Supermercado’s Matt Mercado Uncovered

Interview by Ken Payne
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Singer/songwriter Matt Mercado has embarked on many musical journeys since the late ‘80’s including heading such bands as Daisy Chain, Mind Bomb and Pivot Man. Catchy songs with groovy hooks that could slam you in the face has always been the name of Matt’s game. Now. In mid-2006 Mercado is proving that he is still on top of his game with Supermercado, his latest band that formed in 2002. Supermercado is a hard-hitting metal band that includes an urban element not as evident in Mercado’s former bands and the best way to dose up is to see them live. To help create their new sound, Mercado, along with drummer Greg Potter, John Skender and Sean Osteos, teamed up with soul singer/rapper Cliff “Killa Kat” Hunt. Killa Kat’s unusual, but amazing, vocals and hard-core stage presence couldn’t have been a more perfect fit for Supermercado.
After playing the classic Chicago haunts like the Thirsty Whale and Avalon with Daisy Chain, touring the world with Mind Bomb, and reinventing himself with Pivot Man, Mercado might have finally found his perfect situation in Supermercado. Happy with the new sound, his band mates and their direction, Mercado is working as hard as ever to put Supermercado on the map. I caught Matt at his studio, Sympto Sound, in Chicago during a break from two separate tours.

Buzz – Matt, you’ve been in a few bands and it seems that throughout your career you’ve always managed to have a current, cutting edge sound. How do you stay on top of the game?

Matt Mercado – I don’t really try to anticipate what I’m going to do with the music. We’re always on the cusp of new things so the projects I do will be a few months or even a year ahead of it’s time. I just try to figure out what I don’t want to do any more and where I want to go with it.

Buzz – So you don’t really listen to too much music on the radio and say, “hey, this is cool – let’s try something like this”?

MM – No, not at all. I guess with the Internet I listen to a lot more music now. But as far as Daisy Chain, Mind Bomb and Pivot Man, I hardly listened to records or the radio at all. But, because of the Internet and also the bands that come into my studio, I am listening to more music now.

Buzz – Ok, the name of your band “Supermercado” means supermarket in Spanish. How did you come up with the name? Was it just because of your last name?

MM – I’ve always kind of wanted the name “Supermercado” just for a joke but I knew no one would ever agree with it and that they’d be like, “No way, dude – We’re a fuckin’ band, dude”. But then I threw it out there and they liked it. Then, our manager at the time, who shall remain nameless, told us he would quit if we kept the name because he thought no one would take us serious. So we parted ways.

Buzz – So you just came off a tour with Vixen and Enuff’s Enuff. How was it hitting the road again?

MM – It was a long time to be in a van with no windows – a cargo van. I toured extensively in ’93-’94 and a good amount in ’98 and hadn’t toured since then. When I was younger I HATED touring, even when we had our million-dollar budget and the big tour busses, and the big airplanes – hated it! I could not stand touring. But now, with my maturity having grown, I had no problem with it at all.

Buzz – Why didn’t you like touring before?

MM – Just the traveling. Too much doing nothing and waiting. It’s like we’d hurry up to get there, then arrive…and wait. At the time my band were big partiers too. With the band I’m in now, Supermercado, I’m the only one who drinks or smokes. They don’t let me drink or smoke a lot, which is actually a lot healthier for me. You know, we were in a van with no windows, so they wouldn’t let me smoke, not even weed. They were so gay.

Buzz – What’s the difference with playing out now as opposed to your earlier days?

MM – I would say that people are more accepting of it [our music] now, especially out of town. Maybe Daisy Chain and Mind Bomb were a little too much on the cusp but Supermercado is…right there. We just went all over the East coast and, really, everything east of Chicago – there’s nothing really going on. The bands in Chicago are pretty much ahead of them, particularly in New York. I’ve toured the East coast before with my earlier bands and they just fucking hated us. I mean, we even had a hit on the radio in Cleveland, the venues would be jam-packed but at the end of the song – nothing. At the end of every song – nothing. We were like, “Holy fuck, dude”. I mean, you can get cheers or get booed but this was like…nothing. Now Supermercado goes out there and they love us, so I think we’re on the right track.

Buzz - Why do you think Chicago never had a sweep of bands getting signed at one time like they have had in Seattle or LA?

MM – That’s a tough one. I don’t know. Chicago has definitely been overlooked in the past but they’re definitely looking in Chicago right now. In the last few years Chicago has drawn more label interest. But, as it is right now, it is very tough to get signed anyway. There’s so much delusion in the music industry now and they don’t know how they’re going to make money anyway. So they’re restructuring all the deals so they would take all the merchandise and stuff like that. Whereas, traditionally, deals were structured to take all your record sales.

Buzz – What about a band development? Is there a reasonable time span for a band to break with a label?

MM – Now, it’s getting to the point where the labels are doing a little more artist development. Throughout the entire nineties there was none going on. In the early 2000’s they were giving them six weeks to, maybe, thirteen weeks and if they didn’t hit…Now the labels are trying to do it slow and it’s almost like an indie release at this point. I was just talking to someone from a Major and she was telling me that she signed a band and they’re not even going to the straight active rock, which would be like the Q101’s and the big nation-wides. Instead they’re going touring and doing college radio, then more touring and then finally, take a look at the active rock. Problem is that us bands on indie labels to compete with major labels in active rock, there’s just too much “payola” going on. The big labels have huge budgets to do what’s called a “campaign”. Every time you do a campaign you take one song, make a special CD for it and they can keep it on the radio for 13-18 weeks. We as an indie band can keep it going for about 6 weeks and if it’s not a smash then what can we do. We can’t afford to keep it going. So, they [major labels] are even realizing the best way to go about it is to tour.

Buzz – How are your band mates in Supermercado? You guys gellin’ like a felon?

MM –I would say, honestly, that Supermercado is the best band, player-wise, that I’ve ever been in. We play more as a unit. Pivot Man was a never-ending circle of guys coming in so we never really formed that cohesiveness that we have with Supermercado. We’re at four years now. Touring has definitely made us a different monster but sometimes we’ll do Indy race shit where we’ll play three sets before 11:00 am.

Buzz – When you did sign a major record deal with Mind Bomb, was there anything that was like the fantasy that most bands have? Was it exciting and surreal?

MM – I thought it would be more luxurious. I mean, not so luxurious, but I thought they’d have balloons and a big fucking fake-ass check that we would hold, you know what I mean – a big sign with people taking pictures. The contract, it was a million dollar contract, was just all normal and shit. I thought it would have gold stars and be gold-leafed but…No, I was really disappointed.

Buzz - What was the reality of it though?

MM – The reality of it was as soon as we got the million dollars everybody in the band started fighting, “ I want this much, you should have this much”. It tore the band apart and that was the sad thing about it because we should have been like one unit, but we were like four magnets with completely opposite polar ends. We had to go on tour, like 350 shows or so and everyone hated each other the whole time. And actually, I knew I wanted to quit that band, like after the third day, but for legal reasons – to keep the contract alive, I just had to shut up and not saying anything. My lawyers advised me and told me that it would look bad if I pull out just three days into a tour. So, I just had to tough it out.

Buzz – How does having Cliff Hunt, or “Killa Kat”, another singer, change the songwriting for Supermercado?

MM – I just give him all the hard parts. If it’s hard for me to play and sing, I let him do it. And if it’s screaming, he’s screaming. I’m done screaming.

Buzz – How did the two of you cross paths in the first place?

MM – He was hired for a session over here at my studio. And was like, “ Hmmm, I think he’s pretty good”. We hit it off. When I was walking him out one day I told him he had some skills and that we should start a punk band someday, and it went from there.

Buzz – Killa Kat, like you, has a strong personality on stage. How does that change your live show?

MM – Well, to be funny about this, in Buffalo, he had to fly back for some family reasons and he couldn’t play the show and I was all tweaked out about it. Anyway, we ended up doing the show and it was the first time I didn’t have a linebacker or an offensive lineman in my way, so when we got back I was like, “Dude, you’ve gotta give me my room now”. It upped my game it was one of the better things. There’s no more fight for center stage anymore. I give him his room and he gives me mine.

Buzz – Supermercado plays out all the time, you just got back from touring, you’re soon leaving to tour again and you are either recording for your own band or other projects. Any time left for Matt?

MM – There is no break for me in the music world. But when people start talking about the jobs and how they dread going back to work after a weekend or holiday break, I feel lucky to do what I’m doing.

Buzz – You have a golden ear as far as finding good hooks or changing arrangements to make more musical sense. This really shows in the studio when you work on your own music or other band’s music.

MM – I think at one point when I was real young, I was struggling a bit with arrangements, so I just sat down and charted out all these pop/rock songs, and this was the ‘80’s so there was a lot of rock ’n roll going on. So I charted 30 or 40 songs and they all came out nearly identical. There’s definitely a theory to songs on the radio. For the most part these songs are pretty much formulated and that’s the way people want to hear it, so why fight it? Even songs that are more obscure kind of stick to the same formula.

Buzz – The science of music?

MM – Yeah exactly. You can divert from that formula if you want, like I often did with Pivot Man, but then it seems to go over people’s heads. Even a band like System of a Down where you might think their shit is all weird and wacky – it’s totally formulated. The arrangements are very simple, a lot more simple than you might think.

Buzz – What’s on the burner for Supermercado?

MM – Next, it’s more touring in August. We’re going out with Deconstruct. Also, our CD came out May 26th in Europe on Cargo International, so we’re going to have to go out there sometime this fall – England, Germany, France and Italy. We’re working on that right now.

Buzz – You’ve toured in Europe before. How was it?

MM – Great! It’s a cakewalk. They love us out there. They’re so excited to see American music. They really love hard rock. I was out there with Mind Bomb on a tour with Love Hate.

Buzz – This might be premature but is a new Supermercado record in the works?

MM – Recently, we came down and were like, “Whew-hoo, ok, were ready to put the next album together”. Then we put the list of tunes together and were like, “Holy fuck! We only have four tunes! I thought we had at least twenty new songs! Oh well, looks like we’re not making a record next week”.

Buzz – Is Supermercado trying to get any of their songs in film or TV like you’ve done in the past with your other bands?

MM – We’ve been pushing it a little but I’m not really focusing on that. There’s a lot of politics involved. Usually we get lucky and a song will hit. Basically, if they want you they’ll come and get you. If you’re out there doing shit they’ll find you. If you’re starting to surface, they’ll be like, “Oh, who’s this band?” We’ve done some TV but, like I said, I’m not focusing on that. And part of the reason is they’re just not paying like they used to. When I was in Mind Bomb we got $50,000 for just one song. They’re paying next to nothing now. Record companies are looking for ways to promote their bands more because record sales are down. So a band might get $5,000 to do a TV commercial. With Mind Bomb we got offered $75,000 to do a commercial and we turned it down because we thought it was kind of uncool at the time. And it was uncool to do commercials at one time – for bands it was definitely uncool. Now it’s changed.

Buzz – What do you want fans to know about Supermercado?

MM – They should really come see us live. You can pretty much download the record, Scary Baby, on Kaza, so why buy it? I don’t really care. Either way you should give it a listen because it’s a good record. It’s the first record I’ve made that I could listen to from beginning to end without wanting to puke.