Splendid: It must be a whole different process sitting in your room or your studio and just creating stuff as opposed to having other people in the room and asking them to do things.

Matt Mehlan: Oh, for sure. It's kind of like baby steps. Like, I think that the stuff that I'm working on right now... I'm actually working on an EP and another record, kind of all at the same time. The EP is way more collaborative than "Git" was, by far. We all got together at my place and set everything up to record and recorded it in three days straight. It was songs that we had been playing live and also just totally free stuff. It's definitely very different. I guess that the tiny little inch is the stuff that I will do, then I bring it to the next point where I can bring them all back and have them add what needs to be added. And I can also add everything and edit and I'll take it back and finish it up.

Splendid: As a musician, as a songwriter, is there stuff that you feel like you're missing that these other people can bring? Do you have weaknesses that other people counterbalance?

Matt Mehlan: Yeah, totally. Sometimes your weaknesses are not always really visible to you, when you have your own vision. It's all a matter of perspective. So when I have that perspective that I'm weak in a certain area, then I will bring people in...

Splendid: Like, for example?

Matt Mehlan: On previous records, I've played all the bass lines. And same thing with guitar stuff. On the first record, I played all the guitar. I was playing the single guitar. And I had played bass parts on a keyboard. But I didn't really play bass on "Git", because I'd been playing with Carson, and Jason plays guitar. I've been playing live enough to know that they can bring something that I can't, so I kind of leave some things open for them.

Splendid: Yeah, I think that's cool. You know, some of the sounds on "Git", it's almost hard to tell whether they're natural or synthetic, and some of them sound like a little bit of both. For instance, there are some sort of vocal-like things on "There's a Fly in Your Soup and I Put It There" that sound like people singing, but not quite. Is there a special kind of response you're trying to get from listeners when you have these sounds that are familiar but just a little bit off?

Matt Mehlan: It's more interesting to listen to something and to not know... either what it is or how you feel about it.

Splendid: It's sort of unsettling.

Matt Mehlan: Yeah, that's probably good.

Splendid: Because it makes people think more?

Matt Mehlan: Yeah, and I just think it's more interesting. Because it's... I don't know, that's the whole thing that I never really liked about some records. Before you've even heard the record, you know that it's all one thing. Like, this record is all vocals or this record is all... I don't know. Like a lot of people do a concept record. The ones that transcend the concepts are because it doesn't matter. I don't think it matters...

Splendid: I've read a couple of other interviews with you, and people ask you to describe what you do, and you've been pretty adamant about calling your music "pop" and you don't want to get into it any more than that.

Matt Mehlan: (laughs) Uh-huh.

Splendid: ...and yet, when I listen to "Git", I hear all kinds of stuff -- psychedelic soul and jazz and disco and lo-fi singer/songwriter and even some world-beat stuff. What does the term "pop" mean to you? Is it just a way not to talk about all the stuff that goes into your music?

Matt Mehlan: Probably partially, for sure. I guess pop is a really big term. It's just like... all around the galaxy there are different versions of what pop is. There's not just one description of it. It can mean a lot of different things. All those things that you're hearing could potentially be pop. But the fact is that if I tell you that my album is pop music and the pop music that you listen to is Lindsay Lohan, you might be confused by the record.

Splendid: Yeah, I don't think I heard any Lindsay Lohan in "Git".

Matt Mehlan: You didn't, really?

Splendid: No, but I'm not incredibly familiar with her work, so I might have just missed it. Pop has sort of a negative connotation. Not many people embrace it.

Matt Mehlan: That's like... that's one of the things that I, in a way, have a problem with. Most people don't want to say they're pop, because you lose a little bit of cred or something. Or maybe you don't. Maybe I'm doing the opposite. But if I told you that "Git" was otherworldly experimental nonsense, you and your brain would expect such a different thing out of it.

Splendid: Yeah... so, the percussion is a big part of your sound, isn't it?

Matt Mehlan: Yes, of course.

Splendid: You use a lot of non-standard stuff for drums, don't you?

Matt Mehlan: By this point, I have a pretty big collection of junk. Right now I live in a pretty good neighborhood for junk...

Splendid: Chicago area, right?

Matt Mehlan: Yes. I'm in New York right now.

Splendid: So anyway, you have access to large and varied...

Matt Mehlan: All kinds of junk. I've accumulated lots of pipes. I have a couple of nice springs... I was just in the Dominican Republic and bought some drums and other percussion there. Sevey, who plays percussion when we play live, has a nice little bag of stuff that he plays. That's the most fun thing to me. When we started playing live, I had a big metal trash can, a big spring and toms and a tambourine. Really, I'd kind of like to play drums for our whole set... but that's hard.

Splendid: It must be sort of visually interesting... in addition to sounding different, to have all these things up on the stage.

Matt Mehlan: I hope so. It should be.

Splendid: You mentioned the Dominican Republic, and some of your percussion does sound world-influenced, like samba or something. Are you interested in world music?

Matt Mehlan: I guess that's what I'm really into at the moment. It's part of me, I guess. I've been listening to a lot of ethnic music. I worked in a music library when I was in college and had access to a lot of old LPs and listened to stuff there.

Splendid: What kinds of stuff? If people were asking you what they should check out, what would you tell them?

Matt Mehlan: I don't even know. My roommate has a giant collection of stuff and he's got a lot of things -- LPs and series that came out a long time ago, like Ethnic Folkways and Ethiopiques and collections of music from Africa. I'm most into African music. There's a label called Soul Jazz that puts out a lot of stuff. Part of me feels a little weird because they're kind of like... they package it really nicely and I'm kind of a sucker for that. Sometimes I feel like a real Westerner when I buy something that's expensive and looks nice... even though it's really similar to something that I could get something through more research on my own.

My roommate's huge collection that's been passed along to me is mostly from the Unesco Collection, but also some great compilations called Ethiopiques. The other huge playlist is from Sublime Frequencies -- run by the dudes from Sun City Girls: really nice nice nice and nicely edited stuff recorded off the radio in Indonesia, India, and so forth.

Splendid: Do you feel bad because the musicians aren't getting more of the money you're spending?

Matt Mehlan: Yeah, possibly, but also I feel like I'm not putting enough effort into it. I really like Soul Jazz. They put out a lot of soul comps, too, that are really, really good.

Splendid: Yeah, I was going to ask you about funk and soul because that's definitely part of what I'm hearing. Are you a fan of American soul, too?

Matt Mehlan: For sure.

Splendid: How'd you get into that?

Matt Mehlan: I don't know. I bought a Prince record... I don't know how many years ago. That was probably like my...

Splendid: Gateway drug?

Matt Mehlan: Gateway drug, yeah. Prince is... he has some über-James Brown shit and über-Funkadelic shit. You don't know that when you hear it for the first time if you don't know that music. Since then, I've been working on my Funkadelic collection.

Splendid: It's amazing stuff.

Matt Mehlan: Yeah.

Splendid: Let's talk about lyrics. The stuff on "Git" is pretty surreal, and some of these bands write lyrics that are super surreal and abstract and all that, but if you talk to them, almost every line is related to something that happened to them... the lyrics are not really as surreal as they sound. How tethered to reality are your lyrics?

Matt Mehlan: They're... I don't know. It's a weird reality, if that's what it is. It's usually filtered through a lot of different things.

Splendid: Like there's this line, "There are people with perfect vision / There are seagulls who live in parking lots." If you listen to "Git" a couple of times, it totally sticks in your brain, but you don't have any idea what it means or if it means anything at all.

Matt Mehlan: Uh huh.

Splendid: That must be an art... writing lyrics that don't make any linear sense but they stay with you. How do you write lyrics? Does that come in late in the process?

Matt Mehlan: It's at the same time. I'm always trying to write lyrics, but not necessarily for any specific song. Usually the words get added right in the process... they're already there. I usually write them before I write them down, they're there for a long time. And then once I write them down, if they make sense for a song, a song that's already there...

Splendid: Yeah... So there's a couple of really recognizable sounds on the album. Like, for instance, I think there's a car alarm in "You'd Be Better Off If".

Matt Mehlan: Uh huh.

Splendid: Do you want people to recognize these sounds and have the associations they'd have with hearing a car alarm or is that supposed to blend in?

Matt Mehlan: Well, that's actually not a car alarm.

Splendid: It's not?

Matt Mehlan: It's an instrument, I guess. But it definitely sounds like one. And I guess I wouldn't have put it in there if I didn't like some aspect of that.

Splendid: So, the last two songs on the album, it seems like they might be about someone with mental illness. "When We Were at the Movies" has this litany of things you have to give up when you're on suicide watch, and then in "Do You Feel Any Better", you've got this person who has scabs on his arms. Is that something that you've been thinking about or someone you know?

Matt Mehlan: Yeah. It is. Some of those lines could be about a combination of five different people that I know. And some lines are more specific than others, but I think that some of them that seem like they're about mental illness could be very much about someone who doesn't have those problems. I think a lot of the people that I know, or even I myself, have similar issues to somebody that's, like, deep into shit. There are just levels of shit.

Splendid: Yeah, right. Hopefully not above the neck, huh?

Matt Mehlan: Yeah.

Splendid: So, your band is pretty far flung geographically? You all live in different cities?

Matt Mehlan: Yeah, it's kind of all over the place.

Splendid: Did you meet at Oberlin?

Matt Mehlan: Yeah.

Splendid: How often do you get together?

Matt Mehlan: We get together pretty often now. We've done a lot of shows lately. People are kind of slowly settling into the same region. Which is good. It's really nice to have that as an excuse to get together so often and either have people come from all over. So in some ways it's really nice. Like I forget who I was talking to, but I'd seen him at one of the shows, but I don't understand how bands that all live in the same place, near where they work... Part of me doesn't understand what we would do if we did all live in the same place.

Splendid: An awful lot of bands are not just not living in the same place, but doing a lot of their creative stuff remotely, sending tapes back and forth or whatever. You pretty much do all your creative when you're all together.

Matt Mehlan: Yeah, clearly, but also when nobody's around, I have an awful lot of work to do with what we're working on.

Splendid: But you would never email a file to your guitar player and have him put a guitar part on something?

Matt Mehlan: No, definitely not. We're not in the 22nd century yet, as a band.

Splendid: So, you have an advanced degree in music technology?

Matt Mehlan: Yeah.

Splendid: What exactly is that?

Matt Mehlan: I went to school It's like technology and music. It was at a music conservatory, so it was more like a composition program, but we had classes that were about computer programs and other extensions of technology into music. Like video and dance and non-electronic composition...

Splendid: And don't you build some of your own synthesizers or adapt them?

Matt Mehlan: I build very little things and piece junk together. But more recently, some of the guys have been playing instruments that are made by our friend Peter Blasser, who is part of Shinkoyo. He's like the mad genius of the group. He makes all his own instruments.

Splendid: What is it about that? What's cool about the stuff that he makes and what can you do with it that you couldn't do with ordinary instruments?

Matt Mehlan: Oh, it's like... I think they're some of the most fascinating instruments that there are. Most of them are like analog synthesizers, but he builds them in such a way that they're not... they're not idiomatic. They're not normal musical instruments. He has tools that you can get... You can buy kits for them and build them yourself. One's called the "fourses" and one's called the "fyrall". They're basically completely random instruments. They just have a bunch of pegs and a bunch of knobs and he doesn't tell you what any of the knobs or the pegs do. When you build it, you can connect the knobs randomly to other stuff on the synth. You can build it in a way where you don't have any idea what anything is at all. That's the way it's designed.

Splendid: Cool, so the one that you make would be different from the one that someone else would make out of the same kit?

Matt Mehlan: Yeah.

Splendid: You have one of those?

Matt Mehlan: I don't have one, but I'm going to get one.

Splendid: I wonder how long it would take to figure out how to make it do what you want it to?

Matt Mehlan: It's really interesting, because everybody plays it differently. In some ways, it can sound the same. It does some of the same similar things regardless of who's playing it. But there are other things that whoever plays it, it's different. That's kind of the fun in it. That's the problem with 97 percent of all instruments that you can buy that aren't ... that aren't traditional instruments. You can buy an (sorry, this bit was inaudible) and you know what it's going to do, but people are going to use that as the model for making a synth. It seems like most people who make music want a synth that when you hit the middle C key, it'll be a C. That makes sense, and I definitely have a lot of need for that, too, but at the same time, what's the point of buying that instead of a piano? Because at some point, if enough people use it, it's going to sound just as familiar and boring as a piano did. I use a piano and I love the way a piano sounds, and I'll continue to use it. So there's definitely a use for that. But there could be so many different instruments that people could play. There are more options in the universe.

Splendid: It sounds like it would be really fun to try to figure out.

Matt Mehlan: It's definitely fun.

Splendid: So tell me about Shinkoyo, this label -- though I guess it's more than a label.

Matt Mehlan: Yeah, it's kind of like... I guess the label is secondary. It's a really good excuse for us to all constantly be working with each other. But we've put out the second Skeletons record and a record by Peter Blasser, who makes all the instruments, and also a record by 7EVE, who also plays with us live and stuff. And since then we've put out about ten more limited releases and CDRs and cassettes and stuff. We're all kind of part of the same crew. All of us will do one at some point.

Splendid: You only release people that are part of the group? Are you looking for outsiders?

Matt Mehlan: It's not a rule. But it's really hard to look beyond that when there's so much good music in that group. It's kind of something that gets all of us going and excited about, that there's so much good stuff. There's so much stuff that we've been waiting to put out for a year or more. It's not so easily done.

Splendid: So you all do the grunt work, like mailing out the CDs and stuff?

Matt Mehlan: Yeah, that's actually my job. I've been sending all the orders out, and they're usually pretty late, so I apologize to everyone.

Splendid: It sounds really cool that you can put stuff out when you want to and you're not tied to some larger organization that might not understand what you're doing.

Matt Mehlan: Yeah, totally. I think for the most part, we all kind of feel that that's the best thing. Right now, with Ghostly (Shinkoyo recently entered into an alliance with Ghostly International), it's really amazing because the door has been opened to more people through them. It's definitely helped out. But I think that everyone wants to continue to do that, but not be tied down to that one thing.

Splendid: Shinkoyo -- does that mean anything?

Matt Mehlan: I don't really know. We've gotten two meanings of it. One is "new employment" -- that is the word that someone would use in Japanese. I think this is totally wrong but we heard it -- but it would be when a company fires everybody and hires new employees. And I think we got one other definition, but I forget what it is. It means "new leaves" or something like that.

Splendid: Is one of you Japanese?

Matt Mehlan: No, actually none of us are. It was a dream that 7EVE had. He had a dream where he started a fashion company, like clothing, which was called Shin12Koyo, but the 12 was silent...

Splendid: So if want to launch a clothing line....is that next?

Matt Mehlan: We have high hopes.

Splendid: I'm curious about your live show. Is it hard to translate what you do into performance?

Matt Mehlan: It is pretty hard to translate it. It's not really the same thing. I feel really good about our live show because we just have a really good time. We take the songs and because it's kind of moving the songs back out of something solitary that I do and filtering it through everybody in the group, the songs come out totally different, which I think is really cool. When more people hear the record and then go to the live show, it will be interesting to see what people's opinions are. Until the lyrics come, people won't even necessarily know that it's the same song.

Splendid: How do people react to you now? Do they listen respectfully or do they dance?

Matt Mehlan: We've had definitely all reactions. We've had the stand still and we've had the party vibe. We definitely extend some songs and try to make them partyable... but in the only way that we know how. Not always like super good time.

Splendid: You just did a bunch of shows, didn't you?

Matt Mehlan: We've been doing week-long tours for the past several months. We did a string of shows in March and played at SXSW and then we just played at P.S. One in New York.

Splendid: How did that go? It's a cool space.

Matt Mehlan: Yeah, it was really interesting. We played out in the courtyard and we were up on these, like Rocky stairs... you know, like the movie? And everybody else in the audience was 50 or a 100 feet away from us.

Splendid: Makes it harder to throw stuff, huh?

Matt Mehlan: Yeah... But it was cool because it was a totally new way of trying to reach the audience.

Splendid: Sounds like it. So what are you going to do next? You said you were working on an EP and a full-length?

Matt Mehlan: Totally. I'm trying to finish both those up before we go on tour this summer. We're playing a bunch of shows out here. We're playing a record release show then touring starting at the end of July through the beginning of September.