Matt Beard is a prolific synthwave musician whose latest album, Private Investigator, is an excellent soundtrack for an ‘80s crime drama that never actually existed. I talked with him about creating that album, storytelling through music, and networking your way to indie success.
Uncle Funkbeard: First off, who is Matt Beard? Your Twitter bio says, "Synth mostly, for fun only,” so I’m guessing music isn’t your main gig.
Matt Beard: That's exactly it, I work as a security officer at my local university, it's a great job and as I work a shift pattern it gives me plenty of time off to do things I love.
UF: Your Twitter handle is @MattBea47443131. Justify yourself.
MB: To be honest with you, I didn't realize until I started getting tagged in more things. Now I find it quite funny, I like the randomness of it, maybe I'll change it one day. But it means literally nothing except four is my lucky number and it appears quite a bit.
[Note: Matt has since changed his Twitter handle to @MattBeard0 so that people are less likely to autoblock him].
UF: How long have you been making music?
MB: I started making music maybe six years ago, although that was with a guitar and a microphone. It didn't last long and I left it as a fun hobby. Piano and guitar are my main instruments although I sadly sold my last guitar about four years ago now.
In terms of education, I have absolutely zero knowledge. If you put me in front of a piano and asked me to play an F chord, I couldn't do it. I have learned and play by ear, really.
UF: As of this writing, you have over 1,100 monthly listeners on Spotify. How did you build that audience? Was there strategy involved? Did you get featured in the right place at the right time?
MB: I definitely got lucky at points. Synthwave83 featured one of my tracks on her playlist with over 1,000 likes after I took a punt and pitched my track. I also keep spamming daily playlist submissions with the hope my tracks get a place, which has been a little successful. That, along with networking on Twitter and Instagram, which has yielded success as well.
UF: You recently released the instrumental album Private Investigator. To me, the beauty of this album is that I can envision exactly what scene Tom Selleck or Don Johnson should be acting out when I hear each song. What led you to create an entire fictional ‘80s crime drama soundtrack?
MB: Like all my music, it needed a narrative. I can't pluck music out of thin air, I need a direction. I thought it was time to create a new album, so I needed a narrative with multiple avenues and naturally I thought of movies. Crime drama seemed to work with smooth and more upbeat music and from there it was plain sailing.
UF: I particularly like the dispatch audio that opens “The Chase.” How did you get that?
MB: There are tons of archived audio and footage you can deliver and use, try searching on YouTube and going to filters and selecting creative commons. You can use those clips.
UF: What’s your favorite song on the album?
MB: For me it is “Detective Work.” I like the fact I started it so early, left it for ages, almost deleted it and ended up jumping back in and finishing the song, I particularly love the sounds I discovered towards the end of the track.
UF: I know that you worked with Tsokoti to master the album. What was that like? How did you end up working together?
MB: It was a great experience, Tsokoti is a cracking musician with a good ear, he helped me so much in adjusting the music to how I wanted it. We ended up working together after I messaged him on Twitter thanking him as he was relentlessly supporting me and my music.
UF: Who else have you worked with?
MB: On the whole, it's just me and one MIDI keyboard. I've done a song called “Phase” which features the amazingly talented Paloma Camara on vocals. She's an amazing singer out of Argentina and even though she has never sung synth before, she nailed it and was easy to work with. And, I'm currently working with another musician on a song to be released. But mostly it's me.
UF: How would you describe your music?
MB: It's synthy for sure, a mix of mostly chill and more upbeat. Melody and musically driven and with the hope of a story being told or with the ability of the listener to create their own story.
My three main influences are Mark Knopfler, Thomas Newman and Mitch Murder. I like to think I took a piece of each as influence to try and create my own agenda. I'd say Mark got me into song and story writing, Thomas got me into the melodic and powerful music vibes and Mitch got me into synthwave entirely.
UF: What’s been your most popular song so far?
MB: My most streamed song of all time is “Streets of Kyoto.” The track was inspired by a YouTube channel I stumbled across where someone walks through Japanese cities and attractions and I used to watch it to help relax me and help with my anxiety. I used that feeling and the vibe, switched it to ‘80s and tried to transcribe that into a piece of music.
UF: Given your success on Spotify, do you have any advice for other indie artists?
MB: Networking is so important. By that I mean: get on social media, be organic, be yourself and interact and support others, and you'll get support back. Also, I have been fairly consistent in releasing music. Gain a backlog of music you want to release so if you ever get a hit or some traction, you can follow the hype with another release straight away.
UF: What do you have planned coming up?
MB: I currently have two songs ready to be released. I have my latest track, “Concrete Jungle” releasing later this month but it will mostly be EPs and singles for a while.
UF: Are there any genres that you haven’t tried but might like to take a shot at?
MB: Classical music for sure, more specifically music scores like from Hans Zimmer or Thomas Newman. I already have a few songs I've created and I'd love to get an album out. Perhaps I'll create an alias to release them as I think it's even too random for me to place an album like that on my current profile.
UF: You have already released two albums, three EPs and a handful of singles, all just since 2022. What’s driving you to produce all this music?
MB: It's passion, like my motto, “Synth mostly, for fun only.” I do it for fun. Creating music is so rewarding and that feeling when you get something you like – it’s awesome.
