcon, which is now gone, because that’s where you saw bands play; you went to The Water Rats, which is still there; and you drank in The Good Mixer because that’s where you could spot Madness and Morrissey...
“It was an interconnected chain of pubs where hopefully you could maybe see somebody from Chapterhouse and that was an incredibly big deal at the time. Wow, the bass player from Chapterhouse! Crikey.
“It felt approachable because you could just go to a pub and see people there. Traditionally, with bands you saw on Top Of the Pops, you never see them in the pub. You’d never see Wham! in a pub”.
I have something else coming up in audio form that I am going to share nearer to Matt Everitt’s fiftieth birthday. As I say, I am going to be involved in all things Kate Bush/The Dreaming on 13th September. I can imagine that the rest of his year is quite busy. He will have plenty to do with BBC Radio 6 Music in terms of reporting, shows and various bits. I started writing this feature a couple of weeks ago (and have had it sitting too publish now), but there have been developments since then. He is speaking with the legendary Graham Cox (Blur) about his autobiography, Verse, Chorus, Monster!, as part of a run of shows. If you can get a ticket, then definitely do! The Montrose Avenue’s 1998 album, Thirty Days Out, is going to get a new vinyl release in September. Everitt wrote beautifully on Twitter about his time in the band (short-lived but memorable by all accounts). One of the busiest man in broadcasting, I haven’t been able to include everything I wanted to in this one feature. As I say, I have something else planned in the coming couple of weeks. As I have a busy next couple of weeks - moving to a new part of London and having to get all that organised; lots of Kate Bush features coming up -, it has been a pleasure listening to podcasts he has been involved with and reading his tweets. I have a tonne of respect for Matt Everitt, and I have also just re-listened to his 2016 interview with Kate Bush (below), as I am writing a feature about the live album for Before the Dawn. Sorry if I have rambled a bit (also, connecting Kate Bush and The Beatles, Bush has covered She’s Leaving Home (originally from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band), .Come Together (originally from Abbey Road), The Long and Winding Road (originally from Let It Be), and Let It Be (from the same album), here, here and here). Apologies if I repeat myself a bit here!
I shall wrap things up. I wanted to drop in a bit about his radio work, Menswear, and his take on Britpop. In wrapping up, why does he mean a lot to me? As a musician and someone who has spoken to countless great artists, he is full of great and memorable experiences. As I just mentioned, he has chatted with the one human above all that I want to interview: the one and only Kate Bush. He has spoken with the two surviving Beatles, Debbie Harry, Brian Wilson, and Radiohead. Not that turns fifty is a momentous thing but, as it is a big birthday, I wanted to use the opportunity to pay tribute and salute him (and I suspect he might be morbidly hungover after his actual birthday celebrations!). A great champion of independent music venues, fan of a ‘certain band’, Glasto fan, author, and general legend, I felt it only write to salute and pay tribute to someone who has made a big difference to so many people. In terms of podcasts and bits I have not included so far, I would recommend that you check this 2020 Everitt interview was involved with regarding Menswear; this recent chat about fifty years of Glastonbury).
IN THIS PHOTO: Matt Everitt with Shaun Keaveny/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC
One of BBC Radio 6 Music’s most important broadcasters and presenters, I hope that he gets more opportunities and airtime. Make sure you listen to Sunday’s (28th) episode of The First Time with… I also hope he and Shaun Keaveny join forces again. I do reckon that they have an idea in them that could see a much-needed reunion and renewed partnership. As the Director of Cup & Nuzzle Productions, Matt Everitt’s company produces Keaveny’s excellent series, The Line-Up. I hope that Everitt appears on the podcast soon! He is an amazing creator and producer. Someone who has these ideas and visions. I think the coming years will see him not only help bring terrific podcasts to life. He may even front a few of his own. I said it earlier, but Matt Everitt is a huge inspiration. His workrate, talent and passion for music and people is compelling. It has motivated me so much. He is one big reason why I am in music journalism and, when I can find the money and time, why I am keen to put out a Kate Bush podcast or two!
I think there will be another book, some T.V. stuff, and lots more broadcasting for BBC Radio 6 Music. I hope he gets to chat with Ringo Star and Paul McCartney again! I also would be excited if he gets to do a lot more across radio and T.V. Whether that is a Beatles thing or something on his music heroes or the ‘90s music scene, we will be seeing and hearing a lot more. He presents coverage of the Mercury Prize, and he is also a great roving reporter. I love early videos of him at Glastonbury! The man lives and breathes music and adores his job. In turn, people show a lot of love for Matt Everitt! Go and follow him on Twitter and Instagram. It only leaves me to wish him a very happy birthday for 13th September. I will raise a glass to him on the day, through that is the day Kate Bush’s album, The Dreaming, turns forty. I am hoping to run a listening party on Twitter for it that night. I am sure I will see him again soon, as I work (in Soho) just down the road from BBC Radio 6 Music. A huge influence and inspiration to me, I want to wish and say to Matt Everitt, congratulations, thanks and…
LOADS of peace and love!