SOUTH Music’s Matt Drenik Brings Rock’n’Roll to the Sound Studio
In 2018, SOUTH Music – a music and sound production company - was looking to amplify the ‘artist’ part of their ‘artist-driven focus’ and, by chance, Matt Drenik was looking for his next career move. The now creative director is at heart a musician and producer, playing in multiple bands and helping other artists craft their records.
His very first band was formed during college, opening for bands like The Black Keys, Buffalo Killers, and Electric Eel Shock. The band was supposed to open for Fu Manchu but a road accident and being stuck in a small town spelled the end. Matt called the promoter to cancel who then said Matt could keep the slot if he formed a new band. That’s how Lions were born and three weeks later they played the show. Lions’ sound was influenced by post-grunge and full of fuzzy, heavy riffs before, Matt notes, the label and management interfered with requests for a more “commercial sound” that didn’t feel authentic to the band’s style.
Matt’s next project – Battleme – was a sonic departure from Lions, embracing a softer folk-rock side that eventually led him contributing songs to the TV show, Sons of Anarchy. Matt’s work caught the attention of Bob Thiel, the show’s composer and music supervisor, who had a clear vision of what he wanted the soundtrack to sound like. He put together a house band called The Forest Rangers with Dave Kushner, Davey Faragher, Franky Perez, Katy Segal, and asked Matt to join too. The band’s music was instrumental in creating and maintaining the show’s rugged yet sensitive nature, performing a mix of covers alongside original tracks.
Today, Matt brings his extensive knowledge of the music industry to the role of creative director at SOUTH Music where he balances working on the commercial side with producing for artists like Veruca Salt’s Louise Post. For Matt, the commercial side is a new and welcome challenge that he approaches with the same creativity and originality as any other musical project. “Music for advertising doesn’t have to be stock. It can feel imaginative and hyper creative,” Matt states.
Below, LBB’s Zhenya Tsenzharyk asked Matt all about his musical influences and evolution as an artist, working on Sons of Anarchy, and why he’s excited to create music in this sonically eclectic moment in time.
Above: 'Hands' by Matt Drenik, Sons of Anarchy, Season 4
LBB> Matt, when did you first discover that you had an ear for music? Was there a song or an artist that made you go, ‘I want to do that’?
Matt> I would say my love for music started fairly young. I was the kid with the boom box that would record songs off the radio and listen over and over again because I didn’t have enough money to go down to the record store and buy the tape. I was in love with anything that had a hook - ballad or rocker, I had no allegiance in that sense. Growing up in Ohio, there wasn’t a lot of culture happening outside of the ‘normal’ boundaries, so the radio was still king unless you were lucky enough to stumble across your older brother’s copy of ‘Maximum Rocknroll’.
As for the lightbulb going off, I would categorise that moment in three stages over a span of several years. Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ was the first record I obsessed over, front to back. I remember my mom giving it to me for Christmas. It was in a long cardboard box. I don’t think she understood what it was, and I’m guessing she quickly regretted purchasing it after she heard it blasting from my boom box. The second moment was when I heard REM’s single ‘What’s the Frequency Kenneth?’ off of their 1994 release, ‘Monster’. I felt like Peter Buck’s guitar riff was made just for me. It was easy, loud, and cool. And while Nirvana blew open my view of pop culture, REM’s ‘Monster’ made me want to write songs. And finally, a simple moment that’s burned itself into my memory forever. My mom, realising I was wanting to create something more than just scribbles on a page, bought me an acoustic guitar. My older brother (who was a musician) put on Pink Floyd’s ‘Animals’ and showed me how to strum along to ‘Pigs on the Wing Part 1’. After a few runs through arguably one of the most conceptually complex yet musically easy songs of Pink Floyd’s catalogue, the lightbulb went off. I was hooked.
LBB> Tell us how you started your first band, Lions? What was the process like? Who were you influenced by?
Matt> Lions was a bit of an accident. After graduating from film school at University of Texas, I found myself in a fairly popular garage rock band that was starting to grab a lot of local attention, then national attention, by touring and opening for buzzy bands like The Black Keys, Buffalo Killers, and Electric Eel Shock. We had some label interest after a SXSW showcase, which led to talks about record deals and agents. A few months later, our van nearly flipped off the highway while on tour in Oklahoma. We got stuck in a little town outside of Tulsa for a few days and the band imploded. When I called up a local promoter at Emos (Austin venue) to cancel an opening slot for Fu Manchu, the agent convinced me to stay on, to just form a new band, and play. So, two of us formed a new band, born out of a sense of being burned and pissed off, and called it Lions. We played with Fu Manchu three weeks later.
In the beginning, we were more influenced by spirited rock bands like The MC5 and Queens of The Stone Age, yet that began to cave as labels and management started coming around, wanting us to get a bit more “commercial” sounding. Looking back, I would say my biggest mistake was letting outside opinions infiltrate the core spirit of the band. We had something very pure, cool, and honest that quickly became eroded by the system. By the time I was flying around the country, writing songs with songwriters in the hopes of majors hearing something special, the band was over. And my advice for any rock band trying to do something unique and cool? Don’t ask for anybody’s blessings or advice. Just do it! Labels are just high interest charging banks with a few good eggs and a lot of mediocre ones. As for other influences, we were into riff rock bands like DMBQ (Japanese AMAZING riff band), Soundgarden, Nebula, Red Fang (who were friends of ours) while also loving certain melodic records by Stone Temple Pilots (Purple and Tiny Music) although that last one I may be speaking only for myself!
Above: 'Metal Heavy Lady', by Lions, featured in Guitar Hero 3
LBB> Battleme, your folk-rock project, is a very different sound to Lions. Why the change in genre and what does creating within this space afford you that the sound of Lions perhaps didn’t?
Matt> The formation of Battleme was a bit of an accident as well. In 2008, Lions was asked by FX to replace a bunch of songs on the Season 1 ‘pilot’ episode of Sons of Anarchy. The head of music at 20th Century had seen one of our SXSW showcases and thought we’d be the perfect soundtrack band for a new biker show they had coming out. By the time Season 2 hit, Lions was all over the soundtrack, and being asked to do custom covers for specific scenes. It was a wild ride! Around this time, I started sharing some solo, acoustic songs with Bob Thiele (composer/music supervisor) of Sons Of Anarchy and he started plugging them into episodes. While Lions was everything heavy and aggressive (both musically and lyrically), my softer, folk side was coming out in these bedroom recordings. I’d always loved songwriters like Elliott Smith, Townes Van Zandt, Nick Drake, and this new project was giving me an outlet with minimal pressure. If they didn’t like the song, they’d just not use it. By the end of Season 2, Fox decided to put out a soundtrack with one of my bedroom folk songs on it (Burn This Town) and they needed a name. The managers of Lions were trying to get me to say it was a Lions song, but that felt pretty disingenuous. So, I thought of the word Battleme, and sent it in.
Where Lions was trapped by a sonic template, Battleme was a blank canvas. I had no label, no band, no history, and sometimes that’s a beautiful place to be as an artist. It started out as minimal folk stuff because I was playing everything myself and had limited instruments. Once I started buying more stuff, the productions started getting bigger. Then I got management, a label, an agent, and the same trappings that caught Lions off guard started to take shape within the Battleme sphere. Luckily, I had more of a “I don’t give a fuck” attitude and things turned out much better.
LBB> You were also a contributing member of The Forest Rangers, which served as the house band for the long-running series Sons of Anarchy. For the uninitiated, what does being a TV show’s house band entail?
Matt> The house band caught everyone by surprise. Bob Thiele was the genius / guru behind the Sons of Anarchy sonic landscape. Bob comes from a line of LA rock royalty. His father co-wrote ‘What A Wonderful World’ with Louis Armstrong. He was producing records for Bonnie Raitt and Katy Segal long before Sons of Anarchy came knocking at his door. So, in my opinion, Bob had this amazing vision of what a soundtrack should be, and he wanted it to sound like a band. He slowly put together a cast of players (Dave Kushner, Davey Faragher, Franky Perez, Katy Segal, and others) and because I was doing so much work with Bob, he threw me into the mix. I didn’t realise how big of a deal it was until we showed up to play ‘Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival’ in Golden Gate Park and felt like there were twenty thousand people staring back at me. Katy Segal (who is the BEST) took my wife and I over to see Steve Earle play on the side of his stage all the while talking to us like we were long time friends. That’s when I thought, shit, this soundtrack band is an actual band! I don’t know if there will ever be a soundtrack band again for a network TV show, but if there is, I’m putting in my availability notice.
Above: 'NS' by Matt Drenik, Sons of Anarchy, Season 3
LBB> You’ve also produced numerous records. How do you approach the role of producer, and how do you know when to step in versus step back on any given record?
Matt> The role of a ‘producer’ has evolved quite a bit over the years. Some people see them more as technical wizards while others see them as hook masters, and then there’s everything that falls in-between. In a perfect world, I like to join the band, co-collaborate, and offer up my vision on how everything will turn into one compelling piece of art. That said, it’s never that perfect. Sometimes I’m playing in the technical playground, helping figure out what amps / mics / preamps would be best within a certain track. Sometimes I’m helping write a vocal hook, guitar hook, synth hook to make the melody hit harder. Sometimes I’m listening to the band and trying to explain that something is off. Sometimes I’m the shrink, trying to keep everyone from jumping off a bridge. Sometimes I’m picking up and playing all the instruments because the artist doesn’t have a band. And sometimes I’m just trying to create a safe environment where people can transform themselves into artists — fearless and belief-ridden. I don’t really love talking about what other artists are doing in the studio. I want to talk about what WE’RE doing — and how we can pave our own way vs. trying to emulate what someone else has already done. And for fuck’s sake, read the room. If someone has a strong POV on a song, maybe sit back and let them ride it out. There will be plenty of time to do the driving. I’m always trying to remind myself that working as a producer is not about me. It’s about the artist, their identity, their POV. Our job is to bring the vision and be a spirited guru in the process. And I’m not talking about the Rick Rubin school of ‘taste’. If we need to play, we play. If we need ideas, we give ideas. If we need to grab a mic, we grab a mic. If we need to rework a song, we rework a song. If we need to know when to shut up, we shut up. And if we need to sit back, we sit back and watch it all work.
LBB> How did you first start working with South Music - what attracted you to the company and the role?
Matt> I had moved to LA at the beginning of 2018 and was working on a new publishing deal that fell apart. My wife had just had our baby boy and I wasn’t interested in going back out on the road again. I felt like my life was transitioning out of that phase once my son Iggy was born. Then one day, a friend of my wife’s called her and said she had an interesting lunch with Ann Haugen (EP, SOUTH Music) who was looking for a new creative director to amplify the artist-focus within the company. I think she said something like, “maybe they’ve been signed, done a bunch of touring, but now they have a kid, and want to settle into something more permanent…” So, my wife’s friend said, “I think I have your guy.” A few days later I connected with Ann. We hit it off. I met Dan and Britt a few weeks later at the Santa Monica office. Dan asked me to compose on a Coors Light ad to see if I had any chops. It went really well. And the next thing you know, I had an offer to join the crew.
LBB> SOUTH Music is an artist incubator, and it has a commercial focus too. How do you see your experience helping to shape and balance the company’s two focuses?
Matt> I think the beautiful thing about my relationship with the rest of the SOUTH crew is that they are allowing me to be myself and do what I do best, which is create music — all while trying to funnel it through an advertising lens when appropriate. Music for advertising doesn’t have to be stock. It can feel imaginative and hyper creative. There’s a level of fearlessness in modern composers that wasn’t there when I first started—and it never ceases to amaze me. I have to catch myself when I’m talking to a composer and asking them why they put this overblown plugin before an EQ, but after a compressor, and they say, because it sounds cool. Well, shit, it does sound cool, so who cares how you got there. The old rule book of sonics has completely been thrown out the window. Now we have orchestral mixing with hip hop, we have harmonic overtones being thrown on just about everything delicate, we have singers dipping their toes in new genres that weren’t available to them before, we have composers creating new sonic landscapes from experimenting. What a beautiful time to create music, and why not try and incorporate an artist’s slant into the commercial equation? If you want the music track on a :30 to sound like it came off a record, then get someone that makes records to make that :30 track.
Above: Jeep, 'Electric Slide'
LBB> As a music industry pro, what does working on the commercial side of music mean to you? How do you approach it?
Matt> I try to approach it like I would any other musical project. Instead of a full-length song, it’s a thirty second snippet. One of the fascinating things about working in such a confined space is that it forces you to focus on the two key elements — the hook and arc. Is there an arc? Where does it land? And what’s the hook that people will walk away with remembering? Those are questions that aren’t just relevant to commercial music, but music in general. Songwriters can hone their chops by writing for ads, and maybe find a new way of looking at things. You might get a hit song out of it. And if you’re confused by that, ask the guy from Foster the People about it.
LBB> Which of the projects that you’ve worked on at South Music are you particularly proud of and why?
Matt> I just wrapped up Louise Post’s (Veruca Salt) first solo record at the studio. I was producing, multi-instrumentalist, manipulating, mixing. It was the ultimate creative experience since it was mainly Louise, Robin (engineer, instrumentalist), and I crafting this record from scratch with Louise’s songs. She’s an incredible songwriter, has such great wit and veracity in her lyrics, and bombards us with hook after hook. I think that people will find this record somewhat surprising knowing her past work from Veruca Salt. There are heavy moments, but there are also quiet ones that weave through electronic textures so effortlessly. Songs like “All These Years” hit every mark I love in pop songs without being overly cheesy or commercially void. It’s big. It’s nostalgic, and ultimately, romantic.
Miller Campbell is another artist I’ve been working with in the same capacity — building songs, playing multiple instruments, producing. This project is a bit different from Louise’s in the sense that I’m co-writing a lot of this material, and the genre is closer to Americana than rock, but it’s all funnelling through our collective vision of what Americana could be, bringing her country closer to my indie rock. It’s a beautiful mix. Greg Calbi currently has an EP worth of material he’s mastering.
The Valley, featuring Marina Darling, Evan Rachel Wood, and Este Haim was the first project I produced at the studio. We had just moved into the space, so no furniture in the front production offices, but we had the mix room / tracking rooms set up and we just went for it. What a beautiful experience! Amazing roots / Americana jams with tight harmonies and excellent lyrics. Marina (the primary songwriter) blew me away with her song Shadows on the Valley — a mixture of Mazzy Star and The Cowboy Junkies, that I still to this day hum in my head. I believe this record is currently slated to come out sometime this year.
LBB> Can you tell us about the creative relationship with Louise Post and how that collaboration came about?
Matt> My project, Battleme, toured with Veruca Salt on their reunion tour back in 2014. Louise and I became quick friends on that tour and when I moved to LA in 2018, I found that she lived just up the street from me. We met up and started talking about working together on a side project she had called Veyls with a few friends from New York and Kelly Scott from Failure. We ended up recording an EP that I produced and played bass on. Eventually we got to talking about doing a solo record and once the SOUTH studio was built, we had a quick session and decided to give it a go.
As for the creative relationship, it’s one of many layers. Some songs start out on just an acoustic guitar and we have to figure out how to blow it into full spectrum. Others are more baked with the tiny drum loops and guitar parts that will eventually be replaced or manipulated to fit with the rest of the record. Ultimately, there’s a lot of discussion with each song on how the lyrical content should affect the mood. Those discussions lead us in taking chances, round after round. A song may start one way and end up in a completely different direction, and usually that’s where the magic happens. It never ceases to amaze me how many forms a good song can take. The most important part in my relationship with Louise is recognising that she’s the creative lead and I’m her partner, trying to help her realise where she wants her vision to take us.
LBB> Finally, out of curiosity, what are the best and the worst parts of touring?
Matt> Best parts - playing great shows, meeting new people, enjoying a backstage with a private bathroom and full rider, travel conversations which always turn interesting at some point (and eventually devolve at a later point).
Worst parts - backstages with no private bathroom, hotels with noisy AC units, getting sick, fans that spill beer on your pedal board, border crossings.
Images by photographer Ken Pappanduros
