Matthew & The Atlas: World At Their Feet

It has been a short but steady rise for Matthew & The Atlas. Barely in existence towards the end of 2009, they quickly got themselves signed to Communion Records, the label run by Mumford & Sons’ Ben Lovett which is fast becoming the vanguard for the new wave of British folk. A few months and a couple of EPs later, they were catapulted onto a tour of some of the nation’s heavyweight venues, opening up for a Mumford & Sons now riding the huge wave of popularity that daytime Radio 1 airplay brings. Tonight, the launch of latest EP ‘Kingdom Of Your Own’ could easily have been moved to a bigger venue, such is the crush inside London's Borderline to see them play.

Gigwise caught a few pre-show moments with them in the dressing room to find out how it’s been for them so far.

We started by asking how the band had come together...

Matt: “Dave and Lindsay used to have a folk night in Woking. They put on bands there and I did a couple of shows with them. We started working on some songs together and then we got offered to do a record with Communion [which would become the ‘To The North’ EP]. During that process I did a gig at Notting Hill Arts Club and met Harry there, and he came down and played some banjo on the tracks and has been in the band ever since. Tom’s an old friend of mine. So the ‘To The North’ EP was recorded last Christmas, then we did a few rehearsals, and then our first gig was in March.”

For a band still pretty much in its infancy, the sound is very well developed. We wondered what they had listened to growing up?

Matt: “I listened to people like John Martyn, Nick Drake, people like that, and that led me into the folk world a bit more. After that I got into more Americana, like Sufjan Stevens and Iron & Wine”.

Lindsay: “I grew up listening to 70s folk stuff like Neil Young and Cat Stevens, people like Van Morrison, Joe Cocker; my Dad was into the late 60s/early 70s stuff”.

An inspiring education then, although when Tom and Dave begin discussing the likes of Iron Maiden and Bon Jovi, we move quickly on, and ask how the songs came together?

Matt: “I was playing as a solo artist for two or three years before the band came together, trudging up to London and doing the open mics for quite a while. It took me a while to get a band together but I think that’s actually what I wanted to do. I released an EP called ‘Scavengers’ before the Communion ones, and that was something I did on my own in a room, recorded it all myself. Those songs I’d been working on for a while. After that I wrote another bunch of songs and then met the band, and after they were written we put the instruments round them. And then for the latest EP it was more a band effort.”

So by mid-2010 the band had begun to fuse, which was just as well, as they were about to be jettisoned out of the smaller clubs and into some big venues. So how was the Mumford & Sons tour?

Dave: “Really good, they were really supportive the whole way and really generous to us. They couldn’t have been nicer people. We were doing big, scary size shows, places like Hammersmith Apollo and Glasgow Academy, but it just felt really good.”

Matt: “I think the first few shows it was quite daunting, we hadn’t really done those size shows before, but after the first three shows we started quite enjoying it.”

Dave: “You find the bigger venues have better sound systems, the sound guy’s really good, they make you as comfortable as they possibly can, so you can just relax.”

Matt: “You’re kind of disconnected from the audience because they’re so far away, so in a way it’s less nerve-racking. You can’t see anyone because the lights are in your eyes so you can kind of go into your own little world. We weren’t sure there’d be many people there to be honest, but they’ve got a good audience, the Mumford boys, they turn up really early to watch all the support acts, so I think we must have been playing to 1000 to 2000 people.”

So a good tour experience under their belts, and no problems getting on with the other bands. In fact, the inter-band camaraderie went a little deeper than usual...

Harrison: “I’ve got a banjo tattoo on my left arm. It was when we were on tour with Mumford & Sons. Me and Winston, the banjo player from Mumford & Sons, we went to school together and we learnt banjo together, so we both got banjo tattoos”.

Whether that’s now a pre-requisite for getting signed to the Communion label remains unclear. So finally, as show-time draws near, we asked whether after three EPs we could now expect an album?

Matt: “Yeah we’re trying to write one at the moment. When we’ll actually do it I don’t know, but we’re just writing and getting a bunch of songs together. There’s no set plan as to when we’re going to do it at the moment, but as soon as possible really. In the new year would be really good.”

And will it feature any songs from the EPs, or will it all be new material?

Matt: “Personally I’d like to write new stuff and have an album as a piece of work on its own. I like albums, being able to listen to them all the way through as each song fits together, and it would be nice to be able to write an album like that. That’s the intention, but whether that happens or not, I don’t know.”

A year in, and Matthew and The Atlas seem comfortable in their own skin, happy to take things as they come, and to see what the future brings. Back inside the venue, and the strength of their material, and of Matt’s richly understated voice, which sounds more toil-weary early American frontiersman than 21st century resident of Aldershot, has no trouble holding sway. The new material is greeted warmly, familiar EP songs cheered loudly, and by the upbeat finale of ‘I Will Remain’, the whole of The Borderline is clapping and stomping.

The ‘Kingdom Of Your Own’ EP is out now. The band support Bellowhead at Shepherd’s Bush Empire on November 20.