Matt Hitt, Undiluted

A lifetime can happen in the time it takes to stumble home from your favorite dive bar. A drunken group of tourists might crash your booth, asking what you’re up to and whether you know any ‘afters’ they can sneak into, despite not having enough girls to balance out the overwhelming number of guys. Bartenders can become friends, friends can turn into lovers, lovers can vanish into strangers. Night after night, you are reborn, bringing home stories scavenged from the streets and the drawers of your memory.

Whenever I think of Matt Hitt’s music, I imagine crowded rooms, the haze of caffeine and booze, and his own experiences set against the restless lives that give inhabited spaces their pulse. There is a voyeuristic streak in his lyricism, one that finds a concrete visual counterpart in his music video “I’m Sorry New York,” taken from his recent EP « You’ll Be Lucky », where he roams the streets, glancing left and right as if searching for an image his eyes can latch onto, intercut with shots of New York’s brownstone windows, as though the city itself is inviting him in, guiding his gaze toward its intimate, hidden moments. 

« People say the funniest things, especially in New York. The city is so small in terms of living spaces that a lot of things that would ordinarily happen behind closed curtains just take place on the streets. You’re constantly walking past people breaking up crying. » he says. « I guess it sounds creepy but I always keep my eavesdropping radar up. » 

That alertness results in observations that are vivid and alive, both funny and sharply empathetic, capturing the chaotic, and occasional absurd moments that define urban life and the relationships that blossom within it. Irony and earnestness have always worked as an inseperable duo in Hitt’s lyricism, each line swaying from one to the other like a pendulum. His latest EP, You’ll Be Lucky, takes its title from one of Hitt’s father’s favorite phrases, a way of saying, ‘Well, I doubt that’ll happen.’ The mix of hopefulness and cynicism resurfaces effortlessly once again, this time under Hitt’s first solo project. 

Growing up in a small town in Wales, he first felt he could be a musician when he saw The Monkees on TV. « I saw Michael Nesmith playing the guitar and thought to myself: « That’s exactly what I want to do. » he reflects. « I also saw The Beatles’ movie A Hard Day’s Night and thought that they were ripping off The Monkees. Obviously my ten-year-old brain got it the wrong way around, as I happened to discover The Monkees before The Beatles. » When I asked him who his favorite Beatle was, we came to a mutual agreement that George Harrison was the best. « I feel like anyone I know that I think is cool, their favorite is George. »

The intention of becoming a musician was set; now it needed a backdrop. « I was pretty determined to get to New York, to be honest. I didn't really know how, but I thought I eventually would. » With the push of J.D. Salinger books and listening to a lot of New York–based bands like Ramones, the wind eventually carried him forward, and he found himself in the heart of the city. « I would go to pubs that Dylan Thomas went to, which still exist by the way. » When I ask him what his relationship to New York is today, he tells me that he is back in love. « I've been touring a lot lately, and so leaving the city makes me love it more when I get back to it. Leaving is key. I feel like I've fallen back in love.» 

The edge in his lyrics stems partly from his ability to see things from the outside, even while fully immersed within. "It’s a conflict, feeling very Welsh, yet having spent a third of my life in America. I feel very "New York", but not like a New Yorker. It’s this sense of being neither one nor the other, somehow outside of both." When I mention that people from around the U.K. often seem more skilled at writing and observing than Americans, he agrees. « There’s too much earnestness in America for them to be that funny, » he says. And hearing that some of his favorite lyricists are Morrissey, Jarvis Cocker, and Alex Turner is hardly revelatory; he’s the type who’d choose a razor-sharp line over a polished production any day, listening to a song while simultaneously looking at the lyrics.

Having formed and fronted Drowners in 2011 and touring with The Vaccines, Matt Hitt has long been a fixture of the alternative music scene. Today, he steps into the spotlight as a solo artist to work his magic. "This solo project was a result of a combination of different things, of timing and resources, I suppose. I never stopped writing songs, I just did it in private. I had accumulated enough that I could finally go for it. Also, I've been talking about these songs with my friends for so long, that I was like, I need to fucking put them out. I hate when people just talk about doing something and never actually do it, and I thought I was becoming one of those people." While he was on tour with The Vaccines he played Timothy Lanham some of his songs and they decided to record them when they had some time off between the tours. 

Timothy and Matt have been working together for ages and have been « living inside each other’s pocket » as he words it. So Lanham having the production credit for You’ll Be Lucky is far from surprising. «I think he's an incredible musician who can realize things that I can't necessarily. When I describe something, he seems to know what buttons the push. We're good mates so it’s hard to be embarrassed around him. I trust him enough to tell me if a song is not good enough. A lot of people would sugar coat it for you. » he elaborates. « When he tells me that something is good, I trust what he says equally. Plus, he's a musical wizhead, so that combination is is gold. » 

Moving from the dynamic of a band to having to channel all that energy inward is a new challenge for Hitt. « The self-doubt was somewhat present while I was making the solo record. In Drowners, I always had three guys to bounce ideas off. With this one, you have to trust yourself, which is bizarre. In a band, there are deadlines, or someone pushing you along, and when you’re doing it alone, you think, “Well, if I stop now, there’s no one around to tell me to keep going.”. 

"I wanted this EP to sound as authentically myself as possible. When you’re in a band, there's no way to avoid the dilution of an idea. I think as a songwriter, you have recurring ways of writing and I wanted to delve into it instead of trying to get away from it. So the EP feels like a very true reflection of my interests and sentiment."

When I ask him what he’s learnt over the years as a touring member, a frontman and now a solo musician he says: « It is to be nice to as many people as you can possibly be nice to. Don’t be a dickhead is basically the most important thing. The sound guy won’t think you’re James Dean because you’re a dick. » 

You'll Be Lucky sees Matt Hitt fine-tuning his artistry and connecting every dot that makes his music inimitable into a tightly packed fifteen-minute EP. The opener, “Carried Away,” with its sturdy guitar line and hypnotic melody, follows Hitt’s rumination as it spirals into a sprawling search for clarity. “I’m Sorry New York” unfolds in chapters, pulling back, then being magnetized once again, as if the city were a lover. It personifies his lifelong relationship with New York and stakes its claim among the great songs written about the place.

The ultimate rock number, “Ladies of Lucille Avenue,” makes it impossible not to imagine being lured by the neon OPEN sign of a local bar, just to be able to hear the song again after a couple of drinks. “Am I Supposed to Just Forget About You?” is a heartfelt look back at a relationship that evaporated, leaving behind only ghostly after-images. “Kentucky Mules” picks up where the previous track leaves off, attempting to answer its lingering question. Forgetting won’t be easy, not with the glow of the television illuminating a clash between real life and pixelated fantasy.

Despite its cheeky, skeptical title, You’ll Be Lucky finds Matt Hitt singing with a familiar earnestness. He moves through nostalgia, frayed relationships, and the fragile mechanics of belonging in real time, letting us feel as though we’re trailing his thoughts as they surface. The EP is filled with questions, some turned inward, others tossed toward the world outside, yet any sense of clarity arrives less through definitive answers than through the simple act of moving. It forms in the rhythm of streets that still feel like his, in the quiet recognitions that come from walking them, in the slow work of being reborn again and again against the backdrop of a city that has held him for so long.