After years playing in bands as a drummer, Gold Coast native Matt Turner found himself in a slump.
A year later, he’s released his first solo single as a guitarist and vocalist. “I’d come out of about a decade's worth of working in bands and when I that ended, somewhat abruptly, it wasn’t really part of the plan.
“I had a bit of a break to regather… make my peace with some things, but I guess I always knew through that last year that I was always coming back to do music.”
Matt’s debut single is ‘Wander’, released in May, and is a part of a set of singles Matt plans to release over the next few months.
‘Wander’ is a slower track, one that focusses on the past 12 months of reflection in Matt’s life, a theme that he says will continue throughout his upcoming single releases.
“If there’s any real goal here, it’s that I can try to give people a sense of what I was feeling, because I have this sense that people have definitely been through it too; to try and provide something for those people in the same way songs have helped me through those times.”
While Matt has spent most of his time on stage behind the drum kit, the guitar has always been a part of his songwriting process.
“I never took any lessons or tried to improve a great deal, I just used it to come up with riffs and ideas for songs and pass them on to my guitarist and things like that. I guess I developed a bit more chops over the years and definitely spent the last year really trying to hone my skills on the guitar.”
That said, Matt won’t be leaving the drum kit behind completely. “I love playing guitar, I always have, and I still get to use drums in my recordings and things like that. Don’t think that you won’t be hearing any big, massive drums on my tracks.
“Admittedly, ‘Wander’ is a pretty quiet, sombre sort of song, but among the tracks that have been recorded recently, there are still a couple of tracks that have got full-sized drum kits and big fills and all the fun. You should probably still expect to see me behind the kit at times. I’d love to be able to get behind the kit on stage sometimes, Anderson .Paak style.”
‘Wander’, as well as a handful of other singles to come, was recorded in the northern New South Wales studio of Dave Atkins (Resin Dogs, Wolfmother). As a fellow drummer and kindred spirit, Matt says working with Dave has been a blessing.
“It’s been fantastic. I did a bit of work with Dave in the band years ago and got to know him and really enjoy working with him and his process. He’s a master engineer behind the desk and [he] pulled some really great sounds from that little room.”
And the location didn’t hurt either.
"It’s a relaxed vibe, it’s beautiful out there, there’s a serene sort of quality to being out in the foothills there in Mullumbimby… the area around there is just a really great space and we work together really well. He’s drummer, we kind of speak the same language when it comes to sounds and stuff like that.”
