Michael talks with Matt Mitchell about moving to Columbus, getting into poetry after high school, Hanif Abdurraqib, writing The Neon Hollywood Cowboy & Grown Ocean & his next book, rock memoirs, listening to classics, Westerns, and more.
Michael talks with Matt Mitchell about moving to Columbus, getting into poetry after high school, Hanif Abdurraqib, writing The Neon Hollywood Cowboy & Grown Ocean & his next book, rock memoirs, listening to classics, Westerns, and more.
Matt Mitchell is a poet and culture writer from Ohio. His music writing has been featured in Pitchfork, Paste, and Bandcamp, and his first collection of poems The Neon Hollywood Cowboy came out from Big Lucks earlier this year. His next collection, Grown Ocean, is available for preorder now from Word West.
Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.
Michael Wheaton 00:06
Welcome back to The Lives of Writers, a podcast presented by Autofocus, an online lit mag dedicated to artful autobiographical writing, which you can read today at autofocuslit.com, and follow on Twitter and Instagram: @autofocus. I'm the publisher and editor of autofocus, Michael Wheaton. Today on the show, I talk with Matt Mitchell. Matt Mitchell is a poet and culture writer from Ohio. His music writing has been featured in Pitchfork, Paste, and Bandcamp, and his first collection of poems, The Neon Hollywood Cowboy came out from Big Lucks earlier this year. His next collection, Grown Ocean, is available for preorder now from Word West. Alright, let's get to it. This is my conversation with Matt Mitchell.
Matt Mitchell 00:56
I moved to Columbus in the middle of the pandemic last summer. So now things are reopening. And I'm finally getting to go out in the world and meet people for the first time.
Michael Wheaton 01:08
What brought you to Columbus in the middle of the pandemic? Was it planned? Or was it just like middle of pandemic, you're like, We'll, I'm leaving.
Matt Mitchell 01:15
It was planned. My partner, she got a full time job down here in Columbus working for a publishing company. And so I was working remotely, part-time. So I thought, Well, I'm not doing anything. So I'll come too. We had been planning on moving in together right after college ended and of course, we ended college in a pandemic. So it just took a little bit longer. But then once she got the full time job where we started getting really serious about moving and, she was going to work from her folks's his house for a while, and they only live about an hour from Columbus. But then we both decided, hey, let's just get started on our life, pretty much. And so that's how we ended up here. And I'm actually, I'm glad that I'm here. I grew up wanting to live in Cleveland. I'm a huge... I grew up 45 minutes from Cleveland. so I spent a lot of my time there as a kid. And it was always like my dream town to live in. But then I got to Columbus and I realized that Columbus is a little bit more my kind of city. Cleveland's really bunched up downtown, but Columbus is pretty spread out. And I like that idea of... to go somewhere, you really have to go somewhere instead of just going downtown, and everything's within a block's radius. So I mean, I enjoy being down here. And I'm glad that we made the decision to move.
Matt Mitchell 01:20
And they have a pretty good literary scene over there. I always hear about things coming out of Columbus.
Matt Mitchell 02:45
Yeah, I think Columbus's writing community is pretty great. And so is Cleveland's. You can't go wrong with either one.
Michael Wheaton 02:52
So tell me about path to getting into poetry. Was it something that kind of ran through childhood or something you got interested more kind of in school? Does your family read?
Matt Mitchell 03:06
My mom is a huge reader. And I've always been a pretty avid reader, too. I didn't get into writing until midway through high school, and I was really into fiction. I actually hated poetry.
Michael Wheaton 03:18
High school kind of does that to you.
Matt Mitchell 03:20
Yeah. It's kind of a product of being taught the wrong stuff, I think. A 17 year old kid's not going to be that jazzed about Walt Whitman, or Percy Shelley. But I went to school for writing. I originally wanted to do short fiction. And I actually discovered poetry freshman year and found some poets who were writing stuff that I thought no one was writing about. So the idea of writing about pop culture through a poem, and writing about basketball and music. And when I discovered that there are people out there who are doing it and I was like, I could do that. And so I sort of almost abandoned fiction completely. Every once in a while, I'll dabble in it, but it's not my genre anymore. I'm mostly just poetry and nonfiction. But yeah, I found poetry specifically, one of my favorite musicians is Dan Campbell from The Wonder Years, and he had posted a picture of Hanif Abdurraqib's The Crown Ain't Worth Much on Instagram, that he was getting into it. And I really respected him as a musician. And so I was like, Well, I mean, if Dan likes this, then maybe I'll like it. And I ordered it and that just sort of sent my view on poetry skyrocketing at that point.
Michael Wheaton 04:47
Yeah, I love his work.
Matt Mitchell 04:48
Yeah, it kind of just broke open my entire universe and my understanding of what poetry can actually be.
Michael Wheaton 04:55
I'm curious, when you were in high school, and you were into fiction that at least got you into writing before you switched to poetry, who were those writers for you... was there a couple select? Or was it you know, kind of wide?
Matt Mitchell 05:06
It was a little wide. I'd like to think it was select by the end. But I wrote a critical essay about The Great Gatsby. We were assigned to read The Great Gatsby the summer before 11th grade. And then we had to come to school with a with an essay written about one of five topics. And so I did symbolism inThe Great Gatsby, which is, you know, it's milked beyond end at this point. But though I got pretty good grade on that, and I thought maybe this is something I'm good at. I never really thought about writing at that point. But so I was really into stuff like The Great Gatsby. And then I started finding stories that were more tailored to my own personal taste. So by the time I graduated, I was reading a lot of Hunter S. Thompson. And I was reading a lot of William S. Burroughs. I was really into the Beat Generation. And I discovered beat poetry by the time I graduated. And that was sort of the one category of poetry that I actually really enjoyed. I was really into Allen Ginsberg. I think everybody goes through a phase. The Beat Phase. I was so immersed in my beat phase that I wrote another critical essay in my first year of college about beat poetry. I went kind of hard into that, but then I went through the unfortunate phase of being really into David Foster Wallace for a year.
Matt Mitchell 05:32
It's okay. I feel like that's almost a necessary phase too. Just gotta see what it is.
Matt Mitchell 06:44
You find that one passage from Infinite Jest about the guy jumping from a building, and you're like, this is the greatest thing I've ever read in my life and I gotta read everything.
Michael Wheaton 06:56
I never read Infinite Jest. I'm not really interested in his fiction. I liked his nonfiction. That was kind of more what I was doing in my, you know, the old DFW phase at like 20 something. But before you got into reading and those classics and stuff like that, what were your interests back then? I'm assuming, like, music and sports and movies... you use those as a lens so much in the poems you're writing now. Were you in Little League and shit like that?
Matt Mitchell 07:33
I played peewee baseball for a little while, and then I played basketball for a while, too. But yeah, I wanted to be a sports journalist when I was a kid. And then I wanted to be a music journalist. And now I am, so I guess I did fulfill my dream a little bit. But I grew up... I had like a Sports Illustrated subscription when I was like eight. I was really into reading magazines all the time. So that was literally my first introduction into the writing world, even though I didn't really have a comprehension for that. I'd never attempted to write something on my own until high school. But when I was a kid, the idea of writing for someplace like Sports Illustrated or Rolling Stone seemed like a pretty great pipe dream and pretty good life to live, getting to write about your interests all the time. And that's still something that I'm really shooting for in my day to day now is pitching stuff to editors that is an interest of mine. And something they'll have a lot of passion in putting the product together for
Michael Wheaton 08:33
Yeah, so I saw you just had something come out and Paste. And that's a big magazine for music.
Matt Mitchell 08:39
Yeah, I kind of got lynched on social media for my release. Well, I had things come out in Paste back to back days. And the first day was rough. And then the second day was fine.
Michael Wheaton 08:50
What happened?
Michael Wheaton 08:50
I ranked all The Mountain Goats albums and the fan base wanted my head on a...
Michael Wheaton 08:53
Yeah, people don't like when you rank stuff, yeah, of course, whatever.
Matt Mitchell 08:56
And then I reviewed Tyler the Creator's new album and that went over pretty well. But yeah, the album ranking was just... I mean it did what I wanted. I made that list the way it was in order to provoke a reaction. That's the part about being a music critic, you have to roll with those punches. So I mean, it was my... I accumulated a lot of assignments and that was like my first real article of musical criticism, because I had done some profiles and some interviews, but I had never done anything where I did a bunch of mini reviews of a bunch of works into one article and I thought about it I was like, I'm one critical article in and I'm already panned by The Mountain Goats fan base. I made 1000s of people angry.
Matt Mitchell 09:48
Well, fuck it, keep doing it. You know... when you got to school and you switched into poetry, going back to that. Were there any particular poets before you got to Hanif that really stuck out to you and helped you make that switch.
Matt Mitchell 10:07
Yeah, I was into Button Poetry for a while. And I think everybody also who writes a lot of poetry has a Button phase. That's just kind of a standard and the initiation into the community, that you think that slam poetry is the greatest thing ever. And slam poetry is really cool. I really love what slam poetry does. But when I was like 18 and 19, I thought that that was the end all be all. Like if I could score a Button Poetry video, I'd really made it. So I was into poets like Rudy Francisco and Neil Hilborn. And the guys who hadn't really done a lot of publishing in journals, but have had these, like, 800,000 view videos on YouTube. And I was like, it seems like the same thing, probably better. So yeah, that was sort of... and you know, Button Poetry published Hanif's first book, but it was really weird, because I feel like The Crown Ain't Worth Much is so much different than a lot of other button poetry books. Like Rudy's first book and the first two books by Neil, you read them and you're like, yeah, I can definitely see how you stand on the stage and you just spit this to the crowd without looking at anything. But with Hanif's book, it felt much more lyrical, much more patient, not so much demanding a stage to be read on. And so you have to go through being kind of engaged in a community that you really respect and aspire to join someday, but realize that maybe that's not for you, because I've slowly learned that I cannot perform. I can't really read in public. I actually don't do readings, becausethe anxiety's so bad. And the rewards aren't worththe day and a half of exhaustion in my opinion. And so once I was able to find poetry that didn't demand a stage, I was like, Yeah, okay, this is the exact world I want to be in because I really liked writing poetry, but I want to be able to write poetry that doesn't have a clause involved where it has to be spoken to the masses. I think that if people can find me on the internet, and people can buy my book and read it there, that's enough for me, I don't need to stand above people and talk it talk at them with my words. I don't know. It brings me great exhaustion mentally.
Michael Wheaton 12:39
Yeah. So you got into Hanif's work and then he wrote the intro in The Neon Hollywood Cowboy. So how did you get involved with him? How did you go from being a reader to being a friend or colleague.
Matt Mitchell 12:59
He did a reading about three and a half years ago at a bookstore of my partner's hometown in Mansfield, Ohio, and I had missed all my opportunities to see him read. And so we were like, Well, let's just go... we'll come home from college, and we'll stay at your parents house, and then we'll go see him the next day. So we did and I waited a little while after the reading and we started talking, and my college had done a lot of reading events and brought some visiting authors in, but lwe brought like the Ohio Poet Laureate, and one of the editors from the New Yorker and stuff, but it wasn't really anything that interests me. And I knew that, Hanif had this huge platform, and he's one of the most popular writers in America. And if we can get him to come to Hiram College to do a reading, that'd be great. So I mentioned it to him, and he was down. And we ended up getting him to come the next year, and he came by, and he was a guest in my poetry class, and he did some other classes. And we talked afterwards, and I had been looking for someone to sort of guide me a little bit in poetry beyond the confines of what my college was able to offer. And he agreed to it. And so for about a year or so, we just sort of passed poems back and forth, you know, with critiques and did some... we would do meetups and talk about the poems in person, do video calls and stuff like that. And then once the book was in Big Luck's hands, by that point we were already... he wasn't just a mentor, he'd become a friend. And so now the books out and I'm not really focusing on poetry at all in terms of writing it, him and I just have this friendship now. So, that's one of the great things about the poetry community is I've been able to just make so many friends doing it. A bright spot for sure.
Michael Wheaton 15:11
So speaking of the book The Neon Hollywood Cowboy, so when did you start writing the poems in it? And what was that process like of placing it with Big Lucks?
Matt Mitchell 15:25
So I started writing it about three years ago, might be a little bit more than three years now. Ehen I started promoting the book, I'd said three years, and that's been almost six or seven months since I started promoting the book. So some time has passed, so it's almost four years, but I started writing it in college. So some of the poems in the book are that old. Some are much newer, but the bare bones of the book are pretty old. And it kind of just started as me sort of playing around with my interests. So writing about my grandma, writing about music, and then about a year into writing the book I had gone to just a typical doctor's appointment. 've been going into chronologist since I was 15, but I had just turned 20. And when you turn 20, at the Cleveland Clinic, you have to stop seeing pediatric doctors. So I started going to a new endocrinologist, and it was my first appointment with him. And he just put it all at one. He's like, you have a chromosome disorder, a sex chromosome disorder, and this is who you are, you're an intersex person, and it kind of just rocked my world, in a way, because I was like, What? I don't even... have never even... this has never crossed my mind at all. Because when you're in high school, a doctor tells you and this is what you need to do andnd that's what you do. You he puts you on medicine, I'm like, I'm not gonna question this, they do what they have to do. But then I got to college and I started thinking about it a little bit more. And then when I would do my testosterone injections at college, and people would be like, why do you have to do that? I'd be like, I don't know, my doctor is making me do it. So I started questioning it. And by the time I'd gotten that diagnosis, it made sense completely. And then the poetry just completely shifted. Some of the poems that are in the book that are more about maybe sexuality, or nothing really related to the body, which is few and far between, those of the earlier drafts of poems, because once I had that doctor's appointment and got that diagnosis, I couldn't write about anything else. So I spent probably two years almost just writing about that. And then I had been introduced to Mark at Big Lucks or just Big Lucks in general through Hanif, actually, because he put out a book, Vintage Sadness, through Big Lucks. And that was probably the first poetry book I bought, where it was a pre order. It was like a little limited run chapbook. And I really enjoyed the cover, because the cover was mimicking a New Order album. And it's like, Oh, I love this, a book cover looks like an album covers, that's fucking sick. And so I bought it, knowing it was Hanif. I was like, Yeah, this is going to be great. So I had known Big Lucks through that. But I hadn't actually met Mark until about a year and a half ago through their secondary project, which was Best Buds Collective, which was sort of a nonprofit revolution of poetry written by leftists who have something to say, which is almost every leftist I guess. And they published a couple of my works through that, and that's how I met Mark. And Mark and I started talking more and more, and I was like, Look, I've got this book. I'm looking for a publisher that's gonna take it seriously. And is gonna give it the care it deserves. And basically Mark was like, I'll publish it for you, and Big Lucks had always been kind of been a dream press for me. And so when I was talking about this with Mark, it was just me sort of spouting off my own dreams into the void, not expecting anything, because I had known that they were trying to sort of recoil a little bit and move towards halting operations to really focus on Best Buds. But when they said, I'll publish it at Big Lucks, I was just like, Yeah, if this is if this is a real thing, let's do it. And that's how I got to that point, which is great. I really wouldn't have had it any other way. If I had an opportunity to go to another publisher for this, I wouldn't. It's just been a crazy period of time. And Mark is just one of the most compassionate editors that I've ever worked with, whether it be a press, whether it be a journal. They take so much care into whatever they put out. And I really appreciate that. And it's kind of a little bittersweet, knowing that my book might be the last for a while, but you know.
Michael Wheaton 19:44
So now you have your new one, Grown Ocean coming out from Word West, an the poems in this one, it's a bit shorter of a collection, and the poems and this one have the Matt Mitchell trademarks with music and movies and pop culture and sports, but I do feel the content of this one is different than The Neon Hollywood Cowboy. And that to me Grown Ocean is almost a collection of in a way love poems, I don't know if you know if identify that with the book or what. But I was wondering if you could speak to the difference to you in writing the poems for this new one than the new previous.
Matt Mitchell 20:36
I agree that they're love poems. It's definitely a book of love poems. But the process of that is really tricky, because about 90% of Grown Ocean is poems that were cut from The Neon Hollywood Cowboy. It's almost like a director's cut of extra work, because when I was going through the edits, for that book, for The Neon Hollywood Cowboy, I realized that the love poems that were in it didn't really speak to the stronger themes that were peeking through the book, not that the love poems weren't good, I think that they're perfectly great. But I knew that those poems need their own space. And so after I finished working on The Neon Hollywood Cowboy, I put those poems into a collection and sent them to David at Word West. And he was generous enough to say, let's publish these and so Grown Ocean is almost a continuation of stuff that was going on in The Neon Hollywood Cowboy, but I think it also stands on its own at the same time, and that's something that I'm really proud of, is how it can exist without the other, but also in context with the other. It amplifies what it's already doing.
Michael Wheaton 21:46
Yeah, I agree. It's interesting, because I was able to read Grown Ocean, and it was before I read The Neon Hollywood Cowboy because I was waiting for it in the mail. And so coming at it first, like you said, it stands on its own, it didn't seem to me like it was missing anything. But then when I went back and read the first book, it's kind of interesting, how you said that, Seeing it in the context of the other book, it does make sense. So you got all those poems out now. So, basically, two books of that spurtof creativity and poetry. And so what are you working on now?
Matt Mitchell 22:28
I have another book written. I have a sequel to The Neon Hollywood Cowboy that's written because in the period of time after finishing that book, I started thinking about other stuff that was sort of also a continuation of that story. And I am just sort of working out the kinks in my head of how I want to go about putting it out. Because it's a very similar story, but it's very different at the same time, and I kind of am interested in theatrics and how I can bring theatrics to poetry outside of the slam community. And so I'm working out the kinks on that, but that book is basically ready to be sent to a publisher, someone who will take it hopefully.
Michael Wheaton 23:16
You've had a good run so far. I feel like momentum is on your side.
Matt Mitchell 23:20
Lockdown was kind of nice to me in terms of creative output. I know that a lot of people publicly have have been struggling with writing and coming up with content during lockdown. But for me, it was just more time to ruminate on the shit that was going on. And I mean, it just led to making a new book. And I think I'm actually a lot prouder of the work in this work-in-progress than I am the first two books. I don't know, I think they get a little bit even more personal than I already did. And I think I'm a little bit more explicit about it. And so I'm pretty excited about the possibilities in this book. I think that it's going to be fun.
Michael Wheaton 24:03
In what way is it a sequel? Does it still have the name The Neon Hollywood Cowboy and a subtitle 2, or whatever, what do you mean by that?
Matt Mitchell 24:13
I considered calling it The Neon Hollywood Cowboy 2 or like The Neon Hollywood Cowboy 2: Rides Again, or something like that. It's kind of considered a sequel because it's an evolution of the topics that were already brought up. In my opinion, every book I write is going to be a sequel to the ones before it because I don't see a future where I can shed this identity in a book. I think that it creeps in, like it creeps into Grown Ocean a little bit. But I've started... when you're locked up in at home for months, you start thinking about the future, because that's the only thing that you can sometimes have hope for is what's coming soon. And so I started thinking about fatherhood and thinking about How am I going to be a dad with all this uncertainty and having a family and with that I started thinking about my own family in my ancestral history. And so the book is a dive into Appalachian history for me personally. And then also it propels forward into what my life could be. So there's a lot of imagined narratives, because I'm not a dad. But part of the narrative of the book is having a kid and what would what I would need to do to make that happen, and what steps need to be taken to get there. And so it's sort of a sequel, like a Where are they now type of thing, while also giving a little bit of backstory, because I think The Neon Hollywood Cowboy is very much in the moment where now I kind of want to trace backwards to things that are so far in the past, compared to where most of my writing is now, that maybe it gives a little bit of clarity to how I've become who I am, but also helps me get a little bit more in tune with my grandparents and my great grandparents and their history down in West Virginia, because I think that Appalachia is heavily underrepresented in writing in general. And then you combine that with intersex writing, which is not even spoken for, pretty much. I think it's necessary for me to do. So it's a book that needed I needed to write.
Michael Wheaton 26:30
That's super interesting. I'm looking forward to it. I figured it'd be fun to talk a little bit about... kind of pivoting a little bit from the writing to have a little fun and talk some music and movies and sports a little bit.
Matt Mitchell 26:43
Absolutely. Speaking my language for sure.
Michael Wheaton 26:46
Now that we've got this literary stuff out of the way.
Matt Mitchell 26:49
Yeah, we got the heavy stuff gone. Now we can start to really get into the meat and potatoes of what this podcast is really about.
Michael Wheaton 26:56
Yeah, one thing that's so fun to read a work that's pop-culturally-lensed is when somebody likes the same shit you do, it's always fun. You know, there's some references to movies or music that is not in my wheelhouse, but so much of it is, so like every time I see The Last Waltz referenced or something, then I get really excited.
Matt Mitchell 27:30
Could talk about The Last Waltz a lot. It's a great concert, great concert film. It's so weird to think that Martin Scorsese did that.
Michael Wheaton 27:41
Who was it was, like Robbie Robertson came out with a memoir recently. Did you read it?
Matt Mitchell 27:45
I didn't read it. I should, though, because I think he's definitely a dick. And I want to read
Michael Wheaton 27:52
So here's the funny... so I love The Band. I heard him do some podcast interviews and just absolutely loved hearing him talk about it. And I pulled up the book. I was curious. And I couldn't get through the first like 10 pages. It was just bothering me. I was just like, shut the fuck up. As much as I love him. I was just like, I can't handle what he's trying to do with his prose. And anyway.
Matt Mitchell 28:19
You know, memoirs are so interesting. Like, I really enjoyed Keith Richards's memoir. I thought that was a good book, because he's lived like 60,000 lives, and he should be dead. He should've died 30 years ago. But with Robbie Robertson, it's like, you've accomplished so much. Do you need a book? Is that how you want to like tail end your career is by a memoir, but in the context of his work with The Band, A+ Robbie.
Michael Wheaton 28:51
Hey, man, do whatever you want. But it's so funny. Like in the beginning of that... I can't remember that clearly. But the whole like conceit of it was like, I've been a storyteller my whole life and like, I'm from storytellers, and I'm the greatest storyteller. I mean he doesn't say it that explicitly, but that's kind of like it... and now I'm writing it all down in this book being a storyteller. And it's like dude, you're trying way too hard.
Matt Mitchell 29:11
I'd rather read a memoir about Levon Helm for sure.
Michael Wheaton 29:13
Yes. Rock memoirs are very hit or miss. I know you're a fan of Wilco as I am. Did you read Tweedy's memoir?
Matt Mitchell 29:25
I did, actually. Yeah.
Michael Wheaton 29:27
I loved it.
Matt Mitchell 29:28
I haven't read his newest book.
Michael Wheaton 29:29
Me neither. Well his newest one is... I think it's for budding songwriters but I think you can kind of translate... it's like about the creative process I think, and kind of translated to anything, but it's kind of about writing songs. But his memoir, I absolutely loved it when I read it, and I was a little skeptical. I mean, I love Tweety. And I assume you could write a really great book. But I didn't want to hope too hard that it would be great, but it's kind of a special book to me. I don't know how much part of it is just the parasocial relationship love I have for Jeff Tweedy, this man I don't know. and so I'm bringing that to the book. But yeah.
Matt Mitchell 30:13
You read the Bob Dylan one Chronicles? I like that one. Did you like that one?
Matt Mitchell 30:13
I like Wilco more than I like The Band. So going into Jeff's memoir, I was a lot more open minded about how much I might enjoy it, as opposed to if I went into Robbie's book, I'd be like, I don't know. I'll listen to Jeff Tweedy talk about anything. He did a podcast with Nick Offerman for Talk House two or three years ago, and it's a conversation I had no emotional stakes inwhatsoever, but it was so nice to hear him talk, like he was talking about anything and I'll listen. He should do his own podcast. I think the would really have a successful career in podcasting. I'd like to hear Jeff Tweedy talk about anything, but I don't want to hear Robbie Robertson talk about like almost anything, you know. So like who's the storyteller in this in this scenario? I read Debbie Harry's memoir that just came out last year. And I love Blondie. I'm a big fan of Debbie's work. I did not like the memoir. There was some good parts about it, like her talking about the music scene in New York and who she's fucked and stuff like that. I thought that was great. But I realized, I guess I don't really want to hear about like Debbie Harry's life story, I guess. I'm interested in the parts about the punk scene in the 70s were the highlights, because I think that hearing musicians talk about other people that they're around is very satisfying to me personally.
Matt Mitchell 30:55
I liked it. I read most of it in high school. I was a big Bob Dylan fan in high school.
Michael Wheaton 32:02
You gotta be.
Matt Mitchell 32:06
Well, at my school, that's debatable. It was me and a buddy of mine. We were big Bob Dylan fans. And we would just jam it down everybody's throats and they just did not care. They were like, who the fuck is Bob Dylan.
Michael Wheaton 32:21
The Dylan evangelists.
Matt Mitchell 32:23
That was definitely what we were. And we were also like evangelists for this, like 1966 Italian film, Blow Up by Michelangelo Antonioni. And it's like no one knows what that movie is really. It's kind of faded into obscurity with a lot of other Italian movies over time. But we just were obsessed with it. We would print out the movie poster and put them on lockers. The whole idea was we were trying to get as many people to watch this movie as possible, and it didn't work. But yeah, we were very much into our niche interests in high school.
Michael Wheaton 33:13
So you've always been kind of obsessed with sharing your pop cultural interests with people. It predates writing.
Matt Mitchell 33:21
Yeah, it is. If you can find someone who doesn't know about the one thing you love, and then you can show them why you love it, and then they like it, there are very few other acts of kindness, like forms of affection, that are sweeter than that, just sharing something that you love. So when someone messages me, and they're like, Oh my god, I didn't know about this, this band or this song, and I read your poem about it. I mean, that's better than saying that my work is good. I just I love it. I wouldn't call it a passion because I'm not out here like doing it for sport anymore. But it's something that subconsciously I'm always trying to will towards people, a passing down of an interest.
Michael Wheaton 34:06
Yeah. I loved the reference to Burn On by Randy Newman.
Matt Mitchell 34:11
Glad someone got that.
Michael Wheaton 34:12
It's a perfect reference for you. Cause you're in Ohio, it's perfect. I always think of the opening of Major League when I hear it, but I've seen that movie so many times.
Matt Mitchell 34:25
That's where I first heard the song... was in Major League, and I rarely ever actually seek that song out on my own like accord. I'm always reminded of it when I watch Major League, which is more frequent than I'd like to admit.
Michael Wheaton 34:38
No, it's such a good move.
Matt Mitchell 34:40
It's so good. And it's about Cleveland. And in context when it came out, it made sense because Cleveland baseball was terrible, but then a few years after the movie came out, they were great. But yeah, it's the perfect song to describe Cleveland before 2000 and the fact that they used it and then when I was doing research for the book, and I went into about the lyrics about it, I was like, I gotta write about this song somehow.
Michael Wheaton 35:09
It's such a gorgeous song. Like you said, I kind of just knew it from Major League. That movie is so embedded in my childhood. So that song reminds me of it, I guess. But also, I got into this phase where I got really into his album Sail Away. Are you familiar with that full album? It's so good. And that song's on there. And I don't know why I need to tell this anecdote, but I just want to I guess, but I went on an anniversary trip or something with my wife at one point. Anyway, we got really drunk and ate weed brownies or whatever. And at the end of the night, we were back in the hotel. And I was just way too drunk. And I just got into an empty bathtub, like naked. And just, I don't fully remember this, but my wife was just telling me I was just laying in there. And I was just like, Play it again! I made her play that song an insane amount of times and I was weeping over like my lost childhood or something.
Matt Mitchell 36:11
That's a poem right there, honestly. My gosh, yeah I mean, we've all been there, right? We've all been crying in a bathtub.
Michael Wheaton 36:22
Some form or another over some piece of media that you feel is everything to us in that moment. One thing I also wanted to talk to you about is the Rolling Stones, because they appear so much in your work,. I'm a Stones fan, too. But you know, I thought it might be fun to do Beatles/Stones. I'm a Beatles over Stones guy. I don't remember seeing any Beatles in your work. So I'm thinking your Stones over Beatles guy.
Matt Mitchell 36:52
It's complicated because my favorite musician ever is Paul McCartney. I have a Paul McCartney tattoo. I got to see him live five years ago. And it was maybe one of the most cathartic nights of my life, you know? Because like, at this point, he's not the best performer. But it's just the idea of seeing one of the one of the last two living Beatles perform.
Michael Wheaton 37:16
I knew some people who caught him on that tour, and they said that the show was actually incredible. I'm sure the production behind it spared no expense.
Matt Mitchell 37:29
Yeah, he comes out on a riser just to sing one song. It's like, Did you really need that riser? But I went into that show, thinking okay, Hey Jude is gonna make me cry, absolutely. And it didn't. The song that got me was Band on the Run, which I didn't expect. But in retrospect, I am now a bigger Wings fan than I am a Beatles fan.
Michael Wheaton 37:51
Wow. That's bold.
Matt Mitchell 37:52
Yeah, but that's the thing. I love the Beatles. And I think that the hate that they're getting these days, just seems weird to me. To me, when I was growing up, they always sort of transcended the era that they were currently in. Like, I think that they just continue to live on so well. But then it just seemed for a while on Twitter that The Beatles were getting some flack for no legitimate reason. Like why?
Michael Wheaton 38:19
People just want to cut greatness down sometimes. Well and also the lore of The Beatles is maybe so culturally overdone because it's just the truth. It's like any cliche. It's like a cliche almost to like The Beatles because they are so fucking great. That I think some people just maybe hate on them, especially all this time removed. And a bunch of people probably grew up hearing about how great The Beatles were and it made it hard to enjoy it or something. I don't know. That's the only way that I can explain it. But what kind of stuff is really hitting it for you now, musically or film-wise.
Matt Mitchell 39:00
Well, I'm in sort of a journalism mode. So I'm focusing on a lot of new stuff. I'm getting ready to write a review about the new Half Waif album Mythopoetics. Great title, too. I love that. Maybe the best record I've heard all year. And that's saying a lot because I absolutely was just shell shocked at the new Tyler the Creator album that just came out a few days ago. I think it fucking rules but...
Michael Wheaton 39:27
I haven't heard either so
Matt Mitchell 39:29
Well the Half Waif album doesn't come out till next month, but if you're really into singer songwriters, something you can put on while you're just chilling at home, it's a good album for that. Tyler not so much. You might want to be in a car for that. It's a little up, like you're gonna want to get energetic. So I'm really into that album. As of right now, it's probably number one on my album of the year list, but we're only halfway through so that could change and there's supposed to be a new Weyes Blood album. So I don't know. But I find myself listening to a lot of classic stuff still all the time, like I did a playlist for The Neon Hollywood Cowboy that was sort of like a Radio Hour almost, like a curated radio station. And it was a lot of classics. But actually, I found this, I have to look it up, I found this song from the 60s. And I never heard it before. It's called Hey Lover by The Daughters of Eve. It's from 1965. It's this all girl rock group, kind of like The Shangrala's, but heavier. And I was like this fucking rocks. I love it when I find stuff from the 50s and 60s by artists who are unknown. I went down a rabbit hole because there was this band from Mansfield, Ohio called The Music Explosion. And they were sort of a one hit wonder with a song called Little Bit of Soul. And they peaked at number two on the charts and the only reason they didn't get to number one was because of the song Windy by The Association, which I love The Association. It just kind of sucks that the hometown band couldn't take the crown. But I went down that rabbit hole because they were on this really small record label called Laurie records. And there's this song by... so the artist is Randy and the Rainbows and the song is Denise and it's this old rock fused doowop number from like 1968. And it's just rocks. I don't know it. I just I love finding old shit like that. I'm definitely a crate digger at record stores. That's like a personal hobby for me is discovering artists like that. Because it's not like I can really write about it. We're so far detached from when it came out that it's like, Is any major venue really going to want to publish something about this obscure single that got lost in a fire for a while, you know?
Michael Wheaton 42:01
Well you get to put that in the poem.
Matt Mitchell 42:04
Exactly. Yeah. I put that Randy and the Rainbows song on that playlist, because I was like, this feels like a something that The Neon Hollywood Cowboy would listen to.
Michael Wheaton 42:14
So how did you come up with that moniker? Going back to your work. When did that occur? It's so great. You kind of use it is like a persona, but then in the book, you shed the persona, too. So it's kind of cool that in the collection. . .
Matt Mitchell 42:29
Yeah, that's part of the reason why the second book isn't gonna have The Neon Hollywood Cowboy title because I kind of killed him.
Michael Wheaton 42:36
Yeah, exactly. When you said it was a sequel, I was like, Is it the resurrection?
Matt Mitchell 42:41
Yeah, there's a poem in the second book that is a play on that lyric from the song God by John Lennon, where he says, I was the walrus, and now I'm just John. So I have a poem called "I was once The Neon Hollywood Cowboy, but now I'm just Matt." Yeah, so the majority of the poems written, or at least the majority of the poems written that I really love in the book were written in California. I went on a month long trip on the west coast to study trees for college a week after I was diagnosed as intersex. And so I had really never had a chance at home to deconstruct this spell binding moment in my life. And so I mostly did that on that trip. And so I think that the heart of the book is in California, and my best friend from high school lives in California. And so a lot of the things that I love, and a lot of things I care about are still in California. And neon, I just felt... I wrote a short story in college called The Neon Summer, sort of like my Lynchian attempt at a 60s story that takes place at a pool, a community pool during a summer day. And I just pulled the neon from that because I really liked that story. And I wanted to parlay sort of the fantastical ideas about where a body can go. And so that's where Neon Hollywood comes in. And then I have a strong affinity for Westerns. I wanted this book to be kind of a Spaghetti Western, a little bit. I wanted it to be a little loose in terms of its sequencing, and I wanted it to kind of be a little raw. There's a couple poems that I really didn't do many edits on because I wanted it to feel sort of off the cuff, but actually I was actually pretty inspired and I hate to admit this because he's so disliked these days, but I was really inspired by Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as well by Tarantino because like I'm a reluctant Tarantino fan. Like it's not something I go up to people and be like do you like Quentin Tarantino, cause I do. No one admits that anymore.
Michael Wheaton 44:58
It's kind of like the Beatles.
Matt Mitchell 44:59
Yeah. So my parents raised me on the past, their eras. And Once Upon a Time in Hollywood really showcases the era that my dad was a little kid in. And it's always been an era of, at least in terms of music and movies, that I have been kind of obsessed with for a good long time. And that movie is not well told, like it's not story that's well told. There's a lot of gaps and a lot of mistakes. But for me, as a consumer, it's the perfect movie. It hits on everything I'm obsessed with. Because I like the lore that has kind of come from the Manson family, and I kind of enjoy learning about how it effected Los Angeles, and how the repercussions of that night are still like being felt by a lot of people in Los Angeles. And I alluded to that in a poem in the book, the poem, what's it called, man, I can't remember. But it's the one where I'm in Los Angeles, and I'm in a motel room and talk about when testosterone was taken off the markets, the city was kind of in lockdown from the Manson murders. So that movie kind of set me off into the final round of edits for how I wanted to put the book together because I had all the poems ready. But the way that Quentin decided to tell that story, I really appreciated how he told it, and it pushed me over the line of how I wanted this book to look.
Michael Wheaton 46:42
Alright, that's my conversation with Matt Mitchell. You can go preorder Grown Ocean today from Word West, grab a copy of Neon Hollywood Cowboy from Big Lucks. And that's it. Thanks for listening. Till next time.