Interview With Matt Finney (Finneyerkes)

Matt Finney is one half of the duo Finneyerkes, which is about to release their 4th album.Visit their MySpace page or read reviews of their albums.

In what ways, do you think, your new material is different from earlier records?

this is definitely our loudest album. whenever anybody describes our music they say it’s so soft and slow and we wanted to make a complete 360 and try something different. it’s louder, more violent lyrically, but we still have those cinematic roots. it’s a more mature record and it’s a lot more personal than our previous efforts. this is our favorite record we’ve done so far and we’re only hoping to get weirder and make better ones as we go.

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Any non-musical influences to Finneyerkes work? Any movies or literature that particularly influenced you/the band’s sound?

yes! music is common ground but as we got closer as a band and as friends we realized that a lot of other things influence us. art, movies, books, people we know, etc. movies are a really obvious one and we used to put a lot of samples in our songs. we have a soundtrack-ish vibe as well but art is a major one. we’re both influenced by surrealist and their lives make up the backbone of some of our songs. we named one song after Arshile Gorky. we always wanted to make album covers that stick out. ones that become part of the music until they’re inseperable. we hope we’re doing a good job of that. Cormac McCarthy has had a major impact on some of the themes that we write about. we draw influences from all over. there’s no point in putting a fence around you creatively.

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That “Post rock” tag – do you think that your music could be described “post rock” or is it just another meaningless word?

we’ve been called ambient more than we have post-rock but we don’t have a problem with the tag. we could be called screamo or something so we’re grateful to have no relation with that. we’re just making music. you can call it ambient funk if you want, we’re just glad you’re listening :]