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411 Exclusive Interview: Matt Hoopes from Relient K
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411 Exclusive Interview: Matt Hoopes from Relient K Posted by Mitch Michaels on 03.20.2007 411 chats up Relient K guitarist Matt Hoopes as he discusses the new album, categorization and taco shells... In 2004, Relient K released their fourth album and major label debut, MmHmm. The set surpassed expectations by yielding two Top 20 hits and has sold over 800,000 copies to date. On the heels of that mainstream breakthrough, the band recently released their follow-up, Five Score & Seven Years Ago, which debuted at #6 on the Billboard 200 and is already their fastest selling album to date. 411mania caught up with Relient K guitarist and co-founder Matt Hoopes to get his thoughts on the band's latest album and their newfound success.
 Mitch Michaels: Hey, how's it going Matt?
Matt Hoopes: Pretty good, how are you?
MM: Doing fine. Thanks for letting me talk to you for a few minutes today.
MH: Oh, no problem.
MM: I wanted to chat for a few minutes about the new Relient K album. Five Score & Seven Years Ago finally just came out and has scored you guys your best sales week and chart position yet, so congratulations on that.
MH: Well, thank you. That's very kind of you. Yeah, we're honestly surprised and excited to see it go so high.
MM: I was wondering how it felt. When you guys started out in ‘98, did you aspire to be a Top 10 album, gold record kinda band? Did you see that in Relient K's future?
MH: Oh, definitely not. Quite the opposite, actually. Honestly, when we started, we just wanted to put out a record and our goal was kinda to just recoup that record and be able to maybe make another record and be able to tour as much we could and go out and have fun for a couple of years until people got bored of us or until we got dropped. (Laughs) So, yeah, obviously we've been really lucky just to have the opportunities that we've had and the success that we've had. We have a lot of awesome fans and people that really enjoy our music, which is kinda hard for us to understand, but at the same time we're really thankful for that and thankful that we've been given this opportunity.
MM: Yeah, you guys definitely have a devoted fan base and really connect well with the people that you're singing to. So you have done four albums before this together. This new one, how was recording it different from the previous ones? Did you go about it in a different way?
MH: Well, we have a different bass player (John Warne) and an extra guitar player (Jon Schneck) who plays guitar and banjo, keys, kind of extra instruments, so we had to figure out ways to work him into the setup because we'd always done it with just me and Matt (Thiessen) playing guitar. So we had to figure out how to make that work. Also, we'd done all of our other records with my father-in-law Mark Townsend, who kinda gave us our start and helped us out, and this time we went with Howard Benson to produce the record. That was probably the main switch, doing it in L.A. instead of Ohio where we live. We flew out to L.A. and did the record really fast. They had us a lot of times doing guitar and vocals at the same time in different rooms and stuff like that. Just a different recording experience altogether, in a big studio with a producer with a ton of experience, who's worked on a ton of records. I think it was a good experience, looking back on it. We made a cool album and I'm proud of it.
MM: So you were talking about adding a third guitarist. How do you think your sound has changed? Are we gonna be hearing any Lynyrd Skynyrd covers anytime soon with that triple threat guitar attack?
MH: No no, hopefully not. Actually, the reason we added him is there's a few songs that Matt will only play the piano on live, like the first single on our last album, "Be My Escape". I can play it on my guitar, but I feel like it really lacks that other guitar part on the record. So we just kinda experimented with a couple people, friends of ours to help play guitar, and we finally found a good fit. Jon's been in the band a little over two years now. It's been a good time. Honestly, we don't really use it as much as a third guitar effect. Normally, when there is a third guitar, we try to make up an extra part for it rather than have it double one of the other guitars.
MM: Yeah, it really fills out the sound. I was listening to the album and it has some great arrangements and it just sounds so full.
MH: Well, thanks man.
MM: So with the new bandmates and all the experience behind you, how does Relient K go about writing songs now? Has the processed evolved any from the first days?
MH: Yeah, it's kind of always evolving, I guess you could say. When we first started, we'd all just kind of get together in a room and Matt would usually have an idea, ‘cause he's the creative one out of all of us. He would start playing something and we would start playing along, trying to come up with arrangements and stuff to put together and whatnot. But this record, our band has changed a little bit since adding extra guys. Me and Jon both live and Nashville, and Matt and Dave (Douglas) live in Ohio and John, our bass player, lives in Denver. A lot of time what would happen is that Matt would make a little acoustic guitar demo and email it to us. Then we'd all learn it, figure it out and eventually practice it all together and change the song from there. We actually wound up demoing these songs three times because Matt would demo them once and then we demoed them once at my house when we were practicing and then in L.A. when were practicing. They were definitely constantly changing and evolving and Matt was continuing to write more lyrics and add more sections to the songs. It was definitely a different process on this record than the last ones. On the last two records, it's almost been like we would get together for practice and then just go in the studio and kind of figure it out in the studio, whereas here we knew exactly what we were doing when we went into the studio, so we just recorded it.
MM: So, I guess being farther apart made you take more time in developing the songs than before, what with all the different demos.
MH: In a way, yeah, I guess you could say that. It's harder to get together, but when we did get together it was more productive and there was more of a final goal in mind.
MM: Now, when the first album came out, it had a distinct Christian rock sound and tone to it and then the last album. MmHmm, was a little more subtle in its Christian themes. This one, I fell, is less subtle in its Christian themes. How would you describe Relient K today and their place? Can they be categorized?
MH: You know, either way, we've never really had a strong opinion on categorization. Christian music in general is the only kind of music that is categorized by lyrical content and that to me, it's fine that it's out there, but lyrics can sometimes be so hard to…songs aren't always cut and dry, what they're about. Sometimes they are with us, sometimes they're not. We've definitely always chosen to write about our faith. It's very important to us. To be honest, Matt just writes about things that he's going through, just trying to be somewhat honest, but offering hope to people, or what our idea of grace is, for example. Those kinds of themes that are so important to us in our lives. We're just trying to be a positive thing to anyone that's listening. We try to make music that anyone can listen to, whether they be Christians or some other religion or even if they've never had an experience with that. We're not necessarily worried about being categorized one way or another, if people want to call us a Christian band or not.
MM: Well put.
MH: I guess so (laughs). Our Christianity, individually and as a group, is something that's very important to us. I would hope that it comes through in the songs and we look at it as something that should come through in someone's life, whether you're making music or something else.
MM: So, I noticed that the iTunes version of the new album has a cover of "Sloop John B". The harmonies on that are just gorgeous and, with the banjo, it sounds so nice.
MH: Yeah, we did kind of a live DVD session at the Capitol studios and we released a special edition of our CD, which is kind of hard to find. They're around there somewhere if you look around. But it has the whole album and then us doing a bunch of our songs acoustic and we have a cover of "Sloop John B", which was really fun to do. We did the whole thing stripped down with just acoustic guitar, piano and banjo.
MM: So who's the Beach Boys fan in the band?
MH: Definitely Matt, the singer. He's by far the biggest Beach Boys fan. I think all of us are, though. A lot of that comes from Mark Townsend, we all have our appreciation for The Beatles and The Who, Pink Floyd even, just all the monumental rock bands. But the Beach Boys definitely struck a chord with Matt, as far as harmonies and good song arrangements and different kinds of instruments. That kind of got him obsessed with them. And that song, actually, isn't even written by the Beach Boys, it's a traditional song that they were covering.
MM: So, the new record, what would be your favorite song on there?
MH: Probably my favorite song that we've ever done and the one I'm most proud of is the last song, "Deathbed".
MM: Right, right, that's epic.
MH: I think it's really interesting lyrically and musically. It's a story and we're able to show certain things through it.
MM: You guys worked with the lead guy from Switchfoot on that song.
MH: Yeah, actually it worked out that we didn't necessarily work with him. (Laughs) But we're really good friends with those guys, we toured with them several times over the years. They were kind of mentors to us when we were starting out as a band, telling us how a band should operate, really helped us out in that way. We were finishing that song and Matt really wanted Jon Foreman to sing that one part, so he emailed him that part of the track and Jon re-recorded the vocal part and emailed it back to him and we put it on the record.
MM: Last question, I guess you could say it's all been leading up to this: If Relient K was a taco, what ingredient would you and the other members of the band be?
MH: (Laughs) That's kind of funny. Wow, I don't know. I'd probably be the meat I think. Either that or the shell. I'm not too crazy. Me and Matt started the band back in the day, I'm kind of a solid personality, I'm not very emotional. Matt's kind of more the crazy flair to the band. He may be the sour cream. Our personalities, he's just the opposite from me as far as how we deal with people and how we act. We've been friends forever, we kind of even each other out as friends. He helps me loosed up and I help him not do stupid stuff.
MM: Well, that's all I have. Thanks for talking to us, Matt. I wish you all the best and hopefully we'll get to talk again sometime.
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