“Rowdy Superstar is kind of quite raw still, and I’ve yet to see him live,” admits Matthew.
“He’s someone who Eska turned me onto… He seems to be a very flamboyant and theatrical version of hip-hop, or grime, but the music itself has got quite a sinister edge to it, so you get this juxtaposition of flamboyance with the darkness in the music…
He’s only just starting out, but he’s already confusing audiences, which is a good sign of things to come!” “I have been doing music for about four years,” says Rowdy. “I used to be in a dark punk band for the first year and a half, but I left before anything came of it due to politics with management, and me and the others wanting to go in different directions sound-wise. After I left I didn’t do any music for a while. Then I started experimenting with a bunch of sounds and electronics and found I enjoyed being able to work with no rules or boundaries and the rest, I guess, is history…”
Music wasn’t his first foray into the creative arts. “Before I started making music I was artistic director/choreographer of my own contemporary dance company, which was where I used to offload the visions in my head… But then sounds began to make their way into my mind, so I guess it was a natural artistic progression. As cliched as that sounds!”
And how does he describe the end product of that artistic progression? “I want to sound like a love child who was born on the moon to Bjork and Prince,” he begins, “who Madonna and Biggie used to babysit; who had Daft Punk and OutKast as uncles; who was best friends with Edward Scissorhands and Willy Wonka. The boy who caught a rocket down to Earth, travelled through a distortion-filled sparkling night and landed in wonderland and lived with a cat called St*r.” Errr… meaning? “My sound is an electronic weirdbeat hip-pop-punk experiment!” Okay, well that’s clear then… Currently he has his hands full pulling all the elements of his music together.
“At the moment I’m making new sounds and songs! Creating new concepts and visuals and collaborating with some serious st*rdust. There will be an album – a ‘proper’ album of songs, a world to escape to… And the new live show…” As for future plans, he’s not giving much away. “Hmmm… That would be telling!” he laughs.
Listen to ‘Tick Tock (alternative mix)’ by Rowdy Superstar below –
