Breakup was inspiration

When it comes to romantic relationships, the majority we embark on will likely crumble before amounting to very much. Sometimes the timing is off, sometimes we’re a creep, sometimes the chemicals just don’t mix – it has and will continue to happen to everyone. What sets people apart is how they deal with the failure and how they move on.
Mathew Snow moved on from his own dissolved relationship by picking up a guitar and rehashing the disappointment and regret. He recorded his debut album, “Mathew Snow and the Way It Was,” with closure as his chief intention.
“The record is basically the sound of me trying to make sense of the emotions I felt during and after a breakup, which I know has been done three million times over, but it was my way of overcoming the disappointment,” he said. “It helped me acknowledge what happened and why it happened and to look ahead to new possibilities – which is why I decided to call the record ‘… the Way It Was.’”
The 30-year-old Astoria musician grew up in Amherst, Ohio and tooled around with garage bands in high school, but he never really got serious about music until recently. His brand of soulful blues-rock is the culmination of years of musical and peer influences.
Snow was probably most influenced by a far lesser known artist, Mike Lenz. He recalled watching Lenz play at a bar in Ohio and just being floored by what he saw.
“He’s easily one of the most amazing guitar players and performers I’ve ever seen” he said. “I took guitar lessons from him – like three or four sessions – and he asked me what I wanted to learn. I looked him in the eye and said, ‘Honestly, I just want to rip-ff exactly what you do.’”
He refrained from copyright infringement and instead began writing his own songs on acoustic guitar, eventually reworking them on electric. The songwriting process can be a long road for Snow, and can easily eat-up one-to-three months of his life. Sometimes it starts with a chord, but it can also start with a simple melody or a single lyrical line.
“I’ll come up with a guitar riff with some random vocal melody or a verse and maybe what I think is the chorus, but I’ll struggle for a few weeks to find the overall message or story,” he said. “I also consider the band when I’m writing. The guys I’m playing with now have been a blessing.”
Snow’s band consists of Matt Olley on drums, bassist Todd Wells and Hiro Suzuki on lead guitar.
“Olley is tremendously versatile and adaptive, Wells is a warrior with a long history of playing gigs in New York City, and Suzuki is a sage and a seasoned professional,” he said. “It can take a while for a group of musicians to get to the point where they can understand how each other play and hear music. But we work really well together and have covered a lot of creative ground in the short time we’ve known one another.”
Things have certainly worked out for Snow since a breakup shook his plans all those years ago, with brand new prospects and a songbook of possibilities constantly opening up. Even his parents, who at first were skeptical about his pursuit of a musical career, have taken to preserving this “hobby” of his.
“I went back to Ohio not too long ago and they had one of my homemade flyers in a nice frame hanging in the kitchen,” he said. “It was funny – at least they think I’m cool.”
Mathew Snow can be seen and heard on the web at mathewsnow.com, www.myspace.com/mathewsnow, www.facebook.com/mathewsnowmusic and www.twitter.com/mathewsnow.