Matt Doll is no stranger to music. With over 20 years experience in the Australian music scene, and featuring in a number of bands, he is now back with his newest offering, a solo EP called Night Flight.
When Doll couldn’t get the members of his other bands together all at the same time, he decided to write and release this new music under his own name, as a solo project. For his four-track EP, he had been working on two of the songs for a couple of years and the other two were brand new.
“It’s got elements of early ‘80s new wave and some of those sounds, but I mix it up with having 12-string shimmering guitars,” he explains of the new EP. “It’s got kind of dark themes, themes of death and stuff but also with beautiful melodies and an uplifting sound.
“A lot of it comes from the subconscious actually. I think it’s about losing people, through parting ways. Also my dog passing away was a bit of an influence as well, because she was there when I was creating a lot of music.”
Matt Doll will be celebrating his new EP for Chapel Off Chapel’s new Summer Sessions series, a place in which he’s never performed before, making him feel both a bit nervous and excited. It gives him a chance to not only showcase his new songs for his fans but play some of his back catalogue, playing The Mavis’s music in different forms, some songs on piano and some synth-driven stuff to vary the night up.
“I’d love to see some Mavis’s fans come out and hear some of the older songs in the way that I’m performing them now and also the new songs and what I’m doing now and how they fit together,” he says. “I’d just like to have fun and lose myself in the music so the audience can have fun as well. I just want to sing my heart out.”
The Bambi Kills will open for him on the night, and Doll says he’s a massive fan of theirs, working with them in the past, doing recording and they also opened for his band The Mavis’s reunion tour last year. “They’ve also got that thing in common that I’ve sung with my sister a lot and they’re two sisters, so they have that harmony thing. They’re really great.”
Adjusting to being a solo artist hasn’t been too difficult for Doll, as he doesn’t see it as being much different to his previous full band work. It just means he has to be in charge and organise everything himself, instead of delegating tasks to others.
Performing these full band songs as a solo artist has also been easy to translate given he wrote most of the songs, understands them and can push them as far as he can emotionally.
“With the solo thing, it’s more streamlined. It just comes from you and you have to commit to that, it’s a more pure form,” Doll says. “I’ve played all the instruments, written the songs, sung everything, done the programming and the electronic elements and everything. So it’s just you.”
At this point in his career, Doll just wants to focus on making music. He sees another new album on the horizon, and wants to work consistently, playing anything that comes his way.
“I’d really love to explore having this new music in film as well. I’d really like to get my songs suited to movie soundtracks and stuff like that. I’ve [worked on movies] in the past but I’d like to [do more of that] as it’s a really good way of getting people around the world to hear what you’re doing.”
Matt Doll will be performing at Chapel Off Chapel for Chapel Summer Sessions on Saturday February 23. Night Flight comes out Friday February 22.
