Matt Berry

His voice is ubiquitous and his comedy work seminal. But what many may not realise is Matt Berry has been releasing well crafted, intelligent music for almost a decade.

Music News caught up with him ahead of his new album, Kill The Wolf, and his UK tour this month.

Music News: Hi Matt, welcome to Music News. Now you're about to go on tour...

Matt Berry: Hello. Yes! It’s going to focus on the new album, mostly. We'll do some old songs that work well live, but it's time we saw which of these new ones sound good on stage too...

MN: The new album is called Kill The Wolf. Where did the title come from?

Matt: Kill The Wolf is a metaphor for the good and bad that we have within us, and our ability to keep one on top, so the evil doesn't win. If ever a kid went missing in old English villages, they would blame a wolf, and that's where our evil image of a wolf comes from.

MN: The results sounds like you're inspired by the same sources as traditional folk music.

Matt: I see it as a traditional British sound. There's a vibe in my head, rather than something I'm particularly trying to emulate. Hopefully I can play that better as the years go on.

MN: You released your first album proper almost ten years ago, now. How has your creative process changed in a decade?

Matt: Like everything you do, you get better at the technical side of it. And because I'm playing all of the instruments myself, largely, you have to be an engineer, because there's no-one else to do it when I want to get up at four in the morning to do rhythm guitar...

MN: Is it hard for you go balance your reputation in comedy with your more serious approach to music?

Matt: I wouldn't say I'm a serious musician, because that make its sound like you've got no sense of humour. I guess when my name is written down, the first thing people think of is the comedy shows.

MN: Do you feel the need to challenge that?

Matt: There's no point. If you try to just talk about music, then you look like a dick. But I don't care anymore, to be honest. I'd be doing this stuff even if no-one listened to it.

MN: In the early days, your live shows were still somewhat comedic, but I've noticed that's been toned down over the last few tours. Was this change down to your audience getting used to what you do on stage?

Matt: I think it's because I was the kind of performer that was tempted to give people what they expected. If people turn up to the gigs expecting stand-up, that's a shame, but short of putting 'This is not stand-up!' on the poster, there's not a lot you can do. I don't think it's as big a problem as it used to be. People know the difference.

MN: It must help that you've got a killer live band around you.

Matt: Yeah. I mean, someone like my guitarist, Andy Vickery. He was in my support band on my first tour, and he just shone. It was really obvious from day one that this 19 year old knew what he was doing. He was much better than a lot of well worn session guitarists I knew. That was a pretty lucky find for me. The rest of the band are sort of jazzers, and I was precious about putting anyone else on the new album, but they're all on there because they're so good.

MN: There's also a few respectable guest stars, I believe...

Matt: Yeah, Eric Johnson from The Shins is doing a lot of stuff on it, and I've got Alex Robertshaw from Everything Everything on there too.

MN: What's next for you?

Matt: I'm in the middle of pre-production on my new sitcom, Toast Of London. And I was supposed to be putting out my Music For Insomniacs E out, but Acid Jazz thought it was too 'out there' to come straight after their first album. We'll probably put it out around Christmastime. It's finished, but I'm just waiting for the right moment.

MN: How do you decide when that will be?

Matt: Well, I don't think it's worth putting stuff out for the sake of it. You have to have spent time going over it, which is true of any art, I think. If you're making pots or painting pictures, there's no point flooding people with half arsed product.

MN: You're reissuing your long deleted, much loved album Opium as part of Kill The Wolf's deluxe edition. Was it interesting to go back and revisit it?

Matt: We had to source everything again from scratch, because the original files have gone missing. It's an absolute mystery, because I don't know where any of it has gone, yet someone, somewhere has got a copy of it and is selling copies for extraordinary amounts online. Getting it back out there should put them out of business.

Matt Berry, thank you very much.

You can catch Matt on tour with his band The Maypoles, and support from Pugwash in the middle of May. Kill The Wolf is released in June. For more details, visit www.themattberry.co.uk