Matt Redlich, Producer
We are at our best when we are striving for something that we know we can never achieve ...
A menagerie of art, rugs, tropical wallpaper and vintage lounges and lamps, producer Matt Redlich’s Brisbane studio, Grandma’s Place, sees recording, practice and studio spaces jutting off a 1970s-like wooden corridor. A producer by day, Matt has also just started recording his own musical preferences under the name Surface Paradise. The band has released its first single ‘Red Dress’, which brings to mind late 1980s beach holidays, coconut cocktails and bare feet. This creative side project is another addition to his producing show reel, which includes the likes of Emma Louise, Ball Park Music, Timothy Carroll and Hungry Kids of Hungary. Growing up on a heavy diet of rock ‘n’ roll records and meddling with his dad’s old microphones and tape recorders, Matt first learnt the ropes of a studio at school, before studying a Bachelor of Popular Music at the Queensland Conservatorium. Mixing the creative, indefinable side of songwriting and musicianship with an undercurrent of logic and structure, Matt’s self-taught style sees him tinkering with ideas, messing things up and trying again. At the moment he’s working with local names The Trouble With Templeton, YesYou, Thief Urban and Avaberée, as well as growing Surface Paradise’s set list. The Weekend Edition caught up with Matt at his Yeronga studio to chat inspirations and weekend essentials.
How do you like to start your weekend?
A nice lie-in with chats and cuddles does the trick. Oh and Rage too, especially in the summer off-season.
What’s your favourite thing to do on a Saturday morning?
To hitch the boat on and head to the Bay or Noosa for a sail and swim is about as good as it gets. It’s almost worth it just for that feeling of freedom you have when you hit the road.
How do you like to unwind?
To be honest, by watching QI. A walk while listening to This American Life or Radiolab will also do it.
What are your essentials for a well-spent weekend?
I suppose it’s stating the obvious, but to have a real break from work and responsibility. Though in my job it’s not easy to keep the weekend sacred, so sometimes the weekend falls in the middle of the week. But that can be a plus too, as all the weekend-y places are quiet on Monday, especially my favourite beach spots.
What’s something you’ve been meaning to do on the weekend but haven’t got around to yet?
I’ve been meaning to go for a big drive and explore the little towns in a ring around the dams that feed Brisbane, following my nose and taking the narrow roads as much as I can. My cameras are itching to have a few rolls put through them on such a trip. Wanna come?
What’s your favourite thing to do on a Sunday evening?
A late-afternoon game of lawn bowls at the Ithaca Bowls Club, followed by a home-cooked meal with friends, and perhaps rounded off with some High Definition Media (a film) … well that’s pretty hard to beat, without really getting fancy.
What are you looking forward to next weekend?
I’m definitely going to try to organise some sailing up at Noosa. Hopefully the stars will align and I’ll have a day of heaven doing that. Also catching up with two wonderful friends, one old and one new.
What are you reading at the moment?
I’ve just started part one of Stephen Fry’s autobiography Moab is My Washpot. He is my hero. Before that was Bird Lives! by Ross Russell, a biography of Charlie Parker, which changed my life.
What inspires you?
I’ve been in a particular room for a while exploring its every surface, and where I previously found solid walls I now start to see – to feel – cracks with strange and enticing colors, sounds, smells filtering through and I suddenly realise that a whole other world lies beyond … a new layer of complexity.
What was your childhood dream?
I think it was to own an island, perhaps with a population that I would rule benevolently over, solving all of its problems with my kindness and wisdom. School didn’t really work for me.
What has been your greatest achievement?
I think at the moment it would have to be my work on Emma Louise’s debut album Vs Head Vs Heart, which we finished early this year. It is by far the biggest production I’ve done so far, and the most difficult and the most rewarding. I feel pretty sure I will still be proud of it when my career is ending, even as it is now just beginning.
What is success to you?
I’ll have to get back to you when I find that out …
What are your words of wisdom?
I think in all areas of life, we are at our best when we are striving for something that we know we can never achieve, and yet still we keep reaching for it. If you can be at peace with these opposite forces powerfully working in your life, good things will come.
Only a local would know … careers aside, Brisbane really is one of the very best cities in the world in which to live. I always get a rush coming home from overseas, driving over the Story Bridge and catching sight of the city at Petrie Bight.
FAVOURITE WEEKEND SPOT TO:
Perk up … floating somewhere in the Noosa River.
Relax … on a sailing boat on the Hamilton Reach.
Dine … Yeronga RSL.
Indulge … PJ’s Steaks in West End.
Shop … TITLE on James Street.
Catch-up … Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley.
Be inspired … anywhere in the late-afternoon light with my camera in my hands.
