Awksymoron
Words and Interview by Miles Ginoza.
Brooklyn native Awksymoron writes music with a sense of tenderness that reflects their big heart. Often using a simple sonic palette of acoustic guitar and violin, they sing of love, longing, and heartbreak with the kind of honesty that seems to acknowledge and accept heavy emotions rather than fight them. Originally released in 2016 and 2018 respectively, Scaredy Cat and Y are now being re-released together as Scaredy Cat, Y? on cassette tape through nonprofit collective Metaphorest Records. It is a birthday of sorts, in one sense quite literal as Y was released in the beginning of October two years ago, but also a celebration of where Awksymoron has been and how much they have grown. While Athena Matsil recorded both Scaredy Cat and Y as a solo artist, Awksymoron has expanded from a solo act to a three-piece band consisting of Matsil on guitar, violin, and vocals, Griffin Jennings on bass, and Theo Chapman on drums. I caught up with Matsil over Zoom and talked about their musical influences, songwriting process, how shifting from a solo act to a three-piece band has expanded their horizons, and what growth means to them.
What is your earliest memory of music? Whether that's listening to music or playing music or dancing to music.
My earliest memories of music are definitely being in the car with my parents. They had a book of CDs, and everybody had the CD that was their CD. So for example, my mom was super into Barry Manilow and the more feminine, ballad-y pop music that I was listening to as a kid. Then my dad was super into Simon and Garfunkel and The Doors, all classic rock essentially. And then there was The Beatles. I remember listening to them super early, specifically Abbey Road. I remember we would listen to that album, and “Oh! Darling” was my song and “Octopus's Garden” was my little brother's song. And we would take the lead, singing all the different songs in the car.
I started playing violin when I was only four years old. I remember music being a super competitive thing for me because my parents started giving me private lessons, so I quickly got good at it. And it was my thing and has continued to be my thing for the rest of my life.
When did you first start writing music?
One of the biggest inspirations for me to start writing music was watching the movie Juno because the soundtrack was The Moldy Peaches and then all the songs that weren't The Moldy Peaches were the classic rock songs that I had grown up on. When I saw that movie, it was like, "Oh, this is the music that I love in combination with music that I'm capable of writing if I try." So, then I started to write songs that were drawn from both things that stood out to me in that movie soundtrack.
Cool! So, in terms of the music that you write now and have written over the past couple of years, are there specific artists that you really draw from for inspiration? Are there elements of their style or just things that they do that you try to incorporate?
When I was first starting to write the songs that are on Scaredy Cat, which was in college, my biggest inspirations were two artists. One is Karen O and the other is Amy Bruce Spaceshow. Amy Bruce Spaceshow was this person from Illinois that my friend introduced me to. They're the first folk punk that I ever listened to. They weren't a beautiful singer and their guitar playing was pretty basic, but I think I was drawn to it the same way that I was drawn to the Juno soundtrack. The lyrics spoke to me so deeply and it made me feel like I could write music. It felt like I have all these musical skills, but I don't need to be a classically trained vocalist or singer to make songs. So that's what I got from Amy Bruce Spaceshow. And their album explore your world and let wonder speak has some of the most raw, emotionally charged songs. I think I was going through a breakup or something and their lyrics just really spoke to me, and then I wrote a bunch of songs.
And Karen O, I just really liked the lo-fi sound of her album. I liked the fact that you could have a short song. The short song format really hit home for me because I was coming up with these ideas and I would write parts of songs. I think the Karen O album just gave me the confidence to play with the structure of these pop songs.
So those two come to mind, but I also love early rock and roll, like super pretty melody and harmony that's in ‘50s music by The Platters and Dion and early Beatles. Just like catchy stuff.
What is your songwriting process like? I guess I'm sort of picking up that lyrics are important to you. Do you start with lyrics, or do you start with melody or chords?
I'm trying to remember what I've done in the past. I don't think it's been really consistent. I know that I don't start with melody. I might jot down a phrase if it comes to mind. More recently, I always start with chord progressions, and that has to do with me not being able to play riffs on the guitar. So, you'll notice that my music isn't like, "Oh, that's a guitar riff in there." There's hardly any of that in any of the songs. There might be some post-production synth ones, but those are afterthoughts. My music isn't based around having catchy, instrumental melodies. I think I do have some clever melodies, but they're always drawn from the chord progressions that I come up with. I do chord progressions, and then melodies and lyrics happen at the same time. I like to come up with chord progressions that I feel are clever and beautiful. I really like dissonances, but I like them to be like clever dissonances. And then I will do the melody from there.
Do you want to talk about what the process was in terms of writing the songs for Scaredy Cat and Y, and if it differed or if there were any consistencies or tendencies?
I feel like a lot of how those songs came to be, especially on Scaredy Cat, was me figuring out how to record myself, and then realizing that I could use GarageBand to layer and record multiple lines. So, where I would do one guitar line, then I could play over with another guitar line, but add a filter to it and have it sound a certain way. I think there's a lot of violin on that EP and that was never my intention right off the bat. I have a strained relationship with violin because I definitely loved it at first, but then my parents put a lot of pressure on me to practice, and it made me distance myself from it. As I got older, I began to re-introduce it as an instrument that I was playing for leisure. And I really got that from songwriting.
That’s beautiful.
Thank you. So yeah, I think it didn't really occur to me before I started recording my own music that recording and producing… I don't know… Like, I have this classical background and love for rock and roll music, but I wasn't ever really thinking about the recording process as an instrument itself and using that to make the songs what they are. And that was so exciting because I was giving myself a new creative tool to use to make music.
And then for the songs on the next EP, I think I was just way better at guitar, you know? In Scaredy Cat, I'm using a lot of the same chords over and over, and on the next one, I think it's pretty clear that I'm using a much broader variety of guitar sounds. It just goes back to my skillset, drawing from that, and incorporating that into my music as a way of practicing guitar, practicing songwriting, practicing production.
The songwriting also had to do with what iteration of Awksymoron I was doing. It started out with just Henry Korpi and me, and in our performances together the sound was so different. I had never played with a drummer, and I was kind of screaming over his drumming sometimes, which was not what I ever expected. It's super cool to learn and figure out how your live performance will later inform what you're actually trying to do. And then later we were in a punk band and sang the same songs, but played them super differently. That was super fun.
What is it like for you now to be revisiting these two albums now that you're going to have the physical release?
I've had so much fun revisiting these albums recently because I think at some point I started to think about songwriting as a thing that had to be super complicated. I'm revisiting my earlier songs where the chords are so simple but still so nicely arranged, especially with the violin parts. Revisiting these songs has reminded me that simple doesn't mean bad, and simple can be super cool. As long as you're doing your own thing, how could it not be cool?
A lot of my songwriting has come from dark periods where I was so upset. I would write a song about it and then putting these feelings and thoughts into the form of a song meant that I could compartmentalize it in a way that was like extracting it from myself and putting it out into the world. If people like it, then that means that I've created something vague and broad enough that it can be received by whoever's listening to it. And if they don't like it, it was for me the whole time anyway.
I'm curious then, in terms of songwriting being kind of cathartic and a means for processing, how does it feel to share that stuff with people? How are you thinking about sharing those pretty vulnerable songs?
Generally, I wasn't scared because it was sweet relief to say those things. I was never really depressed or really knew what depression was until halfway through my freshman year of college. My perception of it as a high schooler or entering college was like depression is a feeling and not a state of being. As soon as I understood what it was, I could empathize with people around me better. So, I think this is another way of allowing myself to understand what other people were feeling as well as expressing myself. I've had moments where my songs, like for myself, hit too close to home, and I literally had to stop singing it because I was going to cry. But it's all context. I mean, right now it feels crazy to think that I'm releasing songs about someone who broke my heart in 2014. Like those feelings aren't... It was like my whole world then, but it's nothing to me now, you know? And of course it shaped me to be who I am today, but it doesn't upset me. It's an interesting reminder of how I got here.
I feel like I'm pretty in touch with my emotions because of songwriting and part of being able to be in touch with your emotions through music is being able to actually listen to the music, and if it's something that's so excruciating sonically before you even get to the lyrics, it's like, how do you feel your feelings if you can't even attempt to approach them? That's why I like the lighthearted sounds in combination with the less so lighthearted lyrics in my music. And the lyrics are sad, but they're whimsical, you know? Like the word oxymoron. I like that an oxymoron has to do with offering insight based on a contradiction. And when I have lyrics that are so intense with music that is still light and digestible and perceivable, I think that is oxymoronic.
What do you think helps you grow as a musician and songwriter? And what do you seek out to help you grow?
I think the answer to all of that is having confidence that comes from myself and comes from other people. I was asked to be in a songwriting group because this person likes my music. I started a band because someone messaged me and was like, "Hey, I really like your songs. Let's write together." I take jazz lessons and I feel more confident because I have this entirely new skillset that I can apply to my own writing.
I also like listening to music and seeing what I can draw from other people's music. I don't think that's cheating or anything. In order for my music to exist, we needed to have had all the music that existed before. I need to figure out what I like, figure out what I don't like, figure out what I love, figure out how to play what I love, and then incorporate it into my little songs.
What are your aspirations as an artist? Are there areas in which you want to grow?
I have such a fun time performing, but I think that I forget that I'm actually being perceived. When shows happen again, I really want to figure out a live performance component that is not as separate from the music, whether that's just being more engaged with an audience or actively changing how I carry myself on stage. I aspire to be a touring artist.
I want to work towards bringing in more collaborators potentially because I do all this stuff myself, and I don't necessarily need collaborators who are going to write the songs with me, but I have so many talented friends who can bring so much to the table.
What else? My biggest aspiration is to continue to do what I love, you know, sustain a livelihood in New York City, share platforms with my friends, share platforms with people who need their platforms to be elevated, center artists whose voices need to be heard.
I just love music. Not to be that guy, but music is everything to me. I volunteered with a rock camp and I wrote my capstone on rock camp. I love rock and roll as a means of educating others on gender and social justice. You could have a whole interview just about rock camp. I think music is so powerful and transcends sound. Like it's not just sound. It's an experience and it's intention.
