Interview with Mick Moss from Antimatter, 25.10.2014

EK: First question, just for the sake of giving history dive for our readers. Mick, tell us, please – how it all begun for Antimatter? And where the name came out? Short history review, if U want.

MM: I started writing music and lyrics after I had disastrously failed relationship around 1995. I lost contact with my little baby daughter, because her mother left me and tried to limit my access to her. It sent me to a depression and the way I coped was starting to make music. That’s where it started to come out. And I had nothing, I mean, I couldn’t do anything else in that situation. So I started to write music. Couple of years later – Duncan from Anathema, with whom I went to school, used to come to my place to get drunk. I used to play him demos I have made, and he used to play me albums he recorded with Anathema. And one day we just ended up doing similar music. He suggested that we pile our songs together, and that’s where Antimatter came from. Duncan came out with the name.

EK: Ok, that’s nice story.

MM: We were both thinking about the name. I put forward name “Absolution”. It was about the process of being absolved of your sins, redemption-like kind of theme, which I sometimes mention in my lyrics. That was the name I put forward, and Duncan came out with “Antimatter” and we went with it. A few years later, Muse released an album called “Absolution”, so I’m glad we used “Antimatter”.

EK: What was it like to work together with Duncan Patterson?

MM: We didn’t really worked together. I mean, I did my songs, and Duncan did his songs, and we just pulled them together. There was a dividing line between songs we made. Obviously, Duncan did a lot of organizing, booking things, planning things, management, all the business side of music I had no idea about being rookie. We met in a middle on some tracks. He played some part of my songs, I played parts of his song. By the time “Planetary Confinement” came out, we both recorded our songs in different studios and different countries.

EK: What about your days before Antimatter? Tell us something about your childhood and life before the band?

MM: I was just a kid. I didn’t have any plans. Getting stoned and watching TV, wondering what it’s like to kiss a girl. Just kid and teenager. Obviously, I’ve started a family being very young. I was just 17 when my first daughter was born. I did the whole family thing, while my other friends did music. That was my life before music.

EK: Do U remember the first show for Antimatter? What was your impressions?

MM: It was in Ghent, in Belgium. I was so nervous, that I had to take pills. But then, pills weren’t working, so then I started on a bottle of tequila to calm the nerves. And that started a really bad habit of me having a bottle of tequila on stage with me every gig. So I listen back at some performances – it’s so embarrassing. Because I’m just like “Aaaa-uuuu-aaaa” (imitates bad singing) and I’m so drunk, I can’t sing it. I had to find a fine line between not being nervous and still being able sing in tune and not being drunk.

EK: Whose influence was to go into melancholic direction? Or was it just natural way things happened?

MM: Like I said, we both was making music separately. I was making my music by myself at home. We both ended up doing similar things. I’ve written “Over your shoulder” and “Saviour” before Antimatter was a band. And I played that demos to Duncan, they were full demos, with guitars, drums, keyboards, vocals. We just stumbled across making similar music.

EK: What music do U listen on daily basis?

MM: Well, I’ve got my IPod. And there is like 5000 songs, all the songs throughout my life, that remind me of a certain period, because music takes to back, doesn’t it? And makes U feel you are almost back there. So, I’ve got stuff there from when I was a kid right up to modern date. 60^th folk, 60^th psychodelia, 70^th rock, 70^th prog rock, 80^th synth pop and new wave, 90^th grunge.

EK: What do U think of current direction music business is heading?

MM: I think nobody knows which way it’s gonna go. The labels, they don’t know which way it’s gonna go. They are tightening it up, they are not taking gambles anymore. Many years ago, it was like a gamble for record label, they take a gamble on a band and if it works out – they got the money back. And if it didn’t work out, they have other 10 bands on a label, that will probably work out. They’ve got hit somewhere. But nowadays, it’s so easy just to download an album, labels only want a guarantee to return, which is making it harder for smaller bands or new bands to get signed. They are not taking a gamble anymore. The smaller bands have to be in control of their own destiny now, rather than asking somebody else to do it for them.

EK: That’s why U started your own label – “Music in Stone”?

MM: No, I mean, when I started my own label – I was already signed to 2 labels, “Prophecy” in Europe and “The End Records” in North America. I started my own label just because I’d one album of live music and I thought – I could release that and I don’t need get another label to release it. I could do it. It was an experiment also, to see whether I can do it, if I can run a label? As it turns out – I couldn’t.

EK: U released song “Too Late” on that label?

MM: Yeah, but that’s the digital thing, I do not have to worry about physical distribution and production.

EK: Over your career, U have been involved in different collaborations: with Danny Cavanagh, with Beautified Project, and recently – with Luis Fazendeiro in Sleeping Pulse. In 2013, in one of your interviews, U mentioned “working with someone – un-natural, as each and everyone has it’s own agenda”. So, those guys were exceptions?

MM: If U look at cases in question, like Beautified Project, they just asked me to come and sing a song that was already written. So I didn’t have to do any work collaborative, writing anything. So I just recorded my parts. Danny Cavanagh did the same, but in reverse, like I already had the songs written and he just played what I asked him too. I used to sit there and say: “Ok, Danny, this song is gonna go this way (whistles) and he just played”. That said, there were 2 times on “Leaving Eden” when Danny improvised and wrote his own stuff in the end of “Leaving Eden” song and the end of “The Immaculate Misconceptions”, just 2 fantastic guitar solos. But for the rest of time he just played what I asked him to. So again, there was no need for collaboration. And “Sleeping Pulse” with Luis, he does all of the music, and I do all the words, vocals, melody lines, so again – we are not touching each other’s job.

EK: What about Vic Anselmo?

MM: Well, Vic’s great, I love touring with her, she is a fantastic girl. Last night she was sitting exactly where U are now (tour bus).

EK: Do U have any favorite song out of all of your works? Maybe, something significant to U, connected to some feelings/situations?

MM: Well, I have a lot of songs that are personal. I mean, they are all personal, but some of them are much deeper and more personal. The most personal songs I’ve written are probably “Conspire” and “Epitaph”. They are 2 very-very-very personal songs. And U can feel it.

EK: Just wanted U to ask about latest single “Too Late”. Seems like another one, showing a lot of “personal” stuff.

MM: Well, “Too Late” was written in 1997. That was amongst the songs, that I actually played to Duncan. “Too Late” was written before “Alternative 4” was released, between “Eternity” and “Alternative 4”. It didn’t quite sound like now, it’s a little bit slower now, because I’ve grown as a musician and songwriter. I kind of produced the song now with the knowledge that I have.

EK: What is your approach to creating an album?

MM: It just goes song by song, naturally, part by part. But usually I will sit down and pick a guitar and usually, if something is going to come out, it comes straight out. I’ll have a little chorus or a bit of a verse, some lyrics on a hook and I will know almost instantly what this song is about. And if it doesn’t – then I just work on a melody and wait for something to click in my head. Something I’ve seen or I’m worried about or angry about. And that will just come out to lyrics. Album is quite simply a collection of those, that I’ve left long enough, I know I have got enough of them to make an album. And U just begin to shape it. It’s all anybody does, U know, U are always do that as a songwriter. But lately, I’m very much into concept albums, like “Leaving Eden” album was a concept one, and so is “Fear of Unique Identity” and so is the “Sleeping Pulse” album and so is the next Antimatter album.

EK: When can we expect it?

MM: Well, I hope to get it out next year. But U know – I can’t promise.

EK: Do U have any approach for time management? How do U split time between family and music?

MM: Well, I have balanced it quite well. U know, there was a period of time, between 2003 and 2007, when I just didn’t go on tour. I was just a family man back then. And then, my work is obviously based around house, where I have my studio. So I’m around house a lot, when I’m working in my office, my studio at home. So the family is there and I don’t feel like I’m balancing something, it just goes that way.

EK: Your last album “A Fear Of Unique Identity” strikes out as one, going slightly different direction. It is intense, it’s not melancholic even, I would say, and mainline seems to touch a lot of “modern day persona” questions. What changed since “Leaving Eden”?

MM: Well, “Leaving Eden” is a collection of music that was written before 2004. The first four “Antimatter” albums, it was me getting out all those old songs. By the time “Leaving Eden” was released in 2007, I have cleansed the desks of old material, which was all melancholic, it was all written around the same periods of, maybe, 6-7 years, when it was all melancholic. After that I’ve just got little less melancholic and more angry, eager and hungry. Plus I went through this period, whereas I wasn’t too happy about gigs and myself and Duncan performing, when I was far too drunk. And they were all acoustic and that was fine, but for a couple of years, but it just didn’t work for me and I just didn’t feel the weight of all performance on my voice and acoustics. And what I really wanted to do – is just rock out, U know, so everything just came to it. I got caught up doing “Alternative Matter” and it was like 3 discs and DVD and a photobook of 100 pages, that took me an entire year to compile. And all I wanted to do – is a new album, and I couldn’t it, I had all these tons of aggression. And the minute “Alternative Matter” was off the way, I was just like “Bang!!!”. U can feel it in “Fear of…” album, it’s so hungry. But there are still songs like “Here Come The Men” and “Place in the Sun” which are like parts of “Planetary Confinement”.

EK: “A Place in the Sun” – what’s the coded message in the end of that song? Can U tell us a secret?

MM: U just have to play it backwards to hear it. The thing is, I grew up in the era of vinyl, where people could pop it backwards. U can’t do that with CD. That era is lost, but people can get all that stuff if they want.

EK: “A Portrait of a Young Man as an Artist” – can U tell us please what lies behind the idea of that song? Its lyrics caught my attention right away, is it some irony for modern-day musicians? Name, I guess, is inspired by James Joyce’s book?

MM: It’s exactly what it’s about. Going back to period of time, when I was working on demos, it was very-very bad time for me, but I used to go into Liverpool City Centre and check-out bands and music scene. And it was just full of incredibly arrogant people, and it was just really horrible to be around people like that. And I just thought: “Why…What gives U the right to be like that? We are all born equal, all human beings, and just because U play a fucking guitar?” That was just on my mind, that’s where the song came out. And the title – obviously taken from that book. I’m just playing on it, it’s not a portrait of an artist as a young man, it’s a portrait of a young man as an artist, pretending to be an artist.

EK. Last, but not least, our traditional question – what song of yours would U use as lullaby?

MM: “Paranova”.

EK: Poor children, haha. Thank you, Mick, and have a nice show tonight!