A few months ago, we had the pleasure of traveling to Gainesville to see Self play as part of UF?s homecoming celebration. The next day we caught up with Matt Mahaffey, Self?s frontman, here in Jacksonville. The young man had an easy countenance that makes it hard to place him as a rock star, and an energy that belies his heroin-addicted look. Mahaffey is thin, with wide eyes and an effortless smile. He wandered into the club that night in a worn t-shirt and a beanie covering his nearly clean-shaven head, with a beer in his hand. We settled into a booth in the back and began talking about the artwork on Self?s first album, Subliminal Plastic Motives, as well as on the recently released Breakfast With Girls.

Breakfast With Girls was kinda based on a movie called The Party, by Peter Sellers. Did you ever see that movie? When that movie was originally released, they had all these big lobby cards that they used to promote, instead of big posters and trailers on television and stuff, they would use lobby cards which are just big pieces of cardboard that are really cool looking, you know, and he had all these different lobby cards from all these really old 60?s movies, so we kinda lifted that, kinda went with that vibe and color scheme, you know, and tried to make it look like a fictitious movie.

isn?t there?



the best part! We?ll hook you up with one. I think we have, like, four copies left.

that you were ?the best band in the world."

just walks up to you and is like, ?I?m Joe, I?m gonna introduce you guys tonight. What do you want me to say?? I?m usually like, ?Tell them that you?re gay? and that you?re not wearing underwear.? I guess I was just in a good mood last night. ?Just tell them that we?re the best band in the world and that we play the best music and that the streets will run red with the blood of the non-believers.? He was like, ?Oohhhhhhh-kay.? I?m really amazed he remembered. That guy was actually a nice guy, so I?m not dissin? him.

live-show virgins before last night.

one?s drinking or smoking, you know? I mean, that?s a big part of our show. It was weird. Did they even have anything to drink? Could you get a Coke or something?

playing outdoors; I hate playing festival type shows where they have twelve bands and you have to throw your stuff up there and be like ?woo-woo-wwooooaa? and get off of the stage and we have so much gear that for us to do little shows like that, we relate it to building the Eiffel Tower, and saying ?This is the Eiffel Tower? then bringing it all back down again and leaving, you know? And that?s no fun. So outdoor shows, and shows where you have nothing to drink and you?re parched the whole show watching the band, it?s just not enjoyable to me. I mean, we had a good time playing. We went down to the little food court and drank a lot of Red Stripe? that?s about all we could find, to get intoxicated.



Blair Witch Project.

day before, you know?



stomach.

came out, so I knew nothing of it, and you know, there are snuff films where they rape people and then kill them. I mean, I didn?t know it wasn?t real, you know. Except for, the only question that I had, I mean I was scared to death. It honestly was very scary to me, and I was with my girlfriend and when I?m with her everything?s real, cause she gets so scared so easily? but my only question was, how did she get so many batteries for her camcorder? One of those backpacks must have been full of batteries. I was like, man, this can?t be real. My friend let us stew for about fifteen minutes and then let us know it?s not real and I was like ?Thank you, God, Thank you.?

Cracker, and we got home and I had a bunch of messages on my machine, one of which being the one that we put on the record, and it turns out it?s this little Marilyn Mansonite girl who likes to dress up like Marilyn Manson. She was?

and kind of taken my name out of the phone book. You know, I didn?t think it?d be a problem and then I started getting phone calls like that. I got a call from a girl who said ?Why do you keep writing songs about me? Your lyrics? I?m dreaming them and you?re writing them down.? I talked to this girl for like, an hour, and I was so? I wasn?t like weirded out, it was a ?this girl is crazy and I?m digging talking to her? kind of thing. But that?s probably the weirdest phone call that I?ve ever received, for somebody who just knows the music and not really me, didn?t go to high school with me or something? pretty fruity!

this record, and we had a bigger budget this time so that instead of trying to make strings happen with, like one string player overdubbing a million times, we had actual string sections come in and we would write our parts and have someone orchestrate the parts and conductors and that was awesome. In Nashville it?s so cool, because there?s more studios there than anywhere in the world, tons of people. There?s The Nashville String Machine, which you can hire out all these players and they just read the music and knock it out and you can be like, okay I want the violins to do one more part an octave higher, and it?s there. It?s really awesome. So we worked with a bunch of people. I got to work with Ken Andrews, from Failure, which was awesome, and that was fun, and I got to do some recording at home. It turned into, like, a big thing where we would do different sections of a song in different studios. Like, you would have a different drum kit on the chorus of a song that was recorded in an entirely different month, entirely different studio, and it?d break into the bridge and you?d have a whole new section of the song recorded in another studio with different engineers. Like, What Are You Thinking has six, seven different engineers on it and it was a lot of tracks, and it was all analog, and we had a digital machine on a couple of tunes, like a 48-track digital machine, so we would have the machine room looking like an eighteen-wheeler. It was a 48-track digital machine running, and two 24-track two inch machines running at the same time and Hugh Padghem, who came over from England to mix our record, got really pissed off because of that, because when you?re dealing with a lot of machines locking up together, it takes awhile. It takes three or four seconds, so he?s sitting there working on a mix, working on one particular section of the song, he?d have to rewind the tape, and they?d have to all catch up with each other, and you?d have to stop it, and then they have to press play and you get one machine rolling, so you get a vocal going ?a-la-la-la-la? and then here come the drums because the second machine came in and here comes the bass? then the guitar and the samples because you know? There were several times during the mixing process where I would be sitting in the back of the room and Hugh would be sitting at the board, and he?d turn around and give me one of these (looks menacingly over his shoulder), you know? It was great. He?s totally English. He has to have his tea at the same time every day and he drives his Ferrari. He?s living la vida loco? ca? lo-co-ca.

Richard Dodd on this record who is? He did Armchair Theater and George Harrison, Tom Petty, and he?s wonderful. Very, very, very sweet man, very English. And Richard Dodd really made? all of my favorite sounds on the record, Richard Dodd got for us, you know? He?s a genius and we really got along in the studio, had a good time working together.

not as singles, not as trying to get our fifteen minutes of fame. I just view it as like, a listening experience. I kinda felt I wanted to make a record where, from start to finish, you listen to it like that. It?s a lot to ask of people these days? people don?t have a lot of time, they have jobs and stuff, you know. I realize this, but this record was originally eighteen songs and they kept chopping and chopping and chopping it. I?m kind of glad they chopped it down so it could be? still viable, still kind of a whole work instead of being way too long and, just, I don?t like listening to long records myself personally, and I decided I wouldn?t subject the world to that either.

to have eighteen tracks ? double vinyl.

and be like, ?Where?s the vinyl? Where?s the vinyl?? and it?s like ?Call the guy in the next cubicle,? ?Where?s the vinyl? Where?s the vinyl?? We have to stay on their ass about the vinyl because it?s not a viable product to record labels other than to deejays and, you know, techno music?



the industries best kept secrets. Why do you think you don?t get more radio play?

Motives) and it was like? When you deal with modern rock radio and the big radio stations, you go in and meet the guy real fast. He knows nothing about you; he doesn?t care about you. Or maybe he does? I don?t know what it?s like for Korn or Limp Bizkit when they go in there. I?m sure that they throw rose petals in front of their feet and stuff, but I just? On the first record, we made a rock record and they would be playing Guns?N?Roses and then Self, you know? The whole time I?m thinking, man, this is not me. This is not right. I don?t feel comfortable with this at all. So I did Half-Baked, which was? It had no guitars on it and was more sample based and more like where I?m coming from. And Zoo sunk a million dollars into promoting Subliminal Plastic Motives to the industry, to all the little magazines, and like, Billboard and all the industry magazines that you get that have the radio ratings. All the statistics magazines knew who the hell we were; we were on the cover of all of them. But they didn?t promote to the people that buy Self and actually listen to the music and enjoy it. They promoted it to all of the people that got it for free. We got a lot of radio play and it was great, but at the same time, I wasn?t quite ready for that, and so we did Half-Baked, and that was a little more low key, down low, on our own label, Spongebath. And KiDDies went number one on several stations across the country without any money sunk into promotion at all, just by sending them a cd and them being like, ?Ha ha? What a funny little song. Let?s play it.? Then they got calls out the ass, but they wouldn?t play our first record because people were trying to shove it down their throats. But they dug KiDDies and they played it, and that was nice, and this record, I just? didn?t really cater to today?s sound I guess. I don?t listen to the radio anymore, cause I just don?t enjoy much on it. I like Len. I think that song is great. I think that?s awesome.

on it.

Dibbs? He?s a deejay. Supposedly, he?s on the same label as them or something. We have a side project called Deadly Origami, which is us just dorking around with rolling space echoes and beats and a friend of ours in Nashville put on this giant show with all these killer, killer deejays and Dibbs was there. Mr. Dibbs scratched over our Deadly Origami and I have it on videotape, and it?s excellent, it?s really cool. And I had no idea who this guy was, you know, I just though he was a dee-jay, and he gets up there and just blows my mind. We were all going bananas, and then I read somewhere that he?s like involved with Len and he has a whole bunch of twelve inches out. I?m a big fan of his now. When I was performing with him, I didn?t even know who he was, and now I?m his biggest fan.

is really cool, too. You did a little Biz Markie last night, in the beginning.

had Cold Chillin? on the cassette I would buy it, cause I trusted them with my life. You gotta hear the Call Florence Pow record. I can play some for you in the van if you are interested. It?s dope. I?m really really happy with that.

time. Live, and it was great and their record is great. They are really bizarre? that?s all I can say about Knodel. They?re cool guys. They got a great record.

Features coming out?

gonna be recording at my house, supposedly whenever we got off the road and I did 2 songs with them before I left that turned out really well and they were really digging it, so we might be doing a record at my house and just pitching them to a label other than Spongebath. Try to get them a deal, so they can get some money and get some gear and buy a van and get on the road, you know, so they?re playing around town. We just played with them on Halloween. They have a whole new batch of tunes that are just incredible, and they?re a four piece now. They used to be a five piece. They?ve had some personnel changes. They have a new drummer that is incredible. They?re just a great band. You have to see them if they ever come down here.

for anything.



gonna do an independent Katies release with them. Did they tell you about that at all? It?s one track. The entire record is one take all the way through with bong hits in between and breaks for tuning and whatever is required.

like, I?m gonna put all these tunes in a cd just so I can listen to them and I can have them in case all my DATs are corrupted or my house burns down, and I gave one to Rick at Spongebath and it started floating around and the next thing I know it?s on the internet and kids are downloading it and yelling out all the sings at shows and we?re like, yo man, those are just tunes that were like dorking around with. Like Titanic? I was standing in line to see the movie and I was singing the Pixies and my girlfriend was like, ?Shut up, what are you doing?? Then I just went home and in 30 minutes just wrote that tune and kids love it. And when I first got the Weezer record, I was like dude, The World Has Turned is Gigantic, that is wrong, so wrong! Not to dis Weezer, because Weezer was great. I think The Rentals are pretty serious now, but I think Weezer was awesome. They were a great band ? Go Weezer!

and I have footage. I used to carry my handicam with me at all times and I have footage of James just poppin? and lockin? on Bourbon Street at that place? What is it called?? I don?t remember. I?m an idiot. Anyway, I have footage of him breakdancing. I had borrowed a vocoder, like an actual keyboard vocoder, one of the original ones and wanted to use it, and just wanted to say motherfucker through it. When we were touring for the first record, we did it acoustic a lot on radio stations. We would always have acoustic instruments and we would always play that tune? There are probably some tapes of that floating around somewhere. That was a more interesting version of it though.

contest?

on DreamWorks, which is understandable. But that song, Trunk Fulla Amps is coming out on an independent label, which is Spongebath, and we?re doing it all ourselves, you know, DreamWorks isn?t handling it, at least not as of yet, so we thought that would qualify, so we had a video made for it and what we?re gonna do is put it on a DVD cd so you can get the video footage with the album. You know still shots, maybe interviews and stuff. I just think that?s the way to do it, if MTV?s not going to play music videos besides Puff Daddy and stuff, then make DVD cd?s and just have your album and spend your video money and the kids can own the video instantaneously. Like, ?Oh dude, this has the video for this and this and this...? and you can have them and listen to them whenever you want.

There was a big debate over whether we should put the toy instrument version of Suzie-Q on the record or the one that we redid full band style and I did not want the toy instrument version on the album. I wanted to make a toy instrument album and that be that. And I hated the version that we did, so I wasn?t going to put it on any album, but we redid the song and put it on Breakfast With Girls and I was like that?s it. Mike Simpson of the Dust Brothers did a remix of the toy instrument version, which was really cool, but I didn?t want to put it on our album because it was the toy version. So, it didn?t get used for anything unfortunately, at least not yet. It might be somewhere. It's a cool version. I mean it?s neat. But we just haven?t used it for anything yet.

formerly known as) Prince.

painstaking process to get his drum machine sounds, like on 1999 and Purple Rain and Sign of the Times, all my favorite Prince albums, but I recently scored the drum machine that he used, which was the original LinnDrum. There were only 600 of them made and I got one and I call it the Prince-o-later, because it has every single sound that he ever used - Raspberry Beret, When Doves Cry. It has pitch for every sound. If there was one question that I could ask Prince, it would be ?How do you program the LinnDrum?? I can?t figure it out. I don?t have the manual. It?s very old and it didn?t come with a manual. ?How do you program the fucking LinnDrum, Prince??

tons of vintage music stores that specialize in nothing but dope gear. I found one that used to belong to a producer guy and now it?s all mine. Prince is still a genius and all, but all of his drum sounds came from this little black box. I?ve narrowed it down. The hero factor? this magical guy singing in front of a little black box? it?s definitely falling fast.

my mind. And as you can see? well?. (has cigarette in his hand)

ask to breathe in that place, (Whispers) but we were rock stars and smoked anyway. No, it is about smoking, andd I thought that maybe would cure my disease of being addicted to them, but it didn?t.

former drummer of Fl. Oz. wrote. He?s kind of legendary for his songs. He writes the coolest songs in Murfreesboro. It?s about Lou reed, supposedly. Everyone has a different version of it. His original band Speak had the best version of it, and the Fl Oz had an incredible version? The Features were the only band to actually put the song out. It was a hidden track on their EP, and we did our own little version of it, which totally changed the chords of the song. Everybody had the same chord progression, and everybody?s was just heavy and I was just like, ours is gonna be Hey Lou light, so that?s what we did.



Sucks, and they cover The Uno Song, which is really cool. I haven?t heard their version of it yet, but I?m gonna hear it when I get home.

got married and the bass player is joining the French foreign legion. For real, he?s learning French and running three miles a days and doing two hundred pushups and he?s huge now. He?s in the best shape of anybody that I?ve ever known, and he?s just totally dedicated. He just feels a calling like, ?I?m gonna go get some aggression out in France.? Hey, to each his own, and I?m sure he?ll be the best in his class or fleet or whatever it is. We?ll miss him. So right now, Seth is doing this thing called Moonie and the Johndogs, and what they do is get up and play a whole Beatles record from start to finish every time they play. It?s pretty amazing. Seth is one of the most prolific songwriters that I know. When I was playing drums in his band, that?s how I learned to write songs, is by playing with Seth. He?s one of the first people that I met and clicked with when I moved to Murfreesboro and he?s kinda the guy who?s lived there forever and just knows how to write a song, you know. I?m really curious to see what he?s doing with this new group. If I wasn?t doing Self I?d probably still be playing with Seth? definitely, without question.

other than some of the places that we went through today here in Florida. I basically got out of there as soon as I could drive and went to MTSU which has a really good recording program, and realized that it was something that you can?t learn in a school. I got out of there and started doing my thing.

actually, that program, I hate to dis it. It?s gotten a lot better since I was there. It?s gotten a lot better teachers ? I had some shitty teachers when I was there, and just a bad time, you know, I?m glad I got out of there when I did and didn?t waste my parents money.

it?s such a cool music school and everything and then you leave the school and you form a band and you get out of there or you get something going or something? but now it?s getting to be where the scene? where people are moving there as bands. This group The Comfies just moved there from DC, and every time I go home it?s like, ?Man, you gotta go hear this new band. They just moved here from New Zealand.?

like to think that it?s like conglomerating? we started a sound there and there?s a lot of great bands there ? Glossary and a ton of other bands that have a really unique sound and it?s more geared towards good songwriting and that?s probably stemming from being so close to Nashville where the song is so important... not that they?re really into writing good songs these days, but originally, Music City was about good country music. And now it?s more about get your mansion and wear a cowboy hat and try to cross over into a Disney movie. That about sums up Nashville. That?s why everyone lives in Murfreesboro.

about individuals using ecstasy. What are your feelings on that drug?





is like psychedelic or whatever. I?ve just never had the opportunity or. I?ve never taken it. But you know, it?s not REALLY about people taking ecstasy. That song is more just about a guy and a robot having sex and having a child that is a rave kid, you know. I really don?t know what the fuck it?s about, you know what I'm saying? It?s just about the whole rave scene and techno scene and how everything is so categorized like ?It?s dub-house? No, It?s jungle-dub-house? No, it?s emo-dub-jungle-house-techno-rock with a country tinge? You know, whatever the fuck, I don?t give a fuck. I was just pissed off and had a cool ass bass sample that I chopped up and thought I would talk about ravers cause there was some kid was handing out fliers that day like, ?Dude come to this rave. DJ ECSTASY is gonna be there and he?s gonna be spinning some techno-house-dub-magical-twist-emo and you?re gonna freak out!? and that was my topic. Nothin? wrong with being a club kid, I mean, I?m a club kid, but you can only stand so much 180-bpm music in one dosage. I know guys that take acid and listen to that shit all day long, like in the afternoon. How do you listen to that in the afternoon? Man, come on. Get over it. I mean, that?s why disco was so popular. It was slightly faster than the heart and it would give you energy and that?s fine but don?t be pushing your shit on me and ...I don?t know.

should listen to Breakfast With Girls on acid.

of times and I?ve never taken a whole hit of acid. The first time I ever took acid was before school one day and that was probably the weirdest experience of my life and the next two times were really fun. I was in college and we were all just running around the campus naked going ?Woo!? but I would love to listen to that record on acid. It?d be great. It?d either be great or it would kill me. When I listen to my own stuff on any kind of drugs I usually get really emotional. Not emotional like I cry and stuff, but I just get like, ?Oh, I?m a failure and this sucks. This is the worst crap I?ve ever put out,? or I get like ?I?m God. I?m Zeus. I?m Elvis!? or something.

Ones off Purple Rain, and that?s fun. That?s way fun. And then we do Sour Times, by Portishead, which is fun, and sometimes we do Failure tunes because we?re big fans, and they broke up, so that?s legal. It?s usually not legal to cover bands that are in your sort of genre. We wouldn?t come out going ?Every mornin? there?s a halo hanging??

sometimes. It just depends on the vibe.

version of it. Yeah? just take the whole Cardigans mentality of that Black Sabbath thing; just take the whole song and totally misconstrue it. Take a hardcore song and make it light again. Bring the sunshine out? I?m all about sunshine.



the time we broke up. I had a bunch of songs that I was writing for Ella Minopy that Seth would never play because he writes like five songs a day and there?s never room for anyone else?s stuff. He?ll bring in five songs and you?ll think they are the best songs that you have ever heard and you won?t even play him what you just wrote. I had all this stuff and I was really into sampling and I just didn?t know what to do with it so I just started making songs and I would play them for friends and they would come over and I?d be like, check it out. People would tell me it was great stuff and Richard, who started Spongebath, started shopping it around and we had a couple of labels courting us at this extravaganza and it turned into a nice record deal with Zoo for a year and now DreamWorks.

keys on that and some drums. And there are these kids from Atlanta that I might be working on. I had a call from a producer today that wants me to work with him, and this band Fleshpaint out of Canada, I just put down drums on their entire record. I?m going to produce a Features record and the Katies record, and I just did the Call Florence Pow record. I just did two Count Bass-D 12-inches. I do a lot of work for Spongebath. Count?s doing great. His 12-inches are pre-selling. I love working with Count. Hmm? is there anybody worth namedropping here? I might be working with Marvelous 3 and Jimmie?s Chicken Shack cause we did some touring with them. You never know.

doing right now. I don?t know if they?re touring around. They?re still finishing their record. They are very picky in the studio and they are being jerked around in the process. I have no comment on that I guess. It?s a good record. I?ve heard the whole thing and it?s about as radio-friendly as you can get, especially right now. I think that they should just quit all the political bullshit and put it out and make the money that you plan on making off it.

movies. I wanna do music for movies. I just submitted something for this movie that?s coming out on DreamWorks and I got positive feedback today. It?s for the end theme of the movie. Hopefully they?ll use it. I can?t really say what it is, because they probably won?t use it but if they do then I?ll email you and be like ?I GOT IT!? That?s a lot of fun because you don?t have to sing on it, its just music. I want to do some video games too. I totally want to do some video games. I don?t it to be just like the new Tony Hawk game? I wanna do like, the N64 games where when you?re standing in the scary world the music is all scary and when you walk into the snow world and it turns into sleigh bells. I want to do some kooky stuff like that. I play video games and I just make these little beats that I like to listen to when I play video games. Like Kill The Barflies. That was originally intended to play games to and it ended up going on the record. So sometimes something positive comes out of it. Video games are good.

know where you got that. I have a short attention span if a lot of people are asking questions at the same time, but I think I?m a normal person usually as far as? I don?t have ADD or anything.

and I won?t have a chorus so I?ll just leave it blank than I?ll come back and have a sampler and then I?ll do the bridge on drums and my bass guitar. That to me keeps it fun, keeps it interesting. I just don?t want to be a rock band. I don?t want to be a rock band. I want to be all things to all people. I want to please everybody all the time. They say you can?t do that, but it?s what I?m trying to do and I?ll probably die trying. I?ll probably end up in the gutter. I just like music that keeps my interests like that. A lot of people compare us to Mr. Bungle. Our stuff is way pop music, I mean it IS pop music. It?s very friendly pop music. They say, ?You must be a big Mr. Bungle fan.? I?ve never really heard Mr. Bungle. I think Mike Patton is a genius, I think Faith No More is really good and all that, but it?s amazing the influences that people come up to me with. I get guys who say ?Dude, you listen to Zappa all the time.? No I don?t. I just have a lot of shit in my house. It?s all in a circle. I just go around and play stuff and that?s how it happens. I don?t know, to me that?s more fun than just sitting down and writing a Johnny Cash song. I don?t know, maybe when I?m forty or fifty I?ll change my ways, just sit down with a guitar and make a super simple song and I like listening to simple music, but right now I like playing with all my toys and that?s the way it goes.

get away with the whole melting pot of everything, just with a little more Jellyfish in it instead of the blues and slide guitar. But I love Beck. I think Beck is awesome. I think he?s the Elvis of our generation. Beck rocks.

nothing about the industry and I was sitting in this lawyer?s office and he was giving me the ?Kid, you got talent? thing and I was just sweating my balls off. I went home and wrote that song, because I was predicting the future, thinking that if I get a record deal I?m going to have to be an artist and do all these things that I wasn?t ready to do and I haven?t been exploited. Not like Sugar Ray or N?Sync. They have to do shit all day long, like interviews or posing for trading cards and shit. I?m just like, dude, I?m not ready for that. I don?t want a Self trading card. I want to make albums; I want to make art. If we have a hit song, it?ll be great, but it?ll be in due time.

Is there a reason for that?

Marvelous 3 and I saw that the Shack was playing there the nest night and I left them a note. Like Hey man, let?s hook up. Why don?t you put us on your tour? They called us the next day and Jimi Haha was like, ?Dude, you changed your number. I wanted you to produce our next record!? I was like, ?Dude, you got it. I?m in.? So, we?ve been touring with them and they are the coolest guys. When you?re touring around, that?s what it?s all about. It?s like being in the army. If you can be in the barracks with people that you actually like, then it?s a good time.

slooooottttttttt? Nah, I like Filter. I played with Filter before. They didn?t talk to us or anything, but we played with them. We played with Filter and Korn.





45 minutes? We?ll check both of you out in Tallahassee.

it all comes out? PiG Publications in the house. That?s a nice mike you got there. What?d you spring for that, like ten bucks?