So here's a question for you. How does one musician,
right, someone known for that really angular,
precise kind of 90s math rock guitar sound, how
does that guy end up playing on literally every
single track of a Neil Diamond album? You know,
the one Rick Rubin produced. And not just that,
but also recording with legends like Johnny Cash,
Iggy Pop, and somehow being this key piece of
Run the Jewels. It really does sound like someone
just like fantasy booked a festival lineup, doesn't
it? Just designed to be confusing. But there
is a common thread. There's this impossibly flexible
connection point where all these genres, all
these sounds meet. And that's Matt Sweeney. He's
arguably, you know, the most ubiquitous, most
trusted and maybe most genre defying American
musician and producer. of what the last 30 years
easily yeah welcome to the deep dive our mission
today really is to get past just listing off
all these amazing collaborators. We want to unpack
the honestly extraordinary scope of Matt Sweeney's
career. We need to go beyond the resume, figure
out how he became one of music's most reliable,
most prolific collaborators. We're looking for
that super glue. You know, what's that foundational
thing that lets him connect heavy metal, noise
rock, the sharp edges of math rock, but also
have the precision needed for hip hop, for country,
even experimental folk. And for you listening,
the value here is, I think, pretty significant.
You'll quickly get a sense of the sheer scale
of his influence, sure. But more importantly,
you'll understand the principle behind that success.
Sweeney's story, it's like a master class in
how incredible technical skill, when you combine
it with a pretty unassuming personality, how
that translates into cross -genre credibility.
His key relationships, especially the one with
Will Oldham, Bonnie Prince Billy, they really
defined the shape of indie and rock music from
the early 90s right up to, well, right now. Okay.
Let's unpack this then. Let's start at the beginning.
Yeah. Because before he was even in a proper
touring band, Sweeney's background. It's maybe
the most unlikely starting point for a future
indie rock legend. He was born July 2nd, 1969
in New Jersey. But his upbringing, it seems defined
by really rigorous. intellectual stuff, not necessarily
like basement noise jams. Yeah. What's fascinating
is this almost contradictory mix, right? You've
got serious intellectual horsepower, but also
this artistic discipline around him. His father
was John D. Sweeney. He was a professor of medieval
English at Seton Hall University. Wow. Okay.
Yeah. So highly academic world, structure, precision,
historical rigor, all that. But crucially, his
dad was also an avid musician. So there was an
artistic outlet right there within that. you
know, structured environment. And that kind of
DNA for high achievement, for precision, it didn't
stop there, did it? No, not at all. His mother,
Catherine Sweeney Hayden, is a federal judge.
Federal judge. OK. Yeah. So just to be clear,
we're talking about two parents operating at
the absolute peak of academia and law. That's
a seriously high bar set by careers that demand
precision. And that background, you have to think
that understanding of structure, of execution.
That's crucial, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. It
feels like it allows him to approach music maybe
less like just free expression and more like...
Like architecture, maybe? We should probably
give a quick mention to his older brother, too,
Gregory Sweeney. Also a musician, but maybe more
widely known for working on that TV show, Kitchen
Nightmares. Oh, interesting. So, yeah. While
the parents were deep in law and historical studies,
the sons kind of channeled that inherent rigor
into the arts. Sweeney himself, he grew up in
Makelewood in South Orange, New Jersey. He did
briefly attend Northwestern University before
making that very definite choice to drop out.
Which suggests, you know, a real... Okay, so
that pivot lands him right in the middle of the
New York and New Jersey sort of noise and underground
scene. Right. Exactly. And his earliest projects,
they didn't just showcase technical skill. They
absolutely demanded it. His high school band,
Skunk, they put out two albums on Twin Tone Records.
Oh, Twin Tone, yeah. Who's Could Do? The Replacements.
That label. That's the one. Last American Virgin
in 89 and then Laid, which came out posthumously
in 1990. Both of them are now, you know, frustratingly
out of print, which just gives them that instant
legendary scarcity thing for collectors, right?
Definitely. But the really defining project from
that early period has to be Chavez in the 90s.
Oh, absolutely. Chavez is where the world really
sat up and noticed him as this foundational figure
in what people started calling math rock. Can
you maybe unpack math rock a little for folks
who aren't as familiar? Sure. So math rock, it's
basically a highly technical kind of post -rock
subgenre. It's less about your standard melodies
and more about complex, nonstandard time signatures.
You know, think playing in 78 or 118 time instead
of the usual 44. It demands extreme technical
precision and a real structural complexity from
the musicians. It's not easy stuff to play. And
Chavez sounds like it was the perfect place for
him to flex those muscles. Wow. They were on
Matador, right? Yeah, the super influential Matador
label. They put out a seven -inch repeat the
ending with Hack the Sides Away on the B -side.
And then their two full albums, Gone Glimmering
in 1995 and Ride the Fader in 1996. And that
music, it really required an almost, like you
said, academic understanding of rhythm. Yeah.
It perfectly mirrors that precision may be instilled
by his upbringing. Totally. And Chavez wasn't
just the studio thing either. They were actively
touring U .S. and Europe between 94 and 97. So
that really established Sweeney as a guitarist
who could execute these incredibly complex structures,
structures that went way beyond typical rock
conventions under the pressure of playing live
every night. Right. That technical reliability,
you know, the ability to hit that complex mark
every single time. That's really the first piece
of our superglue puzzle, I think. And you can
see. how that reliability would make him instantly
valuable as a sideman when Chavez eventually
sort of wound down. Exactly. The late 90s, he
just immediately gets absorbed into the wider
indie scene. He famously filled in on bass guitar.
Bass, right. Not even his main instrument. Not
even his main instrument for Guided by Voices
on their... Under the Bushes, Under the Stars
tour. And he also did some vocals on the track
Quicksilver on Robert Pollard's, you know, the
GBV leaders first solo album, Not in My Air Force.
So already he's proving he can move around the
musical map, contribute in different ways. And
this is also when that really crucial partnership
starts to form, isn't it? quietly at first. Yeah.
This is exactly when the seed gets planted for
his most important, longest running collaboration,
even while he was still holding down a day job,
apparently. Yeah. The late 90s found him starting
that incredibly long association with Will Oldham,
who, of course, records as Bonnie Prince Billy.
Initially, it was just as his touring guitarist.
That transition is fascinating, though. He's
shifting from the noisy, angular, aggressive
complexity of Chavez to the acoustic. often really
melancholic but always uniquely structured world
of Bonnie Prince Billy. It's an immediate demonstration
of technical range serving these vastly different
emotional needs, right? Exactly. And that foundation
of trust, that versatility, you can see how it
would end up defining the entire rest of his
career. Okay, so now... Now the story takes this
huge leap, really, into the, well, not quite
the mainstream maybe, but definitely higher profile
stuff. The year 2000 kicks off this sort of supergroup
era for him. And Sweeney's profile just explodes
as he starts working with some absolutely massive
names in both underground and, yeah, mainstream
rock. Let's start with the Billy Corgan connection.
That must have turned some heads. Oh, big time.
In 2001, Sweeney starts playing and writing with
Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain. Most Smashing Pumpkins,
yeah. Exactly. So given the Pumpkins legacy,
this was a massive deal in the post -crunch rock
world. And it evolved pretty quickly into that
supergroup, Swan. What did Sweeney bring to that
dynamic? Because Corgan's guitar style is so
distinctive, that layered kind of melodic bombast.
Well, Swan needed something different, right?
Bringing in Sweeney with his background in that
dissonant, angular precision, it fundamentally
changed the band's architecture, I think. He's
credited on Zeron's only album, Mary Star of
the Sea, with guitar, vocals, and even some songwriting.
That's a huge jump, isn't it? From niche math
rock to a major label rock machine. It really
is. It feels like he was providing this kind
of structural integrity that maybe was needed
for a project that seemed, you know, inherently
a bit unstable from the outside. But the side
project from that era is almost more telling
in a weird way. The Spun soundtrack. Yeah. He
collaborated with Corgan on the soundtrack for
that movie Spun, which is, you know, an extremely
dark comedy about drug culture. And the song
he sings lead vocals on a cover of Iron Maiden's
Number of the Beast. Ha! Talk about an emotional
left hook right in the middle of a session, right?
It just perfectly sums up his ethos around that
time, the early 2000s. He can apply his talents,
whether it's his super technical guitar playing
or apparently unexpected metal vocals to these
incredibly high profile, but also really unexpected
projects, projects that require both authenticity
and grit. And his role as a facilitator, somebody
who connects people, it wasn't just limited to
that world of... like super melodic rock right
he was also crucial to dave grohl's big metal
project pro bop yes This is a huge credibility
marker for Sweeney. Grohl had this vision, right?
Collaborate with metal singers who were absolute
legends in their specific subgenres. We're talking
Kronos from Venom, King Diamond, Lemmy. Wow,
the real deal. The real deal. But Grohl needed
someone who could basically map the metal underground,
someone who knew who was who and could maybe
make the introductions. And he entrusted Sweeney
with a really critical role there. Sweeney apparently
lent a helping hand, as the story goes, to Grohl
in actually tracking down those legendary singers.
And he provided some guitar work on... the album,
too. And when the ProBot album finally came out
in 2004 on Southern Lord Records, Sweeney got
a very specific credit, didn't he? He did. He
was credited as the executive producer. Executive
producer. That's significant. It really is. It
shows he's not just a technical guitarist for
hire. He's a curator. He's a connector of, you
know, disparate talent and someone who clearly
holds deep, deep credibility within the metal
scene itself, which is a pretty far cry from
his Matador Records math rock days. If you connect
this to the bigger picture, then Probot really
demonstrates that Sweeney had currency, not just
in the Indian alternative scenes, but deep within
the metal underground, too. Absolutely. He's
operating like the ghost in the machine, you
know, running the cables between the underground
and the mainstream. He's essentially being the
trusted bridge builder between these musical
worlds that on the surface seem completely opposed.
OK, so amidst all this, you know, heavy metal
energy and big rock supergroups. The partnership
that feels like the emotional anchor, the one
that defines his acoustic, lyrical side, that's
the ongoing collaboration with Bonnie Prince
Billy. Totally. That feels like the spiritual
centerpiece of his work. in a way. So after Swan
broke up, which was around 2003. Yeah, 2003,
Sweeney just kept touring with Oldham. And that
collaboration really culminated in their defining
joint album, Superwolf, which came out in January
2005 on Drag City. And that was a huge critical
success, wasn't it? Massive. And they toured
it extensively US and Europe. It really solidified
that partnership in the eyes of, you know, the
indie music world. What is it about Superwolf
that makes it so special? It's not just that
they collaborated, it's the sound, the interplay
between them. How does a guy who thrived in the
tight, aggressive structure of Zwan shift so
seamlessly into the delicate, acoustic, sometimes
really strange world of Bonnie Prince Billy?
Isn't that a kind of technical and emotional
contradiction? You'd think so, but I don't think
it is for Sweeney. Because that same technical
rigor is actually what makes them so effective
in both environments. Oldham's style, it's often
raw, it's melancholic, it's based on these unique
winding lyrical narratives. They require a guitar
accompaniment that can really serve the song
without dumbing it down. Right. And Sweeney's
precision, that mastery of odd, sometimes dissonant
little licks and unique chord voicings, it just
perfectly complements Oldham's voice and storytelling.
His guitar work on those records is often described
as like dry. wry, precise. It adds tension and
emotional complexity exactly where it's needed
rather than just, you know, strumming basic chords.
And crucially, this relationship wasn't just
a one -off album. No, not at all. The partnership
continued. They put out the I Gave You EP later
in 2005. And then 16 years later, think about
that, 16 years, they released the full follow
-up album Superwolves in 2021. That sustained
relationship. really highlights his comfort with
this unique kind of experimental folk style,
and it contrasts so sharply with the metal and
the stadium rock he was doing around the same
time. It really does. This feels like the perfect
manifestation of that superglue idea we started
with, discipline applied directly to emotion.
It speaks to a level of deep trust, doesn't it?
A unique, shared musical language between them.
Absolutely. It feels like while he can contribute
brilliantly to almost any genre, the Superwolf
work is where his distinctive, highly nuanced
guitar style really gets to shine the brightest.
It marries that technical command he has with
Oldham's complex sort of meandering narratives.
OK, so now we move into the era that really cements
him as the ultimate session chameleon. And to
really hammer this point home, I think we have
to focus on one specific year, 2006, because
the resume just from that single 12 month period.
It's honestly astonishing when you lay it out.
Let's just look at his work in country and folk
that year alone, 2006. He provides guitar work
alongside huge players like Mike Campbell from
the Heartbreakers and Smokey Hormel on Johnny
Cash's final album, American Via 100 Highways.
Wow. Talk about high stakes. Yeah, this is reverent
high stakes acoustic work. It's a definitive
final statement from an absolute legend. Okay.
But in the exact same year. 2006. He also played
guitar on the Dixie Chicks album, Taking the
Long Way. Right, which was this polished, arena
-ready country record. It went multi -platinum,
won a bunch of Grammys. So he's simultaneously
nailing the subtle acoustic gravitas needed for
a posthumous Johnny Cash recording and the high
-polish, massive commercial demands of arena
country music. But wait, it gets even weirder.
Because simultaneously in 2006, he dives into
the world of underground hip hop. He appears
as a guest artist on the very first track of
rapper Cage's album, Hell's Winter. Okay. And
critically, the other people on that track with
him are Yola Tango's bass player, James McNew,
and the founder of Def Jux Records, LP. Right,
LP, Shimmy Mullane. A foundational figure in
that influential underground hip hop label, Def
Jux, known for its really dense, aggressive,
almost industrial soundscape. The idea that one
person can authentically contribute to both the
definitive Johnny Cash closing statement and
a gritty, abstract Def Jux release in the same
year. It's just a testament to his musical neutrality
or something. He's providing texture, maybe some
aggression, that precise rock energy that LP
clearly valued for that track. Okay, is there
anything else from 2006? Oh, yeah. If we need
to throw one more confounding genre into the
mix for that year, he also became a member of
the touring group for the seminal British apocalyptic
folk band Current 93. Current 93, wow, okay.
That's deep. Deep cuts, yeah. He played shows
in Europe with them, supporting their album Black
Ships Ate the Sky. And that style is, well, it's
exactly as intense as it sounds. Often bleak,
occult, or religious themes with highly experimental
textural instrumentation. It just shows he's
equally comfortable in the absolute darkest,
most niche corners of experimental music, too.
This just raises a huge question, doesn't it?
What is the quality that allows you to pivot
from playing guitar on a Dixie Chicks record
one day to performing the dense noise? of current
93 the next it has to speak to an authenticity
that just transcends genre boundaries he's like
the anti -gimmick hired gun yeah he brings a
distinct technical sound absolutely but it's
a sound that somehow adapts to serve whatever
environment he's in without losing its own identity
and this adaptability this credibility it leads
us to maybe one of the biggest validation points
of his entire career yeah the crucial rick rubin
connection ah yes Rick Rubin, the legendary producer
known for, among many things, putting together
these unlikely combinations, right, and trusting
musicians to find the absolute essential core
of a song. So in 2008, Rubin had already successfully
produced Neil Diamond's 2005 comeback album,
12 Songs. For the follow up, Rubin proposes this,
quote, unlikely combination of Matt Sweeney and
Neil Diamond. Yeah. And Sweeney gets brought
in and his contribution. It wasn't minimal. He
ended up playing guitar on all the songs for
Diamond's 2008 album, Home Before Dark. Every
single track. Every track. That's incredible.
That move just completely validated his technical
command in the eyes of the mainstream music industry.
To meet the demands of a major label, super high
-profile project for a superstar like Neil Diamond,
backed by a producer with Rubin's incredibly
exacting standards, it proves he wasn't just
some niche indie or math rock player anymore.
His adaptability was bankable. And that quality,
I think, was born directly from the discipline
he honed way back in Chavez. And the session
work just kept spanning this impossible gulf.
You look at the list of other guitar appearances
around this time. It's wild. He appears on Cat
Power's The Covers record. back in 2000 playing
on salty dog and then later on her 2008 album
jukebox he gets an additional guitar credit and
a songwriting credit for the track song to bobby
he just fits effortlessly into that sensitive
sometimes emotionally fragile world of chan marshall
but then almost immediately he dies right back
into hip -hop he solidifies that relationship
with lp appearing on lp's 2007 solo album i'll
sleep when you're dead Right. And that partnership,
rooted in that aggressive industrial Def Jux
production style, it eventually moves into the
global mainstream when LP teams up with Killer
Mike to form Run the Jewels, or RTJ. And Sweeney's
there too. Yep. Sweeney provided additional guitar
and sometimes vocals for multiple Run the Jewels
albums, including the first one, Run the Jewels,
Run the Jewels 2, and RTJ 4. It's incredible
to me how his, like... Hard rock and math rock
background translates so directly into the aggressive,
really detailed electronic production style of
LP. It is. It's like he's adding this layer of
organic texture, maybe some rock aggression that
enhances the beats without ever muddying them
up. It's a really specific skill. And his session
work in this period, it also hit some significant
mainstream rock and pop releases too, right?
Oh, yeah. He played guitar on Kid Rock's 2010
album Born Free. He played bass guitar on Cold
Cave's 2011 album. album cherish the light years
which shows he could function perfectly well
in a synth heavy kind of post -punk environment
too and then there's that one credit that's just
shocking purely because of the sheer global scale
of the album adele's 2011 blockbuster 21 his
name is right there in the credits list yeah
now the exact nature of his contribution isn't
specified it might be minor but the mere appearance
on the credits of one of the absolute biggest
selling albums of the 21st century It just speaks
volumes about his reach and his quiet authority
within that session musician community. You could
keep listing these credits almost indefinitely,
couldn't you? Pretty much. He provided rhythm
guitar on all the tracks for Jake Bugg's 2013
album Shangri -La. He played guitar on various
tracks for the tour reg band Tanariwin, blending
his technical rock background with desert blues.
He even showed up on the Red Dead Redemption
2 soundtrack EP in 2021. He is just... everywhere
that music is being made at a really high, really
demanding level. Which means he's not just a
hired gun, right? He's more like a sonic architect.
We need to look beyond just his playing and touch
on his work behind the mixing board as well,
because that shows his ability to shape and define
diverse sounds as a producer. That's a great
point. He uses that same versatility to shape
projects right from the beginning. Absolutely.
So back in 2005, he produced the heavy metal
band Early Man's debut album, Closing In. Then
in 2007, he produced Dax Riggs's record, We Sing
of Only Blood or Love. In that heavier space,
you can kind of assume he was probably emphasizing
sharp dynamics, structural tightness, taking
that math rock precision he has and applying
it to metal production. But then showcasing that
collaborative, maybe softer side again, he co
-produced Baby D's debut album Safe Inside the
Day in 2008. And who did he partner with on that?
Bonnie and Prince Billy, of course. Back together
again. And that's a vastly different environment,
right? Baby D's music is highly experimental,
really focused on narrative piano harp. Totally
different. It's less about aggressive precision
and much more about collaborative mood setting,
finding the right atmosphere for those songs.
So this contrast just proves his range isn't
limited to just a guitar sound. It's whole philosophy
of production he brings. Exactly. And his later
notable production work continued that international
flavor, too. He produced the Norwegian band Turbanegra's
album Sexual Harassment in 2012 that required
that tight, structured rock sensibility again.
And then fast forward to 2020, he produced the
Malian desert rock band Sanghoi Blues album Optimism.
So he's shaping sounds across the whole global
spectrum of rock, blues and metal. That versatility
is just remarkable. But the pivot he made around
2013 That might be his most lasting contribution
to the broader public and especially to future
musicians. I'm talking about his transition into
being a digital mentor through the web series
Guitar Moves. Ah, Guitar Moves. Yeah, that series
is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Because it
perfectly leverages his credibility, right? It's
not some generic learn guitar fast show. Sweeney
is the host and the entire focus is on showing
and teaching guitar techniques, but also the
philosophy behind the playing. Through these
direct, really intimate interviews with some
of the most prominent, most idiosyncratic He's
basically extracting the secrets of the masters.
Pretty much. And his own technical background
gives him the vocabulary, the understanding to
ask the right, really specific questions that
get to the heart of how these people play. And
the sheer stature of the people he interviewed
that tells you everything you need to know about
his standing in the guitar community. These are
not easy interviews to get. No way. We're talking
Keith Richards, the Rolling Stones, Billy Gibbons
from ZZ Top. Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys.
Josh Holm from Queens of the Stone Age. Legends.
Absolute legends. These are figures who really
only talk shop, talk specifics with people they
genuinely respect as peers. So he became this
kind of trusted chronicler of guitar technique
and philosophy. He really did. The series was
originally produced by Vice's music channel,
Noisy, from about 2013 up until 2017. But he's
maintained creative control and now Guitar Moves
runs independently. He's still uploading new
episodes. I think as recently as December 2023.
That's fantastic. Yeah, he basically took his
encyclopedic knowledge and his unparalleled contact
list and turned it into this amazing educational
platform for a whole new generation of technical
players. So it's clear. His career is definitely
not just a retrospective look at a finished legacy.
He remains incredibly sought after and his relevance
just continues today. Oh, absolutely. Just look
at his high profile projects in the last decade
or so. It reinforces that connection to rock
royalty. In 2016, he was touring with this absolute
elite lineup. Iggy Pop, Josh Holm and Matt Helders
from Arctic Monkeys supporting Iggy's post -pop
depression album. Wow. being part of that specific
touring band. That's a huge statement about his
sustained credibility at the very highest levels
of alternative rock. And he kept up his high
-level indie work, too. He collaborated with
Stephen Malkmus on Malkmus's 2020 album, Traditional
Techniques. He also contributed to Josh Holmes'
long -running side project, The Desert Sessions,
playing on Volumes 11 and 12 back in 2019. It
just shows he's continually tapped by musicians
who are specifically seeking technical dexterity
and that distinctive kind of dry, knowing sound
he has. And even more recently. Even more recently,
yeah. In 2021, he was producing and playing bass
and electric guitars with Iggy Pop again, this
time on their cover of European Son for that
big tribute album, I'll Be Your Mirror, a tribute
to the Velvet Underground and Miko. Right. And
of course, that same year, the sequel album Superwolves
with Bonnie Prince Billy came out. He just never
seems to stop generating new work. And now, in
2024, he's even co -founded a brand new supergroup,
The Hard Quartet. The Hard Quartet, yeah. Bringing
together major indie players once again. Stephen
Malkmus is in it. Emmett Kelly, who plays with
Oldham a lot. And Jim White, the great drummer
from Dirty 3. So Sweeney is always moving, always
initiating these new, structurally sophisticated
projects that demand really high -level musicianship.
Which brings us right back to that central question,
maybe. Why should this sprawling resume... matter
to you listening right now. Sweeney's career,
it isn't defined by just one genre. It's defined
by this consistent ability to bring incredible
technical skill and authentic, detailed musicianship
to absolutely any project he touches. Whether
it's math rock or pop music or industrial hip
hop, he shows up with that distinctive, committed
sound. He feels like the ultimate expression
of the musician who serves the song, serves the
project. with discipline and integrity. That
credit from the band Endless Boogie mentioned
his wry guitar licks, and that feels like a perfect...
almost understated description of his legacy,
doesn't it? It really does. He's the musician
that other musicians trust implicitly to deliver
structural precision and emotional weight. And
it doesn't matter if they're global superstars
or underground noisemakers from Brooklyn. He
treats the work the same way. So if we were to
try and summarize the key takeaways from this
deep dive, we've definitely defined those key
components. The incredible genre -defying collaborations
that jump from Chavez's intense rigor to Neil
Diamond's high polish demands is just mind -blowing.
Then there's that central, almost spiritual partnership
with Bonnie Prince Billy, which really showcases
his emotional range and depth. Yeah, the heart
of it, maybe. And then his current role as both
this key player in new supergroups and a respected
independent digital guitar mentor, passing on
the knowledge. It's a career built entirely on
technical mastery, coupled with this utter disregard
for musical boundaries, a career that truly proves
the value of disciplined, egoless collaboration.
Exactly. And maybe that leaves us with a final
thought for you to consider. Yeah. Considering
the sheer volume of his work, right, and his
unique position as this trusted collaborator
across genres that seems completely opposed heavy
metal, hip hop, country, experimental folk. Yeah.
What does Matt Sweeney's career really tell us
about the actual separation or maybe the lack
of separation between all these different musical
tribes in the 21st century? If the guy who helped
define 90s math rock is the same guy playing
guitar on the Adele record, maybe those sharp
lines we like to draw on the map of music, maybe
they're far more porous, far more artificial
than we usually imagine.