Aderbat
Indie Rock / Alternative
Aderbat singer/songwriter and de facto leader Matt Taylor was originally a visual artist, but time and fate eventually changed his course and threw him a different turn.
“I could have been a visual artist,” Taylor explains. “Why do I write songs now? It’s that haunting thing. I hear melodies and I have to express them. I have to bring them out into the open air and expose them. I started writing and playing guitar when I was 16, but the songs were romantic and mellow, even though I had been playing in a hardcore band.”
Apparently, music runs in the Taylor family blood. Matt’s grandfather Charles Taylor was a popular big band singer in the 1940s. Fast forward 40 years and the large vinyl collection owned by Taylor’s mother became another source of entertainment, enlightenment and influence in his rough and ready childhood. Raised in less than comfortable surroundings in an overcrowded townhouse in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Matt found his way through hard times with the help of a close knit family.
“I grew up with divorced parents,” Taylor says. “I was raised by Mom, and we didn’t have much money. She is a sculptor and painter and a huge influence on me. We had hard times, but it was good. It was tough sometimes. Bucks County, Pennsylvania is an upper middle class area and you don’t fit it when you have to use food stamps. But our family -- my mom, brother and sister -- are real tight.”
Taylor’s past and present influences give a clue to the eclectic nature of the Aderbat experience. “When I was 14, it was Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and Fugazi,” he laughs. Astral Weeks is so ethereal. That whole record is totally out there; that has always stuck with me. Everything along the way too, from Astrid Gilberto and Dylan and Bob Marley, to Radiohead, Wilco, Philip Glass, Cat Power, and Bjork.”
Aderbat began when drummer Todd Schied auditioned in Taylor’s Doylestown home with bassist Brad Kunkle and original guitarist Chris Blasucci already onboard. Aderbat’s first record, Rabbits and Rocks, was recorded over a six month period on a laptop computer in three living room locations in 2004, and soon caught the attention and ultimately the mixing and production talents of producer Andrew Weiss (Ween, Akron/Family, Rollins Band). Guitarist and jazz aficionado Christopher Covatta soon joined and Aderbat’s sonic reality was in full force.
Rabbits and Rocks has won fans as far flung as Brazil, Australia, and Sweden. Radio interviews and rotation (including University of Pennsylvania’s WXPN), critical acclaim (including Performing Songwriter Magazine), a song on CBS’s Joan of Arcadia, music for Nick Danger clothing, and sharing the stage with such notable acts as Yo La Tengo, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Dears, Maria Taylor, Illinois, Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin, White Rabbits and The Helio Sequence continues to keep Aderbat on its ascending course. With their self-produced EP Man Overboard and their sophomore full length We Belong to the Sea, which was produced by Andrew Weiss and mastered by Greg Calbi (Talking Heads, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, etc.), ready for release, Aderbat’s wings are spreading, their muse is fully formed, and Taylor just keeps on writing truly great, impressionistic songs. He’s clearly a man on a mission. If only he could get some sleep.
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