Matthew Ebel interview



Rather than merely releasing your Christmas songs as a five-song EP, you’ve built an entire radio-style hosted show around them. Where did you get the idea to build it out into an entire show?

Well, like most good ideas, it came from a convergence of two paths. I’d been doing High Orbit, an outer-space indie music podcast for a few years and a lot of my fans really loved it.  So many of them got attached to my robot characters that I even gave Prodo-1 a cameo of sorts in my 2007 album Goodbye Planet Earth. Lately the podcast had faded since I just don’t have the time to revive it yet, but I still get requests to bring it back. The other inspiration came from watching the Star Wars Holiday Special recently.  Twice.  Fortunately, both times we had Rifftrax running, so I didn’t grab an ice pick and gouge out my brain to make the pain stop.

Since I’ve been trying to come up with inspiration for a Christmas album for about 3 years now, the idea just clicked: why not bring back High Orbit for a special episode and play my own music instead of other bands?  I can do traditional Christmas tunes but still keep the sarcastic vibe I like to roll with in the studio.

The Christmas songs are a mixture of traditional standards like Away In A Manger and fun send-ups like Merry Christmas From Cell Block 2. What motivated you to go in both of those directions on the same album?

Well I knew I couldn’t do a Christmas album without a few of the standards.  I also wanted to make sure I kept at least one religious carol- after all, Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. The season encompasses many different wonderful holidays, but Christmas itself is a specific religious event and I wanted to honor that. As for the originals…  well, when you’re locked in a studio talking to imaginary robots for a few weeks, some things just seem like good ideas at the time.

The spoken-word sections of the album include a robot, a shark named Mr. Bruce… are all of voices yours?

Typically I voice all the characters in a High Orbit episode, but I’ve always tried to bring in friends when I can.  For The High Orbit Holiday Special, I got to bring in my room mates, Brad and Jess Bonn, as several characters including the big bad evil space shark. The special holiday intro was voiced by the very talented Bob Brooks, the same guy I hired to do the intro for the podcast. I just love that guy’s voice… unfortunately, the hard plastic version of the album shipped without his name on it, something I remedied in the digital version.  Just think of him as the James Earl Jones of High Orbit.

You’ve released one of your Christmas songs as a podsafe single so that podcasters can legally use it for free, just as you’ve done for past, non-Christmas albums. Is it safe to say at this point that you’re podsafe for life?

Podcasts are just like radio to me, only people actually listen to podcasts.  I still hope that someday most podcasters will be able to buy performance right licenses from organizations like BMI- just like radio stations.  It’s the only way that songwriters like me get paid for use of our songs.  I understand, though, that most podcasters are hobbyists and not making a dime off of their shows.  I’d rather give them something good to play than try and squeeze someone who just loves the music.

Your last non-Christmas album, Goodbye Planet Earth, was released about two years ago. What can you tell us about the next one?

Well, actually, I have started releasing Songs from the Vault.  They’re not cohesive album projects like Goodbye Planet Earth or Beer & Coffee, they’re the archives from Matthew Ebel dot net.  I release 2 new songs every single month to my subscribers at www.matthewebel.net and, a year or so later, those songs are released to the rest of the world.  When I get a good, solid idea for an album, I’ll dive on it like I did for The High Orbit Holiday Special, but until then all my inspiration goes straight to my subscribers. Every single month.