What's the deal with Matty Matheson?

Quantum physics, hardcore edition

Celebrity chef Matty Matheson made “hardcore headlines” this week for starting a band. I’m sure most people reading this were exposed to it in some capacity. If you’re looking for a seething condemnation, look elsewhere. I obviously don’t think a fake band started by an influencer playing Furnace Fest is cool. It’s just not interesting to complain about.

Instead, this leads to a rather esoteric or, as Axe to Grind would call it, “dorm room” discussion about a fundamental shift in hardcore that I’m not sure is even happening, let alone to what extent. It’s some real Schrodinger’s Cat shit and in my opinion, is far more interesting than the specifics, reactions, or even my feelings on a celebrity chef starting a hardcore band. In order to get there, though, we need to understand the facts.

Let’s start with some context. The Matty Matheson band, aka Pig Pen, has been cooking for a while. Matty talked about it, including specifics like the name and members, two years ago on HardLore. How long the next sequence of events was in the works is beyond me, but for all intents and purposes, the band was rolled out in three stages.

Stage one started roughly two months ago, when Pig Pen announced their first show. The event was booked by Not Dead Yet, Toronto’s premiere independent promoter, who puts on shows ranging from high-profile label showcases in big venues to 20 person punk shows on warehouse floors.

Admission cost $20, which is CHEAP for live entertainment around here. Most local-only shows are $15. Best Wishes (Triple B, featuring members of Wild Side/Mil-Spec) and Pluto’s Kiss (Total Supply artists/masterminds) opened. I went, hoping to find some sort of salacious/embarrassing/interesting tidbit for my blog. I came up emptyhanded. Pig Pen played for 20 minutes. Then Matty dapped everyone up, disappearing into the night while his band took down the backline and milled about talking to people. It was uneventful, but not painfully so.

Stage two of the Pig Pen rollout happened a couple days ago, when the band dropped their first song/video, “Mental Mentality”. They also announced a record on Flatspot, which is ostensibly an independent hardcore label. They’re pressing three LP variants and a cassette along with at least seven pieces of merch including a hockey jersey and what appears to be a sweat suit (I’m not watching the reel again, see for yourself).

Stage three happened Thursday (May 8th), when Pig Pen announced they’re playing Furnace Fest, the biggest North American hardcore festival (if we want to call it that [unfortunately I don’t know what else you’d classify it as]) in terms of scope and probably attendance.

Those are the facts. Now for something a bit more interesting — the reactions. I broke this up into three stages because I think each development brings up unique points leading into the weird science equation I find myself doing. The first event, Pig Pen’s live debut, was the “haha, funny joke” stage.

Some folks thought Pig Pen’s existence was hella corny from jump. I know for a fact some of my acquaintances/peers/internet homies would rather have Matty Matheson strung up from his ankles and fed to a woodchipper than see him take a stage under the guise of playing hardcore. Many younger folks, hungry to prove their “real roots” by keeping the gates from DSLR owners and 35-year-old Riot Fest enthusiasts, deemed the show “retarded” and wanted nothing to do with it.

I get those perspectives. There were many DSLRs on hand that night. So many that my friend Samson said he couldn’t see the stage from 20 feet away because a wall of people blocked it with their cameras. The cornball element was present, but so were many familiar faces. I won’t name names, but whether you’re a macho flatbrim thug, “real deal” DIY backpack two-stepper, or the type of mf who has a chain running from your septum piercing to your wallet, members of your favourite Toronto bands were in attendance.

Places like New York, LA and Toronto (Canada’s purported entertainment capital) are unique in that occasionally. live hardcore overlaps with the outside world in a weird, quirky way. Younger me would bang my fists on the table and say “THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN!” but as you attend more shows, culture crossover can be a novel and somewhat inoffensive experience, especially if it presents as organic.

Should I have seen the Flatspot/Furnace Fest rollout coming? Probably. Did I want to dunk my head in the deep fryer when an old friend who works at Sneaky Dees asked me “are you here to see Matty?” Yep. On the other hand, I got to watch some buddies open for a celebrity chef in a 200 cap room for $20. So, whatever.

Stage two of operation Pig Pen, the Flatspot single/merch drop, made me roll my eyes.

Anyone reading this through a hardcore lens probably has better-articulated gripes than I do, so I’ll save the complaining. Go on Krate or Instagram if you wanna see haterism. Instead, consider some “alternate perspectives” to the industry plant/Flatspot suxxx allegations.

First, Matty Matheson did not see hardcore on Tik Tok at age 38, recruit musicians from central casting, and launch his fake band. Apparently he’s been down, even running a DIY venue out of his swanky restaurant for numerous years. It wasn’t bougie, either. I would be SHOCKED if the basement of Parts & Labour was up to code. It was no grosser than your average punk venue, but I question the legality of 200 people crammed into a windowless basement underneath a restaurant in Toronto.

Legend has it Matty fed the bands, treated them well, occasionally came down and moshed, etc. He was also pretty liberal with who he let book there. I saw Xerxes in 2012 to no more than 15 people, seven of them wearing Cursed merch. In this city, where space is at a premium, rent prices are fucked, and opportunities are first given to people like Grimes or The Arcade Fire, what Matty did at P&L is a big deal.

IYKYK

As for his band, drummer Ian Romano was/is a touring member of Career Suicide and plays in Corrosives. Wade MacNeil got absorbed into the CANADIAN MUSIC INDUSTRYTM at age 17, but tried his best to stay connected with hardcore, playing in Black Lungs, Gallows, and probably some other bands. Are these guys the most true-blue coremen? We could hand-wring about their connections to the Dine Alone cabal all day, but ask them their favourite Total Supply demo and they’ll probably give you an answer.

How about Flatspot? I have a feeling every time I appear in their media monitoring dashboard they yell “THIS ASSHOLE AGAIN?!” What I’m about to say is factual, though, so don’t get mad.

Flatspot doesn’t operate like any other hardcore label when it comes to press, social media or even A&R. That’s not a value judgement. I’m excited for some upcoming Flatspot releases. Still, the label was on their own island promotion-wise until a few years ago when other big players started taking their lead. That means Flatspot are, by and large, reaching different audiences than your favourite label. Which is why it makes perfect sense for Matty Matheson to do his band with them.

Hardcore kids struggle to understand this, but it’s an easy concept. Just as my puffy-vest mosh warriors can sell out a show without the help of two-stepping greenhairs, Flatspot does not need support or approval from DIY/small room hardcore to make a shitload of money on Pig Pen.

If you’re inclined to conjecture on whether the people buying that record are “real” or “false”, follow me into the dorm room as we round towards stage three of the rollout.

I have a buddy, let’s call him “Pete”. who has been one of my best friends since age 11. He tried showing me Atreyu on the bus in Grade 7, to which I probably replied “get this homosexual screaming music away from me.” I went to my first DIY show with Pete at age 17 — in fact, he told me about it and drove me there. Pete owns No Idea Records vinyl because he bought Fuel For the Hate Game in like 2010 before Rise reissued it. Bro has linked me, numerous times, to crazy punk bands that I’m shocked he found, let alone enjoyed.

Pete never identified as a “hardcore kid” or “punk”, but he’s not the type of Riot Fest enthusiast we think of as a Pig Pen mark either. Pete is what some refer to as a “real one”, except instead of collecting DMU tapes and punching his friends in the face, he collects (REDACTED) and grows asparagus in his front yard. He likes lots of cool shit and some of it happens to be hardcore related.

Despite evading subculture classification, I don’t think “Pete” would mind me calling him a “foodie”. He spent an outsized amount of his youth working in kitchens before graduating to GOAT-tier home chef status. He’s probably watched Parts Unknown more times than he can count. I wanted him to come with me to the Pig Pen show but it sold out in 45 minutes.

He would probably buy Matty Matheson’s LP. Is he a “fraudulent corporate shill” or some guy buying a record in the way you or I might purchase a pair of shoes because they “look pretty cool”?

I ask because the reaction to stage three of Pig Pen is where our hardcore reality starts to fragment. The Furnace Fest announcement made me go from “haha funny show” to “ehh, I’m not the target audience” to “oh wow, they just astroturfed a hardcore band.”

I don’t know much about Furnace Fest. My gut tells me an event with its own community Subreddit and xBEERx branded “adult beverages” doesn’t operate on the same principles as even the big, traditional hardcore fests like Tied Down or Sound and Fury. My suspicions seem accurate, at least from the sentiments of people I know, so I’m willing to guess that like Flatspot, FF is geared to a different audience than the FYAs of the world.

Why is this relevant? Let’s recap. Some dudes with one foot in hardcore and one foot in the music industry started a band on a label who puts out hardcore but gears its promotional materials more to outsiders than the niche hardcore community. This band will get their big break on a festival that books hardcore bands but is not marketed to or primarily attended by grassroots hardcore.

Let me introduce what I’m calling the “one-sided mirror” theory. In my experience, successful hardcore bands come exclusively from hardcore. These folks toil in obscurity until they gain enough traction to receive opportunities from the rock/metal/festival “communities.” At that point, they decide whether to stay in hardcore or take the opportunities and gain visibility in a different space. It’s not that cut and dry, but by and large, this is the model.

Hardcore kids can look through to the other side, but not clearly. The glass is tinted, so while we see things like Pig Pen, the ‘alternative’ publications trying to shill them, or sniveling soyjacks sporting Kublai Khan shirts and Furnace Fest wristbands banging on the glass yelling “let me in, gatekeeper!”, the context in which it all exists is blurry until you cross to the other side. So, historically, we’ve had a general distrust (if not outright disdain) towards things on the other side of the glass.

People over there are looking at a mirror. They don’t see what happens in the hardcore scene, just a finished product and the limited amount of context immediately in front of them. Coachella attendees watching Speed may understand they’re a hardcore band, or come across a Flatspot Records vendor stall and deduce that Flatspot is a hardcore label who puts out Speed and other bands. They can’t, however, see our opinions on Speed, Flatspot Records, or what it means for those things to be at Coachella. Many people aren’t even aware something is behind the mirror watching them.

Which is fine. Before I buy a frying pan, I’ll pick it up and spin it around. I might even look at the specs on the box and Google what they mean. I’m not consulting the Masonic Order of Panmakers who hold a deep belief that non-stick is an ethical abomination and real pan-heads burn their food to metal like the cavepeople of yore. Is it right to equate hardcore with buying a frying pan? I don’t think so, but some crackpots listen to any old bullshit on the radio then act like you slapped their mother if you grill a steak past 136F.

It’s all about perspective. This is where the Matty Matheson discussion gets strange. Usually, hardcore bands who make it “across the glass” earn their stripes first. Same with most of these hardcore “influencers” who cross over into larger spaces. Turnstile spent ten years being one of the biggest bands in hardcore before they got the opportunity to cross the Rubicon with Glow On. The hosts of HardLore played in bands for 15 years, earning goodwill with the community, allowing them to do their podcast on Slipknot’s media empire while having pull in hardcore.

Usually, we get a say in weeding out/choosing who we want to represent us on the other side of the glass. Even bands like Wear Your Wounds and Freya, who were likely ill-advised ploys to sell patches at metal festivals, “earned their stripes” by featuring some of hardcore’s most accomplished musicians. Pig Pen is the first time I can remember where someone successfully used “hardcore” avenues to create a “hardcore” band that is explicitly not intended for hardcore audiences. Maybe Trustkill did some shit like this? Or some Vice News adjacent shit circa 2010? I can’t remember. Any band who took this route before has either faded into the sands of time or been retconned as “real hardcore”.

Which is why talking about Pig Pen specifically is not super interesting. The band will sell through its merch, play dumb shows to people who don’t actually care, and then disappear forever. Or they’ll be good and cool enough for us to pretend/forget where they came from. It’s wack, false, unethical, whatever you want to call it, but in the end, they’re a fake hardcore band playing fake hardcore shows to fake hardcore fans. All of it takes place on the other side of the glass. I don’t see what tangible impact it has on real hardcore except putting stupid ideas in people’s heads.

I’m more worried about some of the folks we thought were on our side who have crossed over and brought the corporate world back in through the door without telling us. Case in point, what the fuck is Neven Eyewear, and why are they giving away “free glasses for hardcore musicians” with a quirky marketing campaing? What’s the catch? I may have been in special ed, but I wasn’t born yesterday.

Hardcore is now so popular that people get paid to not only play it, but talk and write about it full-time. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a job (I wouldn’t recommend it), but the premise is usually that your boss makes you do a bunch of wack shit you otherwise wouldn’t in order to make money for himself and the “shareholders”. If hardcore’s big enough to make money by creating a simulacra on the other side of the mirror, best believe the leeches are trying to get over here, too. What better way than to bait our trusted thought leaders with a shot at “making money doing something you love”?

This is where shit starts getting really obscure. Pig Pen is hardcore’s equivalent to the double-slit experiment that proves reality only exists within your perceptions. It opens up questions like “where is the wall?”, “who is on this side of the wall and who is on the other side?”, “are people switching from side to side?”, “are there people on this side who are only here so they can get to the other side?”, “how do I tell who is on what side of the wall?”, “is there a wall to begin with?”, “am I on the other side of the wall and I don’t realize it?”

This type of unhinged, egomaniacal paranoia really makes you question why Neven Eyewear thought it would be a good idea to “give away free shit” to people like me. It also makes you realize the boundaries of hardcore have shifted, probably forever, and in the wake of a splintered community who can’t determine a consensus reality, it’s an individual responsibility to find your way back around the glass.

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