Interview with Amber Pacific vocalist Matt Young
By Simay
This is yet another Warped Tour interview, this time with Matt Young, the lead singer of Amber Pacific. He says he can’t get girls in his home town, yet I find that very hard to believe after seeing a crowd of girls reaching out to the stage to grab a piece of him. Read on to find out what he has to say about “Truth in Sincerity,” his influences and their fans.
Simay: You’re receiving positive comments about not changing your sound for “Truth in Sincerity.” How was that decision made?
Matt Young: As a band we always [said], this is the music we want, this is the music we wanna make. And we like it. So, what’s most important is that we like our music. People always want to step outside of the box and take challenges, which is great, but we just wanted to try to do what we were doing, better. And I think that we’re able to do that. And we all grew… I grew as a singer, Will grew as a guitarist, Dango grew as a drummer, Greg grew as a bassist, and we all just made everything a little bit better by the fact of two years of experience, being on the road and being older.
Simay: Now that you’re playing live and putting your souls out there, how does it feel?
Matt Young: It feels great. It’s certainly rewarding and it’s certainly a moving experience for us to have people sing our songs back to us, come meet us at the tent, tell us what our songs mean to them and the times that they have helped them through. And that’s certainly what kept us going even far before we had ever reached any kind of success, even when there was five people singing our songs. It was those five people that were able to keep us doing what we’re doing, trying to get us where we are today.
Simay: The video for “Fall Back Into My Life” looks like a lot of fun. Tell me about it a little bit…
Matt Young: It was actually one of those things where we were scrambling. We were on tour and we needed to do a music video before the record came out. And we did in Florida, where Spring Break used to be for MTV. In Florida, we were on our way to play some shows, so we sent out a bulletin on Myspace, saying, “Hey, if you live in Florida, and you wanna let us use your house for a music video, you all can be in it.” We are certainly surprised with the response that we got; there was a lot of people wanting to do it. And we picked a house… It was pretty much a party all day.
Simay: You randomly just brought kids?
Matt Young: All those fans are big fans. It’s their house. It is not a set house. And so it was definitely good times. It was certainly a full day from beginning to the end, but I think all of them had fun, and we certainly had a good time, and the video turned out pretty good.
Simay: What are some of the contemporary bands that inspire you?
Matt Young: Oh, jeez… Definitely a lot…
Simay: It’s a long list?
Matt Young: Yeah, yeah… The thing for me is the people who got me into this kind of music, starting with Blink [182] and Green Day, and then they opened the door to like New Found Glory, Starting Line and Something Corporate, and all the drive-through style bands. And there’s Simple Plan and Good Charlotte. And those were the people who… When I was in high school, I was kinda like, “You know what? I can kinda sing like these guys. It’d be cool to be a lead singer in a band.” So those are the people who kinda opened up the door for me, and [they’re] the ones I still look up to.
Simay: You’ve been on Warped Tour for a while now, this is not your first one. What are some of the very memorable moments?
Matt Young: Well… This year one of the memorable moments is I’ve been singing “Ohio Is For Lovers” from Hawthorne Heights and going out into the crowd with JT. So that’s certainly something that’s definitely been cool for me, along with playing poker with the guys in New Found Glory and Yellowcard. It’s just crazy to me… We always say to the kids when they come up to us like, “Oh, my god, you must be blah blah.” It’s like, no, I’m just a normal guy, kind of a dork, sometimes, a little bit of a loser… I can’t pick up girls when I’m home. It’s like, we’re just normal people. We keep stressing that to them, and sometimes it’s hard for even us to take our own advice when you’re seeing all these people who have reached these high levels of success, it’s just like, “Wow.” But they’re just normal people, too.
Simay: Are there any crazy fan stories?
Matt Young: No. Whenever I get that question, I always say that there never really is a crazy fan story. You don’t have to be crazy to meet us. We’re so accessible and we hang out so often that you don’t have to do anything to get noticed. We have people come up to us every year and be like, “I have an autograph and a picture with you from the last four years from Warped Tour.” From the last four shows or from whatever… We make ourselves so accessible that if somebody wants to meet us, they can meet us. It’s that easy.
Simay: If you could only pick one band to share the stage with, who would it be?
Matt Young: [Long pause…] One band to share a stage with… I would say Green Day.
Simay: What are you guys doing when you’re not touring?
Matt Young: When we’re not touring, we wish we were touring. That’s about it.
Simay: Last year you joined the ‘Take Action!” Tour to raise awareness of teen suicide. How did that affect you?
Matt Young: The tour is certainly something that we believed in. And it definitely affected us ‘cos we were able to hear a lot of stories about how our music helped a lot of people through hard times and difficulties at this point in their lives where they wanted to end it. And that was part of what inspired some of the stuff on our most recent record. That’s why we wanted to make sure that all the messages in our songs are like, you know what? You’re gonna be alright, and everything’s gonna get better; you’re gonna be stronger to make it through. That was certainly a very good experience for us. And we certainly hope that Take Action! Tour happens every year and we certainly wouldn’t mind [joining it.]
Simay: Someone from your band had said that you don’t like titles like “emo band” or “they’re not punk.” How do you define your music?
Matt Young: It wasn’t me, but we all agree on that. I don’t think any artist enjoys labels because you just like to [think of it as music.] But we do understand that you have to put it into a category. I tend to like saying, if you like New Found Glory, Yellowcard, Fall Out Boy and All American Rejects, you would like Amber Pacific. That’s kinda the best way in terms of my opinion because they all have something different. They all bring something different to the table. You got different types of singing. In terms of what I would classify it as… I don’t know… I would call it pop, emo, rock, punk, you know… Just do them all, a little bit of everything. Listening to our record, there are songs that could be on a New Effect CD. And there’s also some that could be on Panic! at the Disco type CD. [In] our own music, there’s certainly a wide range of musical genres.
Simay: What are you gonna be doing after Warped Tour?
Matt Young: After Warped Tour, we’re heading out with Sum41 and Yellowcard from September 8th to October 8th. And after that we’re hoping that we can work on another touring opportunity. We’re definitely gonna be on the road, and it’ll either be Canada or United States of America. [All of you in] countries like Australia or Japan who always want us to come, you’re gonna have to wait ‘cos we’re not ready for that yet.
