Matthew E. White: "I Wanna Be Like Picasso"
The cosmic singer, songwriter and soul man sets himself a high bar in the latest MOJO.
HE MIGHT BE just two albums in, but Matthew E. White is plotting to stick around for a good long while, he tells MOJO this month.
We drop in on the singer, songwriter and producer at his home studio in Richmond, Virginia, in our latest issue (March ’16 / #268), on sale now, and discover that between his own recording career and label Spacebomb the hirsute musician has big plans.
“I wanna make a record that nobody’s ever heard before,” he tells MOJO’s Sophie Harris. “That’s Good Vibrations, that’s aggressively imaginative and courageous and new to people’s ears. I wanna be Matisse or Picasso, guys [who] made incredibly vibrant work into their seventies and eighties.”
In addition to his own records, White has produced albums for Spacebomb artists including Natalie Prass. But if he looks busy, he insists that, having set himself the goal of being an octogenarian artist, there’s no rush.
“There’s this great, great Indonesian Balinese saying,” he notes: “There is no art, we just do everything the best we can.”
Get the latest issue of MOJO for the full home visit with Matthew E. White and much more.
PHOTO: Guy Eppel