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Matt Maltese Plays the Long Game: How the U.K. Indie Outsider Wrote His Next Chapter
Ahead of new LP 'Hers', Matt Maltese opens up about his unconventional journey to becoming a revered songwriter and label boss.
His debut LP Bad Contestant, released via Atlantic Records in 2018, mixed piercing personal reflections with surreal, writerly metaphors involving lucid dreams, fish, wartime food rations and chocolate-based sexual exploits, all atop a warm guitar and organ combo. Here, Maltese crafted narratives that feel immersive, brutal and soberingly real — though seven years on, he looks back on that era as a time where he felt “overwhelmed” by what the moment required from him: signing with a major label, topping “Ones to Watch” lists, putting out jaunty baroque-pop in a landscape that was dominated by post-punk acts. From The Snuts to STONE and Crawlers, a series of U.K. indie and rock acts have similarly spoken out about struggling to fit into the major label system due to shifting commercial expectations, all having chosen to take the independent route in order to rebuild their respective careers.
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