Celebrated and often-controversial rocker Matthew Good has just released "Had It Coming," the first single from the Vancouver musician's forthcoming 13th studio album, "Arrows Of Desire."
Good, who in recent years has experimented with a number of musical styles from acoustic to symphonic rock, and concepts (2009's "Vancouver" was about his home city and 2007's "Hospital Music" was about his battle with bi-polar disorder), is going back to a simpler place with his new song and album — straight up rock.
"It's fucking simple rock," Good tells HuffPost about the album due for release Sept. 24. "I grew up listening to bands that were four or five chords who made it magic and that's kinda what I wanted to get done. That's not saying there aren't some complexities on the record because there damn well is, but I don't know... it was just fuckin' fun to do."
The multiple Juno Award winner responsible for such hits as "Apparitions," Load Me Up" and "Hello Time Bomb" seemed in particularly fine spirits when talking about his new music. Almost... happy.
We got him to dish on some other details about "Arrows Of Desire" as well. Here they are:
What the song "Had It Coming" is about.
"It's exactly what it sounds like. In the first part I talk about myself. It's a first-person kind of thing. It's not 'I had it coming' in a bad way. It's just like, 'Oh finally. It's about time I had it coming.' Then in the second verse I talk about everyday ordinary people caught in the 9-to-5. And they slip into the dream of those pressures being released from them. That's the whole reference to breathing under water. You can find that you can breathe. And I go on to 'you've had it coming' 'Yay.' And then I go on to say that we've all had it coming — might as well put it all together in one big fuckin' package — and the song's over. That's pretty much it.
Why 'Arrows Of Desire' is going to be a "rock" record.
"I just came home [from tour] and put on a bunch of stuff that was on a playlist, rock stuff that I normally listen to like Husker Du and The Replacements and [Afghan] Whigs, and bands like that. And one day I was just zoned out and I was just like, 'Fuck it. I'm going to write a rock record.'
"I was just in the mood I guess. I was chasing kids around the house and stuff and I was just like, 'I just want to have some fun.' That's excactly what I did.
What 'Arrows Of Desire' will sound like.
"There's a couple songs that are short. ['Had It Coming'] is one of the shortest songs on the record. It's a kaleidoscope of rock. There's 10 tracks on the record and I'll tell you, there ain't a fucking ballad until track nine."
Whether 'Arrows Of Desire' plays into the emerging trend of nostalgia for '90s rock and alternative music.
"There's a nostalgia for the '90s? I didn't know that. Oh the irony, I'm still releasing records and being played at '90s nights.
"When I sat down to write it I wasn't thinking about that. I mean, the only time, I mean, the Whigs, all that stuff was from the '90s, but a lot of the stuff I was listening to it was all '80s music. So it was all 'alternative rock.' People try to divide it up into a million different genres but it's all just rock to me. So it's alternative rock music."
What albums Matthew Good fans will compare "Arrows Of Desire" to.
"There's a lot of my work that over recent years you can say, 'Yeah OK, that's clear.' But this record there's far more metaphor going on. I mean, I'm not going to liken it to it, because it's absolutely nothing like it, but it's far more akin in a lot of places to "Beautiful Midnight" type stuff or "The Audio Of Being" type stuff where we were kind of going like, if this could be 10 things, well, what could it be? And the great thing about that is people can apply it to themselves individually and come up with their own conclusion."