Beatenberg's Matthew Field: "I try not to allow myself to think about international listeners too much."

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The pop group Beatenberg is making big strides locally and is testing international waters. Frontman Matthew Field answers some questions.

Hello, Matthew. How are things?

Hi. Things are confusing, but I am well, thank you. 


Photo: Ross Garret

Your full-length album The Hanging Gardens of Beatenberg was released recently. Congrats on that. How do you feel about the product? Did you have a general goal or overall feel that you wanted to reach with the album, or how did the band go about putting together the tracks for the album?

Thank you. We feel good about the album. It was recorded over a 6-month period of intermittent sessions at Sunset Studios in Stellenbosch. I wrote the songs and prepared basic project files at home, then we worked into those files as a band, adding and replacing elements where necessary. It's an unusual method that we arrived at only after trial and error. Some of the songs were written two years ago, some were written earlier this year. I think our goal was simply to make the album something that was worth the two years of deliberation and tribulations that preceded it.

Quite a few strong singles jump from the track list, most notably “Rafael”, “Pluto” and “Southern Suburbs”. Do you ever feel, as a young band, that there’s pressure to produce strong singles for radio play, recognition upon hearing, et cetera, or how does the songwriting process work in the band?

The importance of the single is real but also puzzling for me. We are often reminded that we call ourselves a pop band, and what kind of pop band doesn't have radio singles? At the same time, I'm essentially an intuitive (song)writer, and the idea that certain songs (and not others) have a special external objective and attendant constraints, as would be the case if one consciously set out to write a “hit single” for a record, gives me some trouble. At the risk of contradicting myself, I must confess that I don't fancy myself someone who can really write to demand in that way. So I feel that the singles we have had radio success with have been in some important sense strokes of luck (as opposed to strokes of genius). So yes, there is pressure (from where, though?) to deliver hot material, but for me, knowing the way I work, a radio single, to stand a chance of being any good, must be written first and foremost for the same reason I wrote my very first song: an inexplicable reason, a private reason. This struggle between private and public forces, in its explicit and less explicit forms, seems to be an essential one to the writer.  

There are a lot of distinctly South African lyrical references and musical influences on the album. With an international tour in mind, does Beatenberg consciously try to keep these references and influences in the music? Where do the influences come from for the respective members? How do you balance the allure that these influences offer for international listeners with the need to keep it accessible? 

You mention balance, but not the right one, I don't think; there are more important balancing acts to be done than that between allure and accessibility. But I won't get into that. I spoke about an “inexplicable reason” in the previous question. It would make life easier to simply say that whatever conscious decisions, and all their justifications or lack thereof, I made in writing the songs that now suggest “South African influences” were subordinated within that inexplicable reason. I try not to allow myself to think about international listeners too much. I think some writer once said you should “write as though you are writing to one person only”, and that makes sense to me. As a response to your question, I offer a kind of inversion of this rule, that you should write as though you are writing as one person only. 

Speaking of the influences of the members: on  Beatenberg’s Facebook page the band proclaims that though there’s a great love of, among others, Beethoven and Debussy in the band, you consider yourself to be a pop band. How did the band move from tertiary music studies to the pop scene? Was it a conscious decision to apply these passions to the more “mainstream” music scene, or how do you view this particular evolution?

This answer is very simple: I moved into the pop scene because I was far better at writing songs than at symphonies. But I still haven't abandoned any hope of making some sort of offering in another idiom or discipline, and neither have the other guys, I don't think.

Many young bands are disillusioned by the nature of the local and international music scene soon after entering it. How have you guys experienced it? What are the strong and weak points of the South African live music scene? What do you dig about it, and in which respects would you like to see some change happen?

Disillusionment is a necessary but fruitless experience. Phases of disillusionment should be brief, concise. We've had them, and I am sure we will have more as we progress. Right now I can't speak much about the international music scene, but I must say that the South African music scene has been good to us. The response we've had from across the country over the past year has been an amazing thing for all of us. As far as live music goes – and this is almost just selfish, but not quite – I'd like to see more thriving venues with good sound, and more of a place for “pop music” played on real instruments.

Beatenberg is a relatively young band, but you’ve played your fair share of gigs and festivals around the country. Care to share some of the highlights thus far? Surely it’s not all good – any places you’d rather not visit again or instances you’d prefer to forget?

This year we went to Mauritius and played on the beach. We played at the  MTV Africa Music Awards in Durban. We also played a few really intimate shows which were good for us, and our album launches in Joburg, Durban and Cape Town were some of the warmest and most rewarding I've experienced. The ones I'd prefer to forget would be better forgotten without being recounted here!

What does the near and far future hold for Beatenberg?

I'm most excited about making more albums and music and stuff. We also plan to travel. Next year we're playing at the Jazz Festival and at Kirstenbosch. In 10 years maybe we'll be record label executives (only kidding).

What is the meaning of life?

2.

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