Dave Chamberlain

Brian McSweeney looks just like any rock kid you might meet on the street.

Hair long enough to cover his eyes, rail thin and wearing typically unremarkable clothes, he's pumping money into the jukebox at Schubas, intently paging through the records and picking out songs. His band, Chicago-based Matthew, is poised to play an official release party for its debut record on Rykodisc, "Everybody Down," though the record has been on the streets since July.

Back up. Matthew? From Chicago? Rykodisc? When you smother yourself in local music, it's hard to be caught off-guard by a local band, but when the record landed in my hands, the first questions that occurred to me were: Who are these guys, and how did they get on a major label? "We've been playing off and on for the last two years," says McSweeney, "but it's weird, because except for [guitarist] Jason [Sipe] none of us really grew up here--we don't have a lot of friends from high school that come out and support us. We feel like we're just now becoming a part of the Chicago music scene."

Unlike other Chicago bands with a similar sound, say OK GO or the Blank Theory, Matthew didn't cut its teeth playing any and every gig from the Hideout to the Empty Bottle to parties in the suburbs. Instead, McSweeney and drummer Matt Sumpter, both of whom were raised in West Virginia, paid their dues playing in a Christian rock band called Seven Day Jesus. "We'd grown up in church and it was the first opportunity we had. It was Christian indie rock, so you really couldn't find a smaller audience, but we made records and toured the country in that market for a couple of years."

Eventually that market drove them away. "I quit about three years ago. There's a lot of hypocrisy in that music scene. It bummed me out the way Christianity was becoming just an industry--they were packaging and selling faith." Although the four members of Matthew (the aforementioned plus bassist James Scott) are Christians, and despite the success McSweeney and Sumpter had in the market, it's not a path they want to walk again. "We're really trying to distance ourselves from it, because personally we don't believe in it. I had people from our Christian record label [EMI-Christian] say to me 'you've got to put God and Jesus--the proper names--in your songs more because it will makes the parents feel better about buying the records for their kids.' That's not why I started making music. Who I am is who I am. And I make the music that I make no matter where I am."

Despite his distaste for the Christian music circle, McSweeney never lost his faith. "We're all people who have grown up with a faith background. Even after being immersed in that world forever, I still think it's important to live a life of faith. And I think I speak for all of us. We all have a lot of questions about our faith, you know, the older you get the harder it is--the more you see how faith is an industry, it's kind of sick. I call myself a believing unbeliever; I think it's important to live with faith, but I can't put a name on it now like I could when I was fifteen years old."

Matthew, despite what you may infer, isn't a Christian rock band. Instead, the band plays straight pop rock, too clean to call indie, but with a little more grit than your average Brit-pop band. Since the release of "Everybody Down," (which was co-produced by Paul Kolderie of Radiohead-Hole-Morphine fame) Matthew has toured the US and done the European circuit, playing shows in France, Germany, the UK and Holland. And playing outside the Christian rock network, Matthew is thrown into the real rock world, one where faith takes a distant backseat to sex, drugs, etc. The band's attitude: no problem.

"We played with the Mink Lungs through Germany," McSweeney says with a grin. "It was funny because they heard that we were Christians or believers, whatever. And we didn't know that much about them--but they were freaked out. Because during this song in particular that's about televangelism, they play a clip of a Jerry Falwell sermon, and it's really creepy. When they play it on stage, this one guy puts a robe on and he has this baby covered in blood. And he puts the light up in his face and runs around in the crowd. The first night we saw this we were like, 'What the hell is this?'"

But the band was unphased. "It was cool--because those guys were cool, and I dig what they're saying. Televangelism is sickening to me. It was just really funny because they were afraid they were going to offend us. It was kind of quirky that first night."

McSweeney emphasizes his appreciation for a new-found freedom in his songwriting, something he didn't have in Seven Day Jesus. "One of our songs ["Open Wide"] is about my relationship with my wife--we got married way too young, nineteen and twenty, and we almost split up. But anyway, it's about how our relationship has grown more beautiful in every way, and there's a bit of sexuality in there too. But you know what, it's about my wife. In [the Christian] market I could never sing that song. Now I can sing honest songs in the place I'm at now."

Matthew plays September 12 at the Metro, 3730 North Clark, (773)549-4140, with Gene and Giant Step.

(2002-09-11)

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