It’s no secret that Pop Punk is one of my favorite genres to listen to. Truthfully, I’ve actually only discovered this band yesterday, through a Facebook group, that does a weekly band promotion. Someone tagged me in a post by Matt Isaacs, about his band and I had to check it out.
Today, I’ve got an interview with guitarist and founding member of No, This is Patrick!, Matt Isaacs! If you like your Pop Punk leaning towards the hardcore, fast and fierce side of things, then give these guys a listen! Taking inspiration from bands like Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! and A Day to Remember, with hints of Blink 182, this band is an amalgamation of all things that make Pop Punk great. When it comes to Pop Punk, I simply love it, so if there’s anything I can do to promote it, even in my little corner of the Internet, I will. So I’m done talking, here’s Matt!
Anthony:
Matt, thanks a lot for doing this interview with us today on such short notice! How’ve you been holding up this year, with all this craziness going on?
Matt:
Pretty OK. Thankfully, I’ve got lots of friends and family to talk with. Although, the lack of in-person interaction (not counting day job stuff) is starting to catch up with me a little. Haha.
Anthony:
I’m excited to do this one, as I love Pop Punk and I can’t get enough of it. It doesn’t matter if it’s an old or new artist. Can you tell us a bit about yourselves? Who the members are, and where do you come from?
Matt:
Yeah! My friend Sean and I started this band a few years ago. We’re the two guitar players, and we went through a long period of trying to solidify the lineup, and then we finally met our singer Andrew, then our bass player Henry who brought his drummer brother Truman into the fold, and everything fell into place. We started the band after being inspired by the band Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!, so the core of our sound is heavy Pop Punk and Metalcore, but we all love lots of different Rock, Metal, Punk, and Prog, so that stuff has been making its way into our songs more and more.
Anthony:
What are your musical backgrounds? How you got into playing guitar? Is it something that came naturally to you, or was it taught? Your website mentions Guitar Hero. I know I’ll never be able to play real guitar as well as I can play that game!
Matt:
Well, Henry and Truman come from a musical family, and their lifelong talent really shows. Andrew has a pretty diverse musical background, and actually went to Berklee in Boston for drums and arranging. Sean, I think has the most similar story to mine, I think his might even involve Guitar Hero as well. Haha. For me, when I was in middle school, I was pretty into video games and I used to get gaming magazines every month. One month, I read a particularly enticing review of Guitar Hero 2, and something about the way they described it and the way the little plastic guitar looked, I just really wanted to try it. So, I saved up some money and got it, and at the time I was just dipping my toe into heavy music like Linkin Park, System of a Down, a little bit of Metallica, etc. So, that game was my first introduction to a ton of bands and cemented my love for others, especially Nirvana, Avenged Sevenfold, and Metallica. Eventually, the rush of pretending to play the songs didn’t feel like enough, so I wanted to learn guitar for real. My mom’s boss at the time actually let me borrow his pretty nice Music Man guitar, but I didn’t accomplish much with that, it was kind of intimidating and overwhelming. So, from Middle School through high school with friends, a really cool guitar class at school, and A LOT of YouTube videos, I started to get into being a musician for real.
Anthony:
Well, for someone like me, who’s been listening to Pop Punk since the mid-90s, I can easily hear some of your influences, so I won’t steal this question and let you answer it. Who are the band’s main influences?
Matt:
Oh man, there are so many. I think the initial influences and ones that will always remain are bands like Chunk, Four Year Strong, and A Day To Remember. On top of that, just basically the huge variety of bands we love, from Blink to Rush, to Queen, to Neck Deep, to Haken, Dream Theater, Steven Wilson, and soooo many. But basically, if it’s aggressive, intricate, or interesting Rock band-based music, we probably like it.
Anthony:
Influences for your band or not, who are some of your personal favorite bands and albums?
Matt:
I always say my all-time favorites are Blink-182 and Metallica, because they probably meant the most to my musical development, along with Blink’s side project Box Car Racer. Some bands that have come to mean a lot to me, a little more recently are Frenzal Rhomb, Silverstein, Haken, Neck Deep, and Chvrches.
Anthony:
How did you come up with the name “No, this is Patrick!?” Aside from being one of the most recognizable one-liners from Spongebob, there’s gotta be a story to it, right?
Matt:
There is indeed! The simplified version is that before we thought of this band, some friends and I were joking about starting a band that sounded like Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!, so we needed a name that was a quote like that (from The Goonies), which had punctuation and that kind of thing, and I think the first thing that popped up was that line from Spongebob. So a while later, when we did actually start the band, it was an easy decision to use the name.
Anthony:
You guys released an EP in 2017 and a full-length album in 2019, so you’ve been keeping busy recording (and probably more so now with COVID shutting down shows). That said, can you tell our readers here about both your EP as well as your album?
Matt:
Yeah! That EP is basically just Sean and me, and a couple of frontmen, who more or less ended up ghosting us. We wanted to have some music out there, just to kind of cement the idea of our existence, and also to have something to show potential band members we were auditioning. The main riff of “Storm Coming? Hatchet Coming!” is actually the first riff ever written for us, and actually was a catalyst for us doing this at all. It was written by our friend Ryan when we were all getting really into Chunk, so they really are sort of the jumping-off point for all things Patrick. Then once we had a full lineup of awesome members, we wanted to record all the songs we had written or started to write, and we finished and recorded those songs with Andrew, Henry, and Truman to make the first album. And for this whole past year, even more than that actually, we’ve been putting together our second album.
Anthony:
I can imagine with such powerful and energetic music, that recording in a booth vs playing live could be two totally separate beasts. What do you miss most about playing live shows? What do you look forward to most when you guys get back out there?
Matt:
I definitely miss the community and energy of live shows. We try to be as tight as we can be on the record AND live and then also add extra energy when live. Andrew is the best one at that. Other than actually playing with my friends again, the thing I think I’m most looking forward to about playing live again is getting up and proving ourselves to new people. Also, being in control of how well we play and put on a show to draw in new fans and friends, instead of being at the mercy of Internet algorithms.
Anthony:
One of my favorite questions to ask now, as I tend to get varying answers, depending on playstyle and genre, is what kind of guitars do you record and play live with?
Matt:
For the EP, I used an old Ibanez RG, that I bought from a friend. Then on the first album, I mostly used my Tom Delonge strat, and for the new stuff, I’ve mostly used my Player Series Telecaster. Sean is the king of finding awesome used guitars, and mostly uses a Fender Jazzmaster and his old Epiphone Les Paul, that we call the “Sparkletar” (it has a sparkle finish), but he also has some more unique ones he’s collected and uses like an Ibanez Iceman, a Fender Toronado, and an Epiphone Nighthawk. We use Amplitube a lot for recording tones, and I use a Peavey 6505 live. Sean has a Blackstar head he uses a lot but has also been getting really into his X-Stomp. Henry has a G&L 5 string bass that I, unfortunately, don’t know the model of, and he’s gotten really into using a Darkglass Alpha Omega pedal for tones.
Anthony:
What would be your dream tour to share the same stage with?
Matt:
That’s a super tough one, but right now I’d say being on a bill with Blink (ideally with Tom back and Skiba staying as a second guitar). After that, Neck Deep, Four Year Strong, and Chunk.
Anthony:
What have been some of the best shows you’ve been to?
Matt:
There’s another Nashville band called Fable Cry, that puts on the absolute best shows of anyone I’ve ever seen. In a similar vein, Ghost shows are incredible. Keep Flying is also an amazing live band, as well as Nekrogoblikon. And Warped Tour kinda covers all bases as well. Haha.
Anthony:
Here’s one we ask everyone. Do you collect music at all? Records, tapes, CDs, cassettes, or are you all digital?
Matt:
I don’t know if it quite counts as collecting, but I do like having CDs. So, when I can afford it, I like to support bands by getting CDs, so I can have the highest quality versions of their stuff. Sean also genuinely collects vinyl and all kinds of Hi-Fi media.
Anthony:
How do you feel about the current state of the music industry, with most of it going streaming and physical media, while live shows are postponed? It’s quite a double-edged sword, isn’t it? As a band, you’re able to easily get your music out there, meanwhile literally the entire music scene is doing the same, and don’t get me started on how poorly streaming services pay.
Matt:
I have a lot of mixed feelings and ideas, but overall I’m very thankful for the access we have to get our music out there. It’s insane and amazing that we can see people regularly listening to us in dozens of different countries. The rough part is now, is that even the biggest bands can only be online, it just makes it that much harder to stand out. BUT, my hypothesis or solution is for us to keep building or even rebuilding scenes and communities, so that it’s groups of bands and artists cutting through the noise together, instead of just one or two.
Anthony:
Are you able to tell us about the future for No, this is Patrick! after COVID dies down? Hopefully, some live shows, because I’d love to see you guys at some point. Surely, there’s gotta be new music in the works as well too!
Matt:
It will certainly make it easier for us to continue work on our new album, and we will be playing live every opportunity we can seize. Thankfully, we’ve made a lot of band friends over the last year, so all these shows are going to have killer lineups.
Anthony:
Do you have any advice for any of our readers that may be trying to get into music?
Matt:
It feels odd to give advice because I feel like I’m always frantically trying to figure things out myself, but some things I am pretty confident in saying is to not stop, do what you can to have the best recording quality you can, and ask for help/collaborate.
Anthony:
So, here’s an easy one, where can our readers find your music?
Matt:
nothisispatrickband.com will link you to everything, or you can find us on any social media platform and all streaming platforms, from Spotify to Tik Tok. Haha. I also have my own YouTube channel, where I talk about/with other bands called No, This Is Mattrick!, so come say hi!
Anthony:
Matt, thanks again for doing this with us today. Is there anything else you’d like to add or mention that we may have not gone over missed?
Matt:
I think we about covered it all, sorry for rambling in some of these. I just want to encourage people that are trying to support bands, this may sound silly, but send music you love DIRECTLY to friends and family that you think will enjoy it. Word of mouth, positive experiences, and connections have a far greater effect than likes and retweets.
Interested in learning more about the music of No, This is Patrick!? Check out the link below:
Dig this? Check out the full archives of A.M. Radio, by Anthony Montalbano, here: https://vwmusicrocks.com/a-m-radio-archives/
