Interview with Mat McHugh (The Beautiful Girls)

Between a solo tour of the US supporting the John Butler Trio and a string of festival and tour dates around the country, Mat McHugh from The Beautiful Girls sat down to talk to Soulshine about touring and recording solo, getting back on the road with The Beautiful Girls and the realities of being an independent artist in Australia.

The Beautiful Girls have become known as shapeshifters on the Australian music scene. The band has taken increasingly eclectic turns with each successive album. At the centre of it all is Mat McHugh. The Beautiful Girls is very much a band, but at the same time it's undeniably an expression of McHugh's own musical personality and interests.

In 2010 they released Spooks, a dub-infused follow-up to 2007's rock-heavy Ziggurats. It was a stark stylistic detour for the group, a sonically dense studio album McHugh assembled over a period of months. In a live setting it saw the band tour sans horns, and relying on samples to recreate the echoey soundscapes and hip hop collaborations of the album. A far cry from the band's earlier works that were dominated by acoustic guitar. Woody Allen likens a relationship to a shark -- cosntantly moving forward or else dead -- and McHugh's explanation of The Beautiful Girls shapeshifting seems to come from the same place.

"See the thing is the band has done all these twists and turns and stylistic shifts just to keep it all alive and interesting for me. And to tell the truth I didn't feel all that much joy for quite a while there for even playing the acoustic guitar because I just wasn't interested. And the two [acoustic] songs on Spooks, one was a leftover from the solo album and the other one, 'After All This Time', in ways I kind of wish I didn't put that on the album because it was more of a concession to the older style of the band."

The acoustic guitar has been alive and well for Mat lately, having just completed a solo tour of the US supporting the John Butler Trio.

"I haven't really done it since before The Beautiful Girls were even a band. When I lived in New York I did it a bit, busking and open mic nights and a few little shows I got put on, but nothing like this. So it was pretty nerveracking to start with and then it became still nerveracking, but pretty liberating and rewarding. I felt better at the end than I've ever felt at the end of a tour."

The tour was a stripped back affair for Mat that made him once again appreciate the simplicity and the context of acoustic music.

"Being on stage solo with just an acoustic guitar and a loop station that I'd programmed in a bunch of old vinyl 808 drum beats. Like old hip hop drums and I programmed some simple beats and looped the guitar... it was a massive challenge too because it was big 3,000 seater venues and just getting up there by myself and not blowing it."

"It was insane. It was the most fun tour I've done, of any tour I've ever been on. So how's that for summing it up? It was really good man."

John Butler has been a inadvertant crucial component to The Beautiful Girls success. Both as a crusader for the independent musician pathway and as a driving force in the acoustic roots scene where The Beautiful Girls got their start before expanding off into other styles.

"Over the years we'd crossed paths with John at festivals and stuff like that. I knew him, but not very well, so to get to know those guys over the space of the tour was insane because they're all great guys. There's not many people in the Australian music business that I respect more than John Butler. Basically the guy just walks the walk. He's independent and he's forged a path for a lot of people, The Beautiful Girls included and there's a lot of lessons he's taught us inadvertantly"

After touring extensively with just a guitar, Mat has new thoughts on what it is to be a solo artist and where this path might lead him.

"Having rung all the bells and blown all the whistles on Spooks, just to get it back the other way and have it super, super stripped back might be the way I have to go."

McHugh of course released one solo album in 2008's Seperatista!, but the release was anything but stripped back.

"At the time, I thought [Seperatista!] was a stripped back sound but then I realised it had horns and as many instruments at The Beautiful Girls if not sometimes more."

Instead, the solo tour with John Butler has opened Mat's eyes up to an acoustic sound that McHugh just hasn't attempted in a long while.

"I'm a huge fan of Leonard Cohen and I love Bob Dylan and all these guys that have a history of getting up on stage solo. And that is what [Dylan] was; people would go and see him for that. They got everything they needed from that simple setup. I really got into that side of it and it made me thing it'd be cool to do a solo album that had drums and bass here and there but was really able to be pulled of in its entirety solo live and I guess that means putting a lot of focus on the lyrics and the song craft. That's what I'm seeing at the moment as my new challenge."

In the meantime though, McHugh embarks on a summer tour with The Beautiful Girls. In what is becoming an annual tradition for the group, the band hits the road to play largely coastal dates. Last time around they were giving fans a taste of what was eventually going to become Spooks, this time they'll be hitting the road with more of a best-of focus.

"Our album tour focuses pretty heavily on the songs off the album, naturally, and then what we try and do in the summer is stack the set with songs people would know and just have a good time. It's less about artistic validation and more about just having a bloody good night in summer and hopefully one that you remember."

And the tour is as much about thanking and interacting with the fans that have brought them to where they are today.

"We're getting someone to come along with us whose title is Director of Good Vibrations and after soundcheck we're going to setup a barbie at the back of the venue or on the beach or whatever and anyone that follows us on Facebook we're gonna try and get them down and all hang out, have a barbie, play some songs. You know jam with people; get them to come down and play a few songs or join in. Not to make it too hippy or anything, just have a few beers and enjoy ourselves and the summer. The January shows are so much fun; they're so low-key."

You can catch the Beautiful Girls across the country's coastal haunts throughout January on the following dates:

Thursday 6th January             
Waves, WOLLONGONG NSW

Friday 7th January                   
Entrance Leagues Club,  BATEAU BAY                 NSW

Saturday 8th January              
Yamba Bowling Club, YAMBA                          NSW

Wednesday 12th January       
Hotel Great Northern,  BYRON BAY                   NSW

Thursday 13th January            
Hotel Great Northern, BYRON BAY                NSW

Friday 14th January                  
Coolangatta Hotel,  COOLANGATTA             QLD

Saturday 15th January             
The Hi Fi, BRISBANE                      QLD

Sunday 16th January                
Kings Beach Tavern, CALOUNDRA                 QLD

Thursday 20th January             
Ferntree Gully Hotel, FERNTREE GULLY          VIC

Friday 21st January                   
POW Bandroom, MELBOURNE                 VIC

Saturday 22nd January            
Pier Live, FRANKSTON                   VIC

Sunday 23rd January                
Barwon Heads Hotel, BARWON HEADS        VIC