Seattle Today Episode 12 - Matt Cameron

When it comes to Seattle, it would be difficult to choose an individual artist who has been consistently hovering over the epicenter of what has defined the music scene in Seattle over the (gulp) almost 40 years. While we had met once before in a social setting, and, obviously came up in the same town surrounded by some of the same musicians, Matt has been such a musical force of nature from the very moment of his arrival in Seattle, and his trajectory ( to match his talent) so awe inspiring, that I certainly took a few deep breaths before pressing “enter” and thus sending him an unsolicited, and what amounts to a cold call of an Instagram email, inviting him to come down to The Moore and have a chat with us. He got back to me the same day and two weeks later, on Monday May 17th, at noon, we started out chat. A few minutes into our talk, we realized we were in a “not” recording studio. Which is our way of conveying that we experienced some technical difficulties that we had, thus far, been fortunate to enough to avoid. But this guest, Matt, on this day, was a confluence that we feel warrants a small bit of leniency on our usual ridged standard of technical brilliance and excellence. We wanted to make sure you all had a chance to hear every word that was shared. So we present this episode, flaws and all, with the utmost respect for the process, but even more so, for the content. Lastly it would be dishonest to not, at the very least, call to light, the enormity of the day Matt agreed to meet with us. Soundgarden played their last show on May 17th 2017. Somehow, this fact escaped me up until a very obvious point, in the final moments of our talk. For the life of me, I can’t decide if my ignorance was a positive or not. I don’t know what or how I would have been different having that conversation with that knowledge in the forefront of my mind. I’m a guy who tends to go in. If someone wants to go deep, I’m your guy. I just hope my failure to recognize how much must have been going on with Matt isn’t too glaring, after the fact. In hindsight, I hope our little dog and pony show was able to provide a necessary for Matt on this day. At worst as a temporary, get out of the house distraction on a day you would just as not be reminded of. At best, spending part of the remembering and sharing, some of your singular experiences conjuring music’s magical forces with one of the most magical to ever stand at the front of a stage.