We recently connected with Matthew Prewitt and have shared our conversation below.

Matthew, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

There are so many ways to think about musicians these days. You have people who play instruments, people who write original songs, people who produce the final audio tracks on a technical level, and more. I think the way I’ve meandered through these roles is what really got me to where I am currently.

Step 1: Watching endless Michael Jackson music videos as a child.
Step 2: Piano lessons around age 7.
Step 3: Messing with my mother’s guitar (thanks, mom) and learning from online tabs.
Step 4: Playing in bands with friends throughout junior high and high school.
Step 5: Making friends with EDM-heads in college.
Step 6: Lots and lots of online tutorials. (Seriously, a lot).
Step 7: Committing myself to live shows and playing in friends’ bands.

Throughout all of this, my greatest motivator and enemy has been my perfectionism. It has undoubtedly slowed down the rate at which I’ve publicly released and performed music, but it is also the reason why I feel so confident in the quality of the music that I *have* released.

An essential skill to making this all happen, though, is the ability to hear specific parts or details that you like in music, and then focus strongly on how you can achieve the same sound/impact/effect. Being able to translate that nebulous thought in your head into an actual set of audio waveforms is what much of this is all about. Once you learn your tools, approaches, and formulas, you become so much more empowered to create what you really want to create.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’m an artist who wants to do everything. Of course, there’s not enough time in this life for doing everything yourself, so I operate mainly as a musician and producer who is extremely fortunate to have talented friends across many artistic disciplines. My hometown, like many parts of California, has always had a music scene of some sort, so I’ve been in bands playing here and there since I was a teenager.

Starting in 2014, I began writing and producing songs that didn’t quite fit into any of the bands that I was a part of. So, these songs stayed archived for years. I’ve always thought that a great musical experience, for listeners, would be something that gives you more than you expected, and maybe some things you didn’t know you wanted. In 2021, I finally felt that my blend of garage rock, edm, and indie pop would have a welcome home in the greater music sphere.

So many folks enter a part of adulthood where they’re simultaneously reaching for new flavors, reliable nostalgia, and anything that makes them actually pay attention to a song from start to finish. I know that my music doesn’t always sit firmly in a genre-playlist or a zone-out-while-you-work compilation, but I hope that it can serve as an escape, however brief, to somewhere that the listener actually wants to go.

I think I’ve been able to achieve this, thanks to the accompanying music videos for every song released thus far, as well as distinct concert visuals that differ from the standard music videos. Some songs are performed live as a remix version, rather than their standard studio version, to give folks something else to keep when they see the live show. Online, I provide insight into my composition, mixing, and mastering processes for many of the songs. There’s an old saying about how “nobody wants to see how the sausage is made,” but in this era of such incredible transparency and immediacy via new media, I’m trying to challenge that. I think you can be invested in each individual ingredient as much as you are invested in the final dish.

I’m so proud of almost everything that is a part of the Eunith sphere, largely because I’ve had so many friends (with so much talent, I should make clear) collaborate with me to make it possible. If I had to choose one bit of media for new fans to see, I’d choose the latest music video, for the song “How You See Me,” directed by my friend and frequent collaborator, Keaton Punch. I won’t spoil anything, but I’ll just say that yours truly actually got his hands dirty with some technical work, and handled some post-production special effects near the end of the video.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I’m going to address two things, but I want to address them realistically and honestly, so bear with me.

Money and space. Like literal dollars and literal square footage.

In the current state of western capitalism, it should be obvious to everyone that nobody can simply “decide to be an artist” full-time without money and space. Every decade has had its own growing pains as people wrestle with what the acquisition of money and space looks like for artists. We know that in our current time, there are basically two roads that money can come in through:

1. the lucky/lottery road (your music gets placed in a commercial environment or you get featured or collaborate with an established artist)

2. the slow trickle of individual transactions (concert tickets, merch sales, CD/vinyl/tape sales, private shows)

There’s not much folks can do to really ensure number 1, but there’s a lot they can do for number 2. For example:

– Tell artists what kind of merch you’d love to buy (“we want hats!” “give us a tshirt!” “patches!”).
– Go to their paid shows (and if possible, buy a ticket in advance, so venues start to see early on that this is an artist who really, reliably brings fans).
– If you know someone, anyone, in the entertainment industry who can help secure more lucrative gigs, collaborations, or commercial placements, introduce them to the artist(s) you care about.
– Go out more often to live music venues, regardless of the artist. Your city will notice, and more businesses will be vying for live music to be a part of their offering, thus more gig opportunities for the artists.
– If you have space, like literal square footage, that can be used as practice space for musicians, let it be known. Tell an artist you like after a show (or even via social media) that you have practice space to offer if they’re in need, or to let their friends know, if they’re in need.

Beyond that, my advice would be venturing into greater “societal” and political territory to fundamentally support art in a more concrete way than we do now, but that would be its own whooooooole article, maybe even a book. So we’ll save it for another time!

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

“This is Water,” by David Foster Wallace. It was a commencement speech he delivered to the students at Kenyon College many years ago. I try to listen to it only once a year or once every couple of years, so I can relive some of the little eye-opening moments that I might forget.

It’s not very long (it was delivered as a speech, after all), but it’s so full of the kind of advice that I think folks need for modern resilience.

There are no brass tacks business strategies, or tech-bro productivity hacks, just a couple large mental frameworks that help you get through the day-in day-out parts of life. As creatives, we can be such big dreamers, but that “day-in day-out” is inescapable, so it’s best to know how to handle it well. It’s made me a more patient collaborator, a less harsh self-critic, and a happier individual overall. Please read it or listen to it.

Contact Info:

• Website: eunith.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/eunith_music
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eunithmusic
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/eunith_music
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0up1ri7Cz4kxQhCTvWxJ2Q

Image Credits
I included the photographer names on the image files themselves, but they are: Penelope Dills Keaton Punch Bree Wattonville Felix Adamo