Mathew V is Healing With Music

Music can be an escape from reality, a way of tuning out the world and getting lost in a blissful world of melody and comfort. However, it can also be a way of facing reality head-on, an outlet acting as a means of working through the hard times and situations in life. For Canadian pop artist Mathew V, music for him is the latter, and he is putting his story out to the world with an excited trepidation.

Mathew V recently entered the scene and forcing many to take notice with his hit “Catching Feelings,” off the debut 2018 album The Fifth. He approaches pop music from a skillful and technical foundation; a classically trained vocalist who found a love for writing and recording his own original songs. 

On the heels of releasing a new single, “Flashback,” OUT FRONT recently caught up with Mathew V to talk about music, Pride, and coming to terms with hardships we would prefer to forget. 

Matthew V, thank you so much for taking time to talk with OUT FRONT! How are you and what are you up to?
I’m doing great! I am in Toronto right now; I just finished a little session this morning, I’m doing some songwriting.

Oh, so are you in the middle of writing and recording some new music in the studio?
Yes, I feel like I’m kind of always writing, regardless of whether I have an album coming out or an EP coming out, I’m always kind of writing. Whenever there’s an opportunity to be writing or working with someone new, I always kind of jump on it.

Who are you collaborating or working with right now?
I work with a lot of people, a lot of different producers in both Vancouver and Toronto right now, my two home bases that I hop between. So there are a bunch of different producers and co-writers I collaborate with, more than 50 or 60 different people now. It’s been an exciting process and gives me a lot of opportunity and room to learn and grow as I go.

How have things been since the release of your debut album last year?
It’s great. That album was such a cool and exciting milestone for me, to have my first body of work out there in the world, make my first stamp. I’ve been excited to work hard and see growth from there, and to build upon that first step that I’ve made.

Can you talk about the process of writing “Catching Feelings”?
Yeah, totally. My manager recommended that I work with a producer based out of Vancouver named Ryan Stewart. He’s had a huge production career and his resume kind of speaks for itself; he’s produced hits for Carly Rae Jepsen and handful of other artists and I always wanted to work with him. (Catching Feelings ) was the first song that we created together, and we sat down and he was playing around with the and I was humming on the couch, and it kind of went full steam ahead from there.

What direction is the new music going from your previous recordings, and was that intentional?
For me, I see pop music as a big umbrella and I think that there’s a lot of music that lives under that umbrella. I’ve never been an artist that likes to make the same type of song twice, so I think whatever I’m writing, you’re going to get something different every time. It’s still going to feel like me, because it’s my writing, vocal delivery, and style but whether it’s ballad or a dance song, I think that everything sounds a bit different. So with this new stuff, I’m taking more risks and feeling more comfortable, kind of jumping out of my comfort zone and being more raw and vulnerable and opening up about myself. And I think that’s a really exciting thing for me and a necessary step for me to take it.

What inspires you when you are writing music?
I pull inspiration from a lot of different places. Typically, I have an inspiration playlist on my phone of songs that I wish that I would have written for myself. I kind of use those as like my textbook to the choices that they made; if I love that choice, I ask myself, ‘how did they make that choice?’ or ‘why do I like it?’ so I can apply some of those skills that I learned in my own writing. I think it’s being a bit of an active listener, and trying to understand and dive into all that stuff.

What song is stuck in your head right now?
There’s definitely music that once I’ve heard it, I listen to it until I hate it (laughs), until I absolutely can’t stand it anymore. For me, right now that song is “Reaper” by Sia. I don’t think it’s a relatively new song, I think it’s roughly two years old, but I was going through her album and I was like, ‘holy crap!’ When I came across this song I had forgotten how great it is and I haven’t been able to stop listening to it; it’s kind of been my latest addiction.

Can you talk a bit about the journey from classically trained vocalist to pop star?
Well, there’s very sweet that you’re saying pop star, you’re definitely blowing my head up three sizes (laughs). Yes, I trained in classical music when I was a kid. When I was seven years old, it was kind of that age where your parents wanted a free day on the weekend and they put you into some sort of an extra-curricular. My brother started playing sports and my parents noticed that I had a passion for singing and they put me in singing lessons.

I trained in opera and musical theatre for about 10 years and then I went to the UK to go to music school. I got to start writing my own music and making music that I wanted to make, because all those years I was training in opera, I would leave my training and listen to Celine Dion and Shania Twain on the way home. There was that juxtaposition of what I listened to and what I was actually singing. So, when I got a bit older, I started exploring what my own style was.

I’m super happy and grateful that I had the classical background because I think it taught me a lot of valuable things vocally, but it was fun to be able to explore and find my own voice in music after that.

How was your Pride? 
Vancouver is my hometown and our Pride is in August, and I spend a lot of time in Toronto and that Pride is typically in July. So, I just treat it like all summer is gay season. I always go to the parade; it’s always such a good time and there’s amazing community there. I’m a bit of a boring person, so I don’t partake in nightlife as much, and I get a bit claustrophobic so jam packed clubs are definitely not my thing. 

Pride is always such an amazing, celebratory time, it’s time for me to self-reflect, and realize and appreciate how far we’ve come as a community and the privileges that I have as a millennial person in the LGBTQ community that people in past generations weren’t so lucky to have, while also realizing how far we have to go to reach the equality for kids that are being brought up today. So, I think that it’s important time to celebrate, and also take a bit of a look inside as well.

You are vocally queer, was that a deliberate choice?
I personally live my life feeling like I have nothing to hide in that sense. I’ve never been ashamed of the fact that I was gay. It’s something that I feel like, if I wasn’t out about it, people would be speculating about. It’s never been something that I’ve hidden; it’s something that I’m proud of and I feel free to celebrate. And to be honest, I don’t think that it should be a big deal to anyone, which I think is a nice part about the fact that I’m able to be an artist. I am an artist first and being gay is second. I see it as if I walk into a party, I want people to be like, ‘Oh, there’s Matthew, he’s done this, or he partakes in this to support his community,’ rather than ‘Oh, look, there’s that artists that is gay.’ 

I saw that you centered the music video for “Broken” around a cast of drag queens – is queer representation something that want to include in a lot of your art? 
I feel like queer representation is 100 percent important in the media and normalizing queer visibility, if that makes sense. So, if kids are growing up and they see drag queens in a video, I’m hoping in the future that doesn’t need to be something that requires a point of education. I love drag so much, I think that it is such an amazing art form that I find it so entertaining and it was something that I definitely wanted to celebrate in that video. 

Do you consider yourself an activist?
I have never labeled myself as an activist but I think that everyone can take steps towards advocacy every day. I wouldn’t put that label on myself but for me it’s always important to tell stories that are authentic to me, to highlight stories that are authentic to other people when possible, and to do my best to hopefully extend an olive branch, extend my arms and my reach around as many people as possible.

Have you seen any negative responses to the fact that you’re queer? 
There was a campaign that I did with a company on Facebook celebrating Pride for their platform and I remember the Prize page was sponsored. Oh my gosh, there was so much chaos and negativity directed at me under the fact that I was promoting Pride, it was kind of eye opening. I live in a metropolitan area and generally I’ve had accepting experiences. It was a real wake up call to realize that there are people in rural places, in not so accepting places, that don’t have the comfort and the safety that I have been so lucky to have in my life.

The battle is nowhere near over, there is still a lot of learning to do, and that there are people really struggling out there in these communities. That was a wake up call to me to check my privilege in the fact that I have been very lucky to have the amount of acceptance that I have had and I need to do what I can to help.

What LGBTQ artists did you look up to as trailblazers that gave you the courage to be out to audiences?
When I was growing up and coming into my own sexuality and realizing that there was something different about me, that’s when Lady Gaga was taking off. I remember her being the first person that I saw screaming from the rooftops and rallying, and really being a vocal advocate for people like me. To see someone that I looked up to musically saying out loud that I was valid and okay being who I was made me feel okay. Seeing how she championed the community and the community championed her back was what made me feel like I was a part of a community and that I wasn’t alone, and that was super helpful.

Absolutely, I think seeing seeing ourselves represented and reflected back to us is the biggest part of being able to accept yourself when you feel different.
Totally, knowing that you’re not alone. Yeah, as humans, we strive to have an understanding that if we’re struggling, other people have gone through that. If we feel left out, we’re not the only people out there like that. There’s a community out there that we’re going to be able to find one day, and that was super helpful for me. It helped me with my confidence and was really quite game changing.

What is next for you?
I have a new song called “Flashback” which I’m super excited about it. To be honest, it’s the most vulnerable song that I’ve ever released. I’m hoping that it’ll bring some awareness and spark a conversation. It’s kind of me processing my own stuff, but also hopefully helping some other people as well. 

How does it feel taking that leap into vulnerability?
To be honest, it’s been very scary for me with this song. I’m talking about my experience with sexual violence when I was growing up. I think that it’s a issue in society as a whole, I know that it’s an issue in the gay community. And for me, when I went through what I went through, I didn’t know where to turn, I never heard anyone talk about it. I didn’t want to talk about I didn’t want to deal with it. So, what I’m doing with this song is I’m just sharing a bit of my experience now, how I coped afterwards, and pairing that with a list of resources, God forbid anything happens, for people in different countries or people who know someone who’s a survivor of this.

I thought that I had just moved on and I was fine and being a part of this hyper-sexualized community, I think it affected me way more than I then I had led on. And as I’m diving in now, I’m realizing there are aspects of my personality and how I interact with people and the people that I love; parts of that have been affected in a more serious ways than I thought. So I’m happy that I get to deal with these things now and hopefully improve one day at a time.