Jimmy Steinfeldt: Congratulations on your new album Moment In the Sun.
Matt Palka: Thank you Jimmy.
JS: Who’s playing harmonica on the opening track “Kerouac, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Pass That Old Jug Of Wine”?
MP: Demos Papadimas. He plays harmonica on another song on the record too and is a great songwriter in his own right.
JS: Are you in touch with our drummer friend Scot Bihlman?
MP: Absolutely. A couple months ago, Scot and I jumped in my truck to revisit the route of my original cross-country bicycle trip from 25 years ago. The original adventure began when I graduated from college and moved from Ohio to California on a bicycle with no cell phone or credit card, just $600 and a guitar. I recently turned that solo adventure into an immersive audiobook with a full soundtrack of the same name, “Moment In The Sun.” So, Scot and I retraced the route through small town America including the places I camped out all those years ago which was the inspiration for the album and book. We started last September and into October. The second leg was in April which included Utah to Lake Tahoe. I jumped out and pedaled some of the route on the original bike and we documented the whole trip. We probably spent as much time retracing the route by truck as I originally spent traveling it by bicycle- five weeks.
JS: I love the album cover.
MP: That was actually shot 25 years ago on the original cross-country bike trip. I had loaded my bike with everything. Pots and pans for cooking, tent, sleeping bag, camera, even my guitar. After just four days it was so hard to bike with the weight that I took my hatchet and chopped up and threw out much of what I brought including my camera. Eventually I bought a little disposable camera with just 24 photos. I handed it to a stranger at the peak of the highest continuous highway in America in Rocky Mountain National Park and he snapped this photo.
JS: Your song “Oh Angela” I like the bright sounding guitar.
MP: I play an arpeggiation on my Collings acoustic guitar, and there’s also some pedal steel sprinkled throughout the verses. For the chorus I wanted that emotional uplift and a live string arrangement helps support that. The song explores innocence, youth and the fleeting period when you’re expected to start conforming yet still feel entirely free. Meanwhile, being an artist you have an internal sense of self.
JS: Your song “Wallflowers and Wildflowers.” Are you a fan of Warren Zevon?
MP: Yes, and I’ve been compared to him before.
JS: I hear a bit of this in your voice and phrasing on some songs.
MP: This song is about being connected to small town America where I was born. Dreaming of the day you can get out of the confines of a small town and meet up with the creative people that you know are out there. Some of this song was written with my niece and nephew in mind. Letting them know if you don’t fit in now don’t worry, that’s how most young people feel. If you are a wallflower you will eventually find your group out there.
JS: Who plays pedal steel guitar on “Gypsy Queen”?
MP: That’s Al Moss. He’s featured on pedal steel on “Gypsy Queen” and four other songs on this record. Al always comes into the studio with a few ideas for each song, which is great since I don’t read music at all. I learned guitar in college from a guy down the hall in the dorms. He taught me G, D and C on an acoustic guitar that I “borrowed” from my dad who had no idea about the arrangement. I then taught myself, working out guitar tabs and just by experimenting what sounded good to me.
JS: “Getting Over Myself” is my favorite song on your new album. I like the harmonies.
MP: That song is about trying to kill the ego and getting out of your own way. Expectations can kill you more than anything. At one time I thought my career would move faster. I was living on a friend’s old sailboat in San Diego and I was taking time off after having played music and touring the country in my VW bus. I starting letting go of expectations at that time because things just weren’t happening as fast as I wanted them too. The world opens up a lot more when you don’t have a tight grip on things. Live in the moment.
MP: I wrote that song on a wonderful full body dreadnaught by the boutique guitar builder Santa Cruz. This was the very first song I wrote on that guitar and it was waiting to come out. I wrote it in Colorado. In Keystone outside of Vail. That high elevation in the pines always feels like home. John Denver’s music was present in my home growing up and he was an influence. I also love the music of the Eagles and Joe Walsh with his song “Rocky Mountain Way.” I recorded this whole album in Youngstown, Ohio and Joe lived there at one time and many of the older musicians would talk about the days when Joe lived and played there.
JS: “My Rambling Rose” Who’s playing Dobro?
MP: That’s me. In open tuning. Very little instrumentation on that song. This song is about having interactions and experiences with strangers while traveling with no expectations and then letting go. It’s a bittersweet and innocent love song.
JS: Tell me about living in Joshua Tree.
MP: I’ve lived all over, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Florida, and Ohio. I recently moved to Nashville to be in the music community and near family. However, I have a connection to the west and its vastness. The expansive views were missing from Nashville. The starry nights, the milky way. A feeling of smallness in this great vastness actually creates a connection. I had been coming to Joshua Tree in the winter and spring for many years. My wife is from the East Coast and we both love it so much in the high desert. We met when we lived in Los Angeles and we wondered if we could actually live in Joshua Tree. Are we desert people? Now we can’t imagine living anywhere else.
JS: Do you know Dan Joeright of Gatos Trail Recording Studio in Joshua Tree?
MP: Yes, I recorded the intros to the podcast version of the audiobook with him.
JS: When you lived in Nashville did you attend the Bluebird Café’s Sunday Writers Night?
MP: Yes, and many similar song-writer get togethers.
JS: I’ll introduce you to the people putting on the songwriter’s night at the Dune Room in Indio. Your song “California On My Mind” made me think of the singer-songwriter John Sebastian.
MP: Thank you. Going into the chorus we were going for that Beach Boys blend. With the Ahh’s at the end. As a guy from the midwest Jimmy, you know what it’s like to come to California for the first time. When I first arrived, it was in northern California. I’d make trips down to L.A. and then San Diego where I had musician friends. It was fairytale, dreamlike. All the great American writers: Kerouac, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc. They said ‘go for it’ in their writing. Don’t hold anything back. That era in North Beach when Ginsberg got up and read his poem “Howl”.
JS: Tell me about your songwriting process.
MP: Sometimes it just comes as a melody. It just arrives. Trying to pull it down from the ether. A song trying to be born. Neil Young would talk about having the antenna up. Other times it will be the idea of the song lyrics. Hemingway, Kerouac and Fitzgerald would pass a jug of wine for inspiration. For me it was channeling those great American writers. What would their advice be if I met them? If I could meet them in their heyday. Sometimes it’s just picking up the guitar like an old friend and seeing what it has to say. Something grabs your attention and then you are off and running. That happened with “California On My Mind.”
JS: Tell me about the recording process.
MP: We recorded in Youngstown, Ohio. All the musicians including horns and strings. I co-produced with Pete Drivere, who I’ve done a half dozen records with at his studio Ampreon Recorder. He also engineered and mixed the album and he still has my 1972 Mustang convertible that I traded him for studio time to make an earlier album. Funny but true story. Pete’s always up for collaborating on my ideas.
For instance, I recorded all the narration of the audiobook “Moment In The Sun” with Pete engineering and editing. Then I took the narration and did a full sound design in Dolby Atmos to get that total immersive feeling. Like the sounds when we go into a local diner. I wanted the little bell that rings when you open the door to sound exactly correct. Sound designer Dean Hovey created our world and he was the sound designer on Batman Unburied and The Riddler: Secrets In The Dark for DC Comics as well as film works on such projects as Austin Powers and Jawbreaker. I still have my bike from my cross-country trip so Dean took it out into the desert and put microphones all over the bike so you really hear everything exactly as it sounded on my actual bike ride. Dean’s incredible and with his mix and design, you feel like you are on the handlebars riding with me.
Audiobook And Accompanying Album Titled Moment In The Sun
Due June 25 & 19 Respectively
For more info on Matt and his album and audio book: https://www.mattpalka.com/
