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Written by Emily Mathis
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Tuesday, 15 January 2008 |
At 25-years old, Matt Costa is already working on his third album: a collection of songs inspired by Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind, the lost art of memorizing phone numbers and "maybe a psychedelic twist because I've been listening to a lot of Syd Barrett." Nevermind his second, Unfamiliar Faces, just came out January. It's this hodgepodge mix of old and new, perception and experience, that is Costa's essence.
Growing up in Huntington Beach, California, he played trumpet and piano, got to school when he could and spent most of his time skateboarding. But it wasn't until he was forced to slow down by a skateboarding accident, a sport he was poised to make career of, that his songwriting talents were catalyzed. Listening to a lot of Donovan and The Kingston Trio as he recouped, he found freedom in music with strong lyrics: "You take all the pieces away from it, you just have the song, and then from there you can put anything you want on top of it; you can build it."
With last year's debut for Jack Johnson's Brushfire label safely under his belt, Unfamiliar Faces is more lyrically ambitious as it deals with "the tendency of people to see the side they want to see of people." It's a habit which, for Costa, creates "a fear or anxiety of what you might really be blocking out." As such the album, whose 12 songs he wrote in one sitting locked in his bedroom, is something of an antidote which can "facilitate the means for people to dig deeper into themselves."
Not surprisingly, Costa sees similarities between his former career of skateboarding and his new one of songwriting. "It's a similar want to satisfy something inside you," he says. "It's like anything: You want to keep discovering that feeling from when you first enjoyed it so you keep pushing yourself."
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 15 January 2008 )
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