Return To Dust über Animes, Riffs und die 4-Mann-Ehe

Frontstage: Thank you so much for taking the time on such a busy day to answer a couple questions. Considering everything I say we do it like a quick trivia with fast a fast Q&A style. So, if Return to Dust could time travel and open for any band that’s ever existed in the peak of their career, which band would that be? 

Matty: Ooh I know what everyone in the band would probably say, London would probably say, Led Zeppelin, Seb would say Chili Peppers, Graham loves KG elephants. I’m a big Circus Survive fan, so I would love to open for them. 

Frontstage: That’s great, and honestly all of them are great choices. So, like previously in the band you guys talked about anime and storytelling influencing and your creativity – If one of your songs became the theme of an anime, what would the show be about? 

Matty: Ooh, um, I actually I feel like berserk needs like a proper anime to go along with it. You know, because I feel like it’s long overdue like the manga is amazing, but I feel like it’s long overdue for a good like faithful anime adaptation. And I don’t know. I feel like, you know, the songs would go really well in that. They’re heavy, they feel like larger than life, you know, and it’s just like, I just imagine guts, just cutting up some bunch of dudes just to our music. 

Frontstage: Oh, I absolutely need that now.

Matty: Yeah, I know right. 

Frontstage: We have to get this somehow. I don’t know how, but we have to.

Matty: yeah, you make it work for us. Pull some strings.

Frontstage: I really want to know what the weirdest thing is that has ever inspired a riff, a lyric, or any song idea? 

Matty: Ooh, that’s really funny on our last headlining tour we had, we were in San Diego, and we were just driving the Van around and we stopped at a red light, and there was this homeless dude who was like, you know, he’s screaming and stuff, and he looked at our Van and through the window and he goes “Eh ba da da da dew” and we were like, dude, he just gave us a riff bro. We gotta turn that into a song. We haven’t yet, but we just started cracking up for like 2 minutes, we gotta make that into a riff. And like, why did he say that to us? Why did he decide to give us a riff right there? 

Frontstage: No, you have to make that happen. Honestly, that would be so funny, that would be, the funniest story I’ve ever heard anyone talk about a song. 

Matty: I’m glad, I’m glad. Well give him royalties too. It’ll be it’ll be amazing, it’ll be like Mr beats. 

Frontstage: Just go “We don’t know who that guy was, but like that song came from him.”

Matty: Yeah, he wrote it, he wrote it. 

Frontstage: So, I don’t know how well you guys know each other’s instruments and everything. But if you had to swap for a whole tour who would absolutely f****** mess up everything the instruments, everything and who would secretly crush it. 

Matty: Wow, that’s a good question. It’s funny because I just watched Die Spitz they’re like, notorious for jumping around on their instruments, and they probably do an amazing job at it. But we would not. I play guitar, and I could probably get by on bass. But if you put me on a drum kit, I would botch the entire set. London is not bad. He could play some guitar he could play some drop D riffs. Graham can play guitar. Seb can actually crush on the drums, he’s our guitarist, and he’s actually played drums for a couple bands, so he’s honestly, he’s super, super multitalent, that guy is little child prodigy, so we love our seb.

Frontstage: So on the next tour you’re gonna switch it and like put him on any other instrument?

Matty: I think people would probably riot, because they love seeing him on guitar so much and then London would just be sitting there, like, I don’t know what the f*** I’m doing.

Frontstage: I would be funny and very entertaining, I imagine. 

Matty: It would be entertaining. Yes, for everyone, but us, you know. 

Frontstage: Usually that’s the case, yes. But what song in your catalogue is the one song that fans completely misunderstood, kind of interpreted in a way that you guys never expected or like maybe ripped off the meaning a little bit but in like very positive way. 

Matty: That’s a good question. I think we released a song called new religion a while back, people like immediately went like, “oh, the song’s so anti God I have to unfollow you guys because I’m Christian”, stuff like that, which I thought was kind of crazy, I mean we do say in the song like “God is a fake and I’m standing on this grave”, but it’s like we grew up around religion just being shoved down our throats. We grew up in a small town in Texas, Graham and I did, and when we got around to writing songs, we’re pulling from all aspects of our life and one of them is when I went to church for the first time I saw like an anit gay screening at the church before anyone went in. And I was so confused as a kid, I was like what is this is this playing in a church? These people love everyone, but they got this going on right now. And so I was like, f***, yeah, I’m gonna talk about it in my music. I feel like it’d be a shame not to but people got a little bit upset at that one. Rightfully so, to each teach their owns on their beliefs, but I just think that too often, people try and shame others for their religious beliefs or for what they have to say as an individual where it’s like your opinion, how you grew up, how you were raised is totally f****** valid. So that song got misinterpreted a little bit but 

Frontstage: Also feels like bring me the horizon had that topic. If you look at satanic cult symbols, you will see that their band logo is one of them. And then there’s like people being like “Oh my god, Im Christian, I have to stop listening to them” because of something I think he said, or posted, or whatever. It was wild. But I really want know if a documentary crew followed you guys for let’s say a month or two, like on a tour and then back into your private lives. What would be the thing fans were most surprised about to learn about you as people. 

Matty: I feel like it’s not a surprise, but we’re all best friends in the Band. Like, we’re always cracking jokes, always trying to make each other laugh. We keep it super light-hearted, and even though our music is super serious like, we talk about the terrible s*** that goes on in our lives, has gone on in our lives and other people’s. But I mean, in our own, we try and keep it as positive as possible, and we want to be doing this for the rest of our lives, so I’m sure people would be surprised to see that it’s not like all just bleak, all the time. We’re not like Type O-Negative, down in the dumps all the time. We’re stoked to be out here, playing Europe and we’re stoked that people are connecting with the songs that we wrote 5 years ago in a little garage and are singing them back to us, like it’s insane, it’s literally the dream. So yeah. 

Frontstage: It definitely is, and I can’t imagine that feeling of being on a stage and having that experience and everything, but I think it’s very, very good that we finally having people in the scene who start to care about music again. It’s not like industry plants “we have to be famous”. And this is just marketing. It’s people who actually care and give a s***. And that’s really, really refreshing in my opinion, and we need more people like you guys too. 

Matty: Well, I Love Die Spitz, I love Ecca Vandal. I think those are 2 amazing artists that are coming up right now, I think there’s a whole bunch of other genuine rock bands who are making some amazing stuff right now, so we just gotta open our eyes and see it. 

Frontstage: Very true. Amazing bands. We photographed them [Ecca Vandal] at Rock am Ring last week. So the last question, what is the most return to dust way a rehearsal or a recording session could go wrong? 

Matty: Could go wrong? Probaby…. I feel like if one person is in a bad mood, it’s very contagious, and so we really try and keep the vibes up in the rehearsal space and in the recording studio. We’re such a like a unit, every decision gets made unanimously for the most part. It’s like every creative decision, every logistics, or whatever kind of decision that we make for rehearsals, for recording stuff like that. So if one person’s not feeling it, we gotta double back, and we gotta figure out why, why don’t you like this? Is this the way that it sounds, the riff, the plan or something, and just have a conversation about it like “Oh, let’s figure it out.”

Frontstage: So there’s a lot of communication. 

Matty: Exactly, its like a four-way marriage. You know, it’s like we are all committed to each other, and you gotta communicate like you gotta work on someone else’s schedule, you gotta manage everyone’s emotions like being a Band is f****** hard. Like you’re married to these people, you’re with them all the time, and I love them so much, but you see every part of them, good and bad. 

Frontstage: Well, those are such sweet words to come to the end of this interview. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it and I hope I will catch you live a couple more times this festival season.

Matty: Thank you so much for having me. Take care.

Fotocredit: Lara Kramer