No one needs screaming at by a highly nervous and subsequently startled Jo Wright, least of all Dinosaur Pile-Up’s Matt Bigland. He’s releasing a new album on August 22. He’s touring the UK and beyond in the coming months. And – most importantly he’s the best of us. And because of this (and despite what the internet would have you believe) Matt’s not dead. Although he came pretty close…
Heart rate 112bpm. That’s high isn’t it? Yep, for a resting heart rate that’s high. Breathe. Inhale, exhale. Heart rate going down. That’s good. Feeling calmer now. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the …
‘Hi Jo!’
Aarggh! I scream in shock. Literally scream. At Matt Bigland. Lead singer and guitarist of Dinosaur Pile-Up, survivor and really, really nice, inspirational chap. We laugh. I regain composure. Here we go…
So Matt, how are you feeling today? (This is actually a loaded question. The band’s new album is called ‘I’ve Felt Better’ which became Matt’s response when he was asked how he was feeling during an illness which made him so sick even his doctors were panicking. So while ‘I’ve Felt Better’ is an album you definitely need to hear, ‘I’ve felt better’ as the response to this question is definitely not).
‘I’m doing well,’ Matt smiles. ‘I’m doing pretty good. I’m definitely doing better than I was, for sure. I’m glad that I’m here and grateful that I’m not where I was. I have to manage everything. I’m kind of managing my life and health now. But I’m definitely 1000 per cent better than I was.’
‘I’ve Felt Better’ is Dinosaur Pile-Up’s fifth album. It’s predecessor ‘Celebrity Mansions’ finally, properly, brought the band the success they both deserved and craved. It gave us ‘Back Foot’ and ‘Thrash Metal Cassette’, which you’ll defo know. After consistently making great music but struggling to make ends meet, this was DPU’s time. The band signed to a record label within a month of its release and embarked on a massive tour of the US and Canada.
‘Celebrity Mansions’’ release date? June 7, 2019.
And we all know what wrecked, oh, I dunno, EVERYTHING, just half a year later.
Matt had actually already been sick for quite a while before Covid rather unhelpfully shut down the entire world. In 2018, during the making of ‘Celebrity Mansions’ he was physically and mentally drained. Having loads of ambition and potential but no money, on top of years of constant touring, he was beyond burnt out. At the same time Matt was suffering through a toxic relationship. By the time Dinosaur toured ‘Celebrity Mansions’ across America and Canada, Matt was really, really ill.
Back home, he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Matt’s medication for this meant he had to completely self-isolate during Covid. So he wrote music, he worked out, and he met fellow musician Karen Dió online. She was his soulmate. And -no lie or exaggeration – their love got Matt through what was to become a life-threatening illness. Towards the end of 2020 Matt visited Karen in her home country Brazil, but sadly because his symptoms flared up so badly, and as travel bans began again, he had to fly home. He and Karen continued to Facetime daily – although – heartbreakingly – some days Matt was too sick to even do this.
He was now so very poorly that Matt struggled to eat and talk, and was admitted to hospital where he was eventually given a new diagnosis – Ulcerative Colitis. But because beds were needed for Covid patients he was sent home – with morphine to self-administer. Yet Matt got worse and worse. When he was able to take the pain no more, he took himself to the hospital and was immediately stretchered to a ward. You can go check Dinosaur’s Insta to read and see this in Matt’s own words. I’ve watched the reels lots of times now – as a fan, as a music journo, as a mum and as a human being – and they always leave me speechless and close to, if not in, tears.
Matt was placed on a ward of six people. Very sadly, three of them passed away.
Was Matt aware that not only was he around death – but was also close to it himself? ‘I never got told that specifically by the doctors, but it kind of felt like that,’ he says. ‘Everyone was pretty panicked. To be honest with you, even at that point I was so strung out on morphine I guess I wasn’t panicking. I wasn’t really aware of anything.’
Thank God it’s unimaginable to many of us what Matt went through. Does he find it tough to talk about and bring back all those memories?
Matt has a little think. ‘Not really,’ he says. ‘It happened, you know – and it was pretty major! So I don’t get tired of talking about it. People are going to want to know what happened and stuff. The other day we were in rehearsal, and Mike (Sheils, DPU drummer) needed to look something up on Dinosaur, so he went on Reddit and he said that when he went on one of the top three questions on there were, ‘Is Matt Bigland dead?’!!! So I guess a lot of people are asking about it, so I don’t mind talking about it.’
‘I’ve Felt Better’ is heavily influenced be suffering from, recovering from and dealing with the symptoms of Ulcerative Colitis, so he’ll also be singing about his harrowing experience too. Is he still up for this?
‘Yeah, I think that’s ok,’ muses Matt. ‘I mean, I’m definitely not going to forget it! In a way singing about it and stuff like that is going to be a reminder that I got through it, so in a way that’s a positive as well.’
In 2022 Matt and Karen got married, and his face lights up when he mentions his beautiful wife. ‘Married life is awesome,’ he smiles. ‘It’s killer! I found my person. I feel so grateful for that. Definitely when I was in hospital she was my inspiration to get out. It was a pretty powerful motivation. I had to get out of there and fix myself to be with K.’
Matt had pictures of the engagement and wedding rings he would give to K on his phone, and looked at them every day when he was in the hospital to get him by.
It seems fair to say the things Matt enjoys more now are what many of us will probably all take for granted – until they are almost taken away. ‘I love to spend time with my wife and my cats,’ he says.
‘That’s my favourite thing to do, just to have time with K and our little family of cats. My favourite use of my time is when we can actually find the space and time just to all be together. Life is busy – for everybody. Mine and K’s life is hectic, and when you can get those moments to just be together, that’s what it’s all about.’
Love is a theme that runs through the record. In a gorgeous, heartwarming way, and in a completely shit way too, like ‘Love’s the Worst’. The title’s fairly self-explanatory… It’s about one of Matt’s relationships ending catastrophically, but in typical Matt style, he takes it on the chin. ‘That was wild,’ he laughs. ‘That relationship broke up on my birthday. Fantastic! You just have to roll with something like that. Obviously a break up on your birthday is fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but with illness and life throwing you stuff you just have to ride the wave. I’m definitely not immune to it. Sometimes I do feel like, ‘Why the fuck has this all happened to me, and why has this gone down like this?’ but that’s not a helpful way to think about life or about yourself, and to victimise yourself like that is never going to empower you to overcome anything. So I definitely do have those moments for sure, and I get frustrated, but on the whole I’m just glad to be here. I love life. It’s a struggle sometimes, but I do love life.’
Yer girl’s favourite track on ‘I’ve Felt Better’ is proper love song ‘Quasimodo Melonheart’. And by proper love song we mean song about proper love – ie doing life with someone and all the nice and not so nice things that entails.
‘When I recorded that vocal I had the flu!’ laughs Matt. ‘It is a different type of song, and when it came to be I loved it. It sort of came out of another idea and I was so torn even when it came right up to the end of making the record and everything was actually finished, and ‘Quasimodo’ was finished, I was still, like, should this be the other version of itself??!! I was tormented by that. But I think that it’s the right version and I’ve always loved the chorus because it has such a self-deprecating human quality to it.’
Picking his favourite song from the album proves a little more difficult for Matt. ‘It’s hard to pick because I really do love them all,’ he tells us. ‘I love ‘My Way’. ‘Punk Kiss’ – that’s a really cool tune. I think my sort of secret fave though is ‘I Don’t Know Nothing and Nothing Loves Me’, which is the last song on the record. Honestly, I don’t know what it is – there’s something sort of emotional to me in that song. I really love its delivery and when the chorus hits it feels, I don’t know, it sort of emotionally affects me, and I remember when I wrote that I loved that, and I thought that was important. But it’s sort of stayed with me – that feeling.’
‘I Don’t Know Nothing and Nothing Loves Me’ finishes the album, and despite the fact he’s survived a life-threatening illness and found true love, it’s not a happily ever after way to wind up ‘I’ve Felt Better’. ‘I’m not writing the album as like, a story where it has a happy ending,’ says Matt. ‘I’m writing it as a collection of the songs that I wanted the world to hear, and that’s it. And I put the track listing as it is because I think that works with the flow of the music, but I’m not writing it with a story and an outcome. It’s just like, if I was to die tomorrow, what songs would I wish I released? And it’s those songs. That’s kind of how I think about it, because I write a lot of songs, I have a lot of music. There’s a lot of music that I want to put in the world but I do think about it as like, if I were to die tomorrow, which songs would I be like, ‘Fuck! I can’t believe I didn’t get that out there. And it’s those songs. And every time I come to a record, weirdly, that’s sort of now how I choose. And with ‘I’ve Felt Better’ it was sort of literal. With ‘Celebrity Mansions’ we all thought the band was about to break up, so it was like. ‘OK, well if we’re out what songs does the world have to hear?’ and that sort of forced the hand to choose that track listing. And with this one I actually thought I might die, so I was like, what songs do I want to be in the world?!’
How are we doing? So far so good? If you weren’t aware of the backstory to ‘I’ve Felt Better’ you must be absolutely gobsmacked. It’s a pleasure and, indeed, a privilege to speak with Matt, who – at no point in our interview – has anything negative to say about his experiences. He has lived it, learned from it, and is so grateful to still be alive. Matt Bigland should be a subject taught in schools. What would the National Curriculum according to Matt be?
‘I think in school, it’s crazy that we’re not taught stuff like diet and nutrition,’ says Matt. ‘Why are you not taught, as a child, to cook, understand healthy food – like what that is and what the items are that you should be consuming etc. Real nutrition and also down to stuff like don’t be eating stuff covered in pesticides for example. Just being able to eat properly. I think it’s mad that when kids leave school they probably don’t know how to cook. They’ll go to university, or move to another city and they don’t know how to make meals. I also think relationships should be taught in school. People could save themselves so much struggle by understanding things like boundaries and things like what is abuse. All these things that we’re never taught, and you leave school and you start having adult relationships, and you don’t know if you’re in an abusive relationship until you are in an abusive relationship. Or you don’t know, so you have to figure it out by fucking up again and again, where to set your boundaries. Where as if you’d just been taught about this year on year at school you’d leave school being ready to have relationships. And I think stuff like that is so valuable.’
He continues, ‘Obviously taxes. It’s mental that we’re not taught how to do our taxes. And mortgages too. All of that stuff. That’s crazy to me that all of us have to go through taxes, hopefully we go through mortgages, relationships definitely, nutrition absolutely. But we’re not taught any of that. Obviously learning high level algebra is relevant for some very intelligent people who will use it in their careers, but most people will never use that. There’s so much really, really useful life stuff that we should be taught and we’re not. That’s annoying to me.’
Matt’s spot on. We need to be taught about actual skills – things that will affect us in real life. Even if Matt’s reality has been almost unbelievable, let alone teachable. Although by now you’ll know better than to think this gets him down.
‘My life compared to so, so many people’s isn’t bad, so even if I’m feeling down about stuff I remind myself it’s not that bad,’ he says. ‘Look at all I’ve got! I have Karen, and we rent a little house and we have two cats. If I had to quit everything tomorrow, it’s no problem.’
Matt and Karen live about a minute from the sea in St Leonards in Hastings. Matt says ‘When I was in recovery after hospital it was then that we made that decision [to move]. I could not stop thinking about the ocean, and I’ve never been like that before. It’s amazing. It’s good for the soul.’
Dinosaur Pile-Up are out on tour in the UK September and then it’s over to Canada and America. Playing live is in Matt’s heart, but the process of bringing the songs to life in the first place is in his soul.
Matt explains, ‘My favourite thing about music and being in a band is writing. I love creating the songs. That’s the biggest high I get. The most exciting thing for me is finding a new idea and being able to dig into it, and having the time and space to be like, ‘Oh my God! I’m going to jump into this,’. It makes me excited just talking about that idea, I love it so much! I love playing the shows obviously, I love seeing the fans – we have such a lot of love in our fanbase, it’s amazing. It really blows my mind. And I love spending time with Jim (Cratchley, DPU bassist) and Mike on the road. Some people are in bands for the high of playing live, and for the adoration and stuff. But I’m not – I just love writing songs so much.’
‘I’ve Felt Better’ is an absolute belter of an album. It’s classic Dinosaur while being loaded with feeling, fuck yous, love (lost and gained) and life (lived and almost lost).
And, most importantly, it’s the album Matt wanted to make. Take ‘My Way’ for example. Its title says it all. Who knew Dinosaur would make a track that vibes the Real Slim Shady????
Matt explains, ‘I love Eminem. ‘My Name Is’ is one of my biggest inspirations. I feel like I’ve been searching for such a long time – probably since I began this – for that ‘thing’, and I couldn’t articulate that ‘thing’. I couldn’t find it and describe it. But I feel like I’m kind of in a place now where I am doing that, because it’s mixing all the stuff I love, like hard rock, thrash metal, Eminem type stuff, old school Run DMC vibes. I love all of that so much and I always wanted to put it into one thing and I couldn’t. Maybe I didn’t even realise that was what I wanted to do. And now I’ve found myself in a place where I’m doing that. And I feel content.’
Despite the continual lightning strikes to his life, Matt tells the tale with such eloquence, honesty and, well, grace. If anyone deserves to feel content, it’s Matt Bigland.
‘I’ve Felt Better’ is released on August 22 via Mascot Records
Interview by Jo Wright
Photos by Tom Brooker