SeLF-centered.org: Biography

“I’m a fan of both poppy melodies and not-so-poppy sounds,” explains Matt Mahaffey, the mastermind behind Self. “When someone hears a Self song, I want them to know we’re into both. Like peanut butter and chocolate — two great tastes that taste great together!”

Mahaffey’s Self-description aptly characterizes the sonic confections on Breakfast With Girls (DreamWorks/Spongebath), the band’s third album (1995’s Subliminal Plastic Motives and 1997’s The Half-Baked Serenade were both issued on Spongebath). Indeed, Mahaffey whips up buoyant pop tunes at will, leavening them with booty-shakin’ beats, bittersweet strings, lounge-jazz textures and home-brewed psychedelic noise.

Witness opener “The End of It All,” which veers from apocalyptic rock to cheeky pop. First radio track “Meg Ryan” likewise blends old-school hip-hop grooves, tripped-out synthesizer and hooks galore. “Suzy Q Sailaway” is a heady cocktail of muscular rock and bachelor-pad playfulness; “Breakfast With Girls” is an edgy funk number that samples L.L Cool J.; “Better Than Aliens” is gently symphonic; and “Placing the Blame,” yet another example of Mahaffey’s eclectic bent, is a menacing trip-pop opus.

The seamless synthesis of these varying elements is testimony to the Tennessee native’s instincts as a composer, arranger and producer. Mahaffey’s versatility as a player is also a factor in the music’s breadth. “I have a home studio, and I like to have every instrument at my disposal,” he insists. “One day I’ll write a song on bass, the next day I’ll write with a sampler, the next day with drums. It keeps it fresh.” For Self’s latest disc, however, he managed to delegate some of the musical duties.

“It was more of a band effort this time,” Mahaffey confirms. “Half-Baked Serenade was pretty much me pressing the record button and running across the house to the drumkit. I did produce Breakfast With Girls (released July 13, 1999) and was there barking at everybody — and I did most of the drums and piano and all the samples and beats and vocals and a couple of guitar and bass parts — but my brother Mike did the more complex guitar parts. He plays with more finesse.” Non-Mahaffey contributors included Mac Burrus on bass, Chris James on keyboards and Jason Rawlings on drums.

Mahaffey’s musical autobiography begins with drums. “I started as a little kid, breaking out the pots and pans,” he recalls. “Then I began getting toy drumkits from the Sears catalogue. I’d always trash those — I’d have ’em only until the next Christmas. Then I finally got a kickdrum and snare. And I actually once had a dream where I got a high-hat and a floor tom. That was probably the most vivid dream I’ve ever had.”

By the time Matt got his dream kit together, he was proficient enough to play with musicians nearly twice his age. “My first band was called Blade,” he informs. “I started it with these guys in my neighborhood when I was nine or 10 — they were all 18 and 19. We played Cheap Trick, Eddie Money. I never found it very satisfying, but at least I was playing drums in a band. I had a really good sense of rhythm at a young age, which I guess is why I got into hip-hop in seventh grade — Run-DMC, Big Daddy Kane, The Beastie Boys, The Boogie Boys.”

Mahaffey went on to become a Prince fanatic and play pop and R&B with friends, but even then his musical tastes were decidedly adventurous. “At one point I was playing in square-dancing bands with these old men,” he recollects. “It was totally bluegrass, and that was a blast and I made good money. Best of all, I wasn’t working at Chick Filet or Jack-in-the-Box.”

The seeds of Self were sown in 1989 when Mahaffey acquired a sampler and four-track recorder. He was already well versed in home recording by the time he began college, attending the Recording Industry Management (RIM) program at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. “They were teaching me how to wrap microphone cables and stuff like that,” he laments. “You only got to run the recording console in your very last class of your very last year. I was a freshman, thinking, I can’t wait that long. I was learning more outside the classroom than in. Eventually, I got kicked out for low grades. I never went back.”

During his tenure at MTSU, Mahaffey started producing rap tracks. “I was a drummer and made money however I could, playing in punk bands, reggae bands, pop bands,” he explains. “I had a dorm room and was doing hip-hop in there. I hooked up with a bunch of Nashville rappers and was making beats to go — you could give me 40 bucks and I’d come to your session, get your track together and leave. I was making money gigging at night, so doing beats was more for the fun than the money. But I would have 17-year-old rappers coming to my room with giant wads of cash. Their girlfriends would hold their babies, who were throwing up on my bed while I did the tracks.”

Despite such dodgy experiences, Mahaffey was absolutely captivated by the music. “I was always amazed at the way hip-hop songs are put together,” he attests. “The fact that you could sample something and use it in a different context was so appealing. So I got into sampling. At the same time, the kids I was hanging with were listening to punk rock and The Beatles. I ended up playing pop at night and hip-hop during the day. With that kind of workload, when I sat down to write songs, I had all these ideas bouncing around. And still today, I can’t not put a bunch of different elements in a song.”

The diversity of Murfreesboro’s musical climate further fueled his desire to create something that embraced his divergent passions. While playing in a local pop band called Ella Minopy, he, Ella bandmate Seth Timbs (now frontman of acclaimed popsters Fl. Oz.), and manager Rick Williams founded the indie label Spongebath (Williams currently heads up the company). “It’s a tiny label with maybe 10 full-time employees,” Mahaffey says. “A cool scene has been emerging around Murfreesboro — people who’ve had it with the Nashville mentality, kids who’ve dropped out of the RIM program — and it’s really starting to open up possibilities for the people involved and the music.”

Self’s debut, Subliminal Plastic Motives, was released on Spongebath in 1995. It demonstrated Mahaffey’s mastery of the power-pop genre. Zoo Records picked up the disc, which earned critical raves, and helped Self land spots opening for Garbage, 311 and Cracker.

Follow-up The Half-Baked Serenade (also in the Spongebath catalogue) saw Mahaffey exploring the territory between pop and hip-hop, a landscape he’s painted with striking inventiveness on Breakfast With Girls. And though he had a big-label budget to work with this time out, Mahaffey stuck with his proven home-recording ethic. “I’ve got more of an arsenal of gear at home now,” he allows, “and I’m pretty used to doing things on the cheap.”

“There’s a lot of different shit on this album,” he concludes. “But I think it all ties in somehow.” In fact, fans of daring, beat-driven pop will find that Mahaffey’s varied ingredients blend smoothly — just like peanut butter and chocolate.