A Conversation with Matisyahu – HuffPost 5.20.14

Mike Ragogna: Akeda is your fifth album and your quote about it is, “The record and [that] period in my life deals with madness, listening for and following the inner intuitive voice.” This is a huge project for you.

Matisyahu: Yes. Every album I put out I feel like is going to be huge and I treat it as if it is, but I think this is certainly a shift musically for me into a domain that feels really natural and comfortable. A lot of the experiences I had in my philosophy provided much of the content for the record and it got me out of writing about ideas and instead taking the stories and symbols and making them a little more real, more emotional. So in that sense I think people are going to connect with it. At this point, I think my fans come from such diverse places, and the ones who have really stuck by are the ones who really connect with the words and the depth of the songs. I think they’ll be happy with this record in that sense.

MR: And hopefully they’ll be identifying with the topics and what you went through.

M: I think so.

MR: What does “Akeda” mean?

M: It refers to the story of Abraham and literally it means “Sacrifice.”

MR: How are you able to whittle down what you went through into a coherent project?

M: I kind of go into a creative state where I’m not necessarily trying to produce anything, but my ears are perked up; I listen to a lot of music and see what I connect with, and I try to live my life without any sort of strings attached. As time goes on and I start creating music and listening to it, I find it comes out very naturally; the songs, stories, ideas, lyrics start to flow and I enter into more of a productive process where I start writing a lot. It’s a lot of experiencing/writing, experiencing/writing, and putting it all together in the end. You really craft out the songs and pull the lyrics from different places and put it all together.

MR: Is that where your “inner intuitive voice” comes in?

M: Yeah. When I speak about that voice, I’m talking in reference to the story of Abraham. Abraham hears the voice of God, and it tells him to go do something that’s kind of crazy. I think that following your own path, trying to do what you know is right, correct or true is the experience you need to have to grow and evolve. Not everyone around you will always understand that, and there can even be consequences.

MR: Do you feel that that is the lesson in the story of Abraham?

M: In the religious circles where I was first introduced to the story, it’s sort of looked at as this very glorified thing, that Abraham hears the voice of God, doesn’t question it, and goes right away to sacrifice his son, and how hard that must have been. But then his wife has a heart attack when she finds out, and Isaac goes blind on the mountain, and they don’t really talk anymore after that, in the Bible; there were a lot of consequences to what he did. People thought he was completely crazy, after all those years of not having a child; and he has to go for three days with his son on this journey, and he’s thinking about what he’s going to do. It sort of personifies the story and makes it real, and that’s how I tried to write on this record with regards to the religious symbolism.

MR: This album comes off like an analog album of the past, although it has electronics, etc. Was that the goal? Did you think that would get you a warmer feel, a more personal approach when you were recording?

M: Yeah, I definitely was going for the more personal, stripped back, raw kind of feel to go along with the emotion and the theme of the record. So while we have electronics and programming, there’s not much layering. It gets pretty stark at times. Working with Joel [Hamilton], one of the things he does really well is translating some of the electronic stuff and incorporating the analog stuff. So while I had a lot of the electronic stuff happening with Stu Brooks, who produced the record, I had also put together a group of musicians I’ve worked with in the past, and recorded with Joel and got the rock sounds with the organic feel.

MR: You also brought Aaron Dugan, Rob Marscher and Mark Guiliana into the creative process.

M: That’s correct, that’s the band I was referencing.

MR: On the tracks where you’re featuring a couple of guest artists, how did that come together?

M: I toured with Collie Buddz and Zion I last summer, both of the artists that are featured on this record. So I had a relationship with them after being out on the road with them for a couple of months. I knew a lot of my fans would be excited by a collaboration with Collie Buddz; with Zion I, we were looking for someone to do something on the record, so we sent him the track and we loved what he came back with, so that’s how it went.

MR: In the end, Akeda represents what you went through in the past, but what does it represent as far as your moving forward?

M: A lot of it is about the process that we go through, and the cycles, as we go from record to record; creating a record, promoting, performing, going back in and writing again. A lot of it is about the process.

MR: Your first album was Live At Stubb’s on which you interacted with the listeners. Is that part of your mission as a recording artist, to keep a connection with the fans?

M: Yes. That’s the only way any of us has the ability to do what we do; it’s because of the people we connect with, and the lives that we touch. That’s very important to me. And the meanings that the songs begin to acquire as people begin to ascribe meaning to them, and have real experiences to the music. It makes the songs become multi-dimensional and grow in a way that you as the creator could never do on your own.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

M: For an artist who’s developing oneself and their voice or their artistry, the main thing is just spending time with their instrument, and expression, and living life without getting caught up on figuring out how to do it. I, at one point, was so focused on, “How will I make a profession? How can I do this? How can I get exposed?” I gave in and got focused on my life and my own spirituality and what it was that I wanted to share with the world, my own music and expression; and once I was ready to come out into the world, I felt like the world was ready to hear what I had to say. I think the main thing is to work from the inside out, as opposed to trying to work from the outside in. For an artist who’s already sort of established, I think it’s really the same thing. You have to stay inspired and alive. If you do that and trust your artistry, then you know that you’ll create what you need to create. The harder part is how to stay inspired and in that creative mode.

MR: Are you keeping aware of, or do you just let it be, your “evolution” in your spirituality as you’re moving through life?

M: Yes, and my music is the way in which I’m keeping track of my life, with the exception of Facebook and all the internet stuff. I can look back on my life and say, “Okay, I was here, I was there, this is when I looked like this, or believed that.” But mainly the music is the place in which I’m able to log what is it that inspires me and where I’m being influenced. So when I go back and listen to those records, I can see the evolution, and it is nice.

MR: Is there a point where you feel that artists will start relating more to the spirituality in their own music?

M: I think so. I definitely think there’s a movement now where a lot of people are writing songs that are important to them; there’s a lot of great music out there, and with the internet, it’s definitely easier to access all of them. That’s played a big role in my own inspiration, the access I have to new music that I never had before.

MR: Where is this all heading? Is there a big goal, or are you just living it day to day?

M: I’m always striving to be the best that I can be at what I do, so for me right now, the songs have been created, and thank God; I’m really proud of them. I feel good about the songs, and now it’s about getting them across to the people so they can connect with them.

Transcribed by Emily Fotis