About.
I’ve never really been a fan of pretense. I find myself engaging in it quite often, but I’m not usually a fan of that either. So, this isn’t going to be some fake bio that’s self written in the 3rd person. Be advised.
When I was in 10th grade, I started at a new high school. One of the guidance types met with me after a week and asked me a bunch of questions for what I had assumed to be some type of market research purpose. One of the questions was, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” An age old question for sure. I told her that I wanted to be in a band. Evidently, that wasn’t one of the choices, so I had to pick something else. I probably said a doctor or something, which ended up as quite the irony.
For whatever reason, I never really made it into that band. I’ve dabbled of course, but nothing ever really took. Maybe one day. However, I might consider myself a doctor of sorts…
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I have always been keenly interested in the crux of every matter. The Why. Actually, I often find myself consumed by this question, sometimes as sheer mental frivolity to the detriment of actual action…but I do think that deep thinking will generally yield a bounty of positive results.
When I was in college (early 2000's), I was desperately depressed. (In fact, this was not the only time I’ve been depressed, but it was my first acute case and certainly the most significant.) I was struggling greatly with the point of being—the meaning of life. (In my world there is a great distinction between living and being, but at the time, this distinction was unclear to me.) I came to the realization that unless there was a true purpose to life then the only sensible thing would be to end it.
It seems to me that if you’re just going to end up dead at some point anyway, it would actually be quite prudent to take a shortcut—thus skipping a lot of the sadness, pain, strife, disappointment, etc. that we all inevitably experience in this world. I’ve read that Camus and Sartre thought that life was meaningless but did not think that death was a solution. I think that they were either pansies or not as smart as people give them credit for.
All of these ruminations came to a head at the tail end of my junior year in college. The key question in my existential journey was when I decided that either God was real, thus giving life a semblance of hope of meaning, or that an expedited death was the answer to my pain, which in my mind was the result of an awareness of an existence that was ultimately meaningless.
Early one morning—actually, it was rather late one night from my perspective—God informed me (conversationally, if you will) that he was, in fact, real. (Specifics are not really pertinent at the present, however, I certainly recognize that in this day and age some might find themselves a bit skeptical of this. I want to assure you of its veracity. Nevertheless, if there is interest or some future relevance I will certainly elucidate on the particulars.)
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Years went by/have gone by, and I have continued to muse on the nature of reality and what the point of it all is. I also have thought deeply about the point of me playing music, which I am definitely still driven toward. Fairly recently, I think I’ve gotten it. (The answer to the meaning of life?? Isn’t that like El Dorado, or the Fountain of Youth?)
So, music!
I tried to play in a band when I was in college, but I don’t think anyone else was as serious about it as I was, or at least they weren't as serious about it as I wanted to be. After I graduated, I tried to recruit a friend of mine to play with me but for whatever reason that did not work out either. (I actually have attempted this on multiple occasions… and with multiple friends.) Now up until this point, I had only wanted to be, and assumed that I would be, a guitar player in a band. Maybe I was lazy and thought I needed help getting everything done. I definitely didn’t think I had a good enough voice. I also think that at some level, I’d always wanted to be Dick Cheney—in control, but shirking most of the responsibility. Obviously, we’ve moved past a lot of that.
Thus, here we are. This is essentially my solo project. To quote Chris Rock, “Yeah, I said it.” (This is really a joke for me, as I have been adamantly against wanting to admit that a solo project is what the project matter is. I think, in part, that by admitting this, I am saying that I have been rejected in the context of a band. If I am so good, how come no one wants to play with me? Right? I also think that by admitting that this is basically just me, I set myself up to fully accept responsibility (I mean, judgment) for the quality. But let’s just call a spade a spade.)
So why a band name? I've actually always been very against using my given name as my stage name, as easy and convenient as that might be—especially when half of your gigs are solo acoustic engagements. I guess I think that at some level, and I mean no offense to John Mayer, etc., it would be quite presumptuous of me to do so. You aren’t experiencing all of me through this music, more like an aspect. This is getting metaphysical, but I think that, essentially, we are all a part of the whole. From a How, like mathematical, perspective, I wouldn't be able to explain this. Regardless, my desire is for this to be much more about us than me.
So, The Project Matter…how did I come up with this name? The name of my aforementioned collegiate band was Korova. (Which for the unfamiliar is the name of the milk and drug bar prominently featured in A Clockwork Orange.) This tidbit is not particularly relevant to the present discussion except to say that after college I’d wanted the name of my next band to be extremely relevant and pertinent to what I was trying to accomplish with the music. (Namely, changing the world.)
At first I liked the name, The Light. I enjoyed the fact that this was a bit of a pretentious name. (In my mind, the music would/should be illuminating for the reader.) However, I was made to be convinced that this actually sounded like it should be the name of a really dorky Christian band. (And of course a quick google search does reveal that this is definitely the name of a dorky Christian band…) So, I then moved on to liking the name, Matter. I liked this partially because I thought it was a bit of a double entendre. What I mean is that I wanted the music to matter, but I also wanted the music to inspire the listener to make their lives matter. (I now believe that everything is a...
multi-entendre, independent of conscious understanding or intent.) However, I don’t think my wife was sold on the name—actually, she flat out told me she that didn't like it. One night, I told her that I was really seriously thinking about calling the project Matter… it was Freudian, I’m sure.
That is the long and the short of it… or at least the some of it. I hope you enjoy and are affected and choose to affect.
Justin Menendez
When I was in 10th grade, I started at a new high school. One of the guidance types met with me after a week and asked me a bunch of questions for what I had assumed to be some type of market research purpose. One of the questions was, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” An age old question for sure. I told her that I wanted to be in a band. Evidently, that wasn’t one of the choices, so I had to pick something else. I probably said a doctor or something, which ended up as quite the irony.
For whatever reason, I never really made it into that band. I’ve dabbled of course, but nothing ever really took. Maybe one day. However, I might consider myself a doctor of sorts…
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I have always been keenly interested in the crux of every matter. The Why. Actually, I often find myself consumed by this question, sometimes as sheer mental frivolity to the detriment of actual action…but I do think that deep thinking will generally yield a bounty of positive results.
When I was in college (early 2000's), I was desperately depressed. (In fact, this was not the only time I’ve been depressed, but it was my first acute case and certainly the most significant.) I was struggling greatly with the point of being—the meaning of life. (In my world there is a great distinction between living and being, but at the time, this distinction was unclear to me.) I came to the realization that unless there was a true purpose to life then the only sensible thing would be to end it.
It seems to me that if you’re just going to end up dead at some point anyway, it would actually be quite prudent to take a shortcut—thus skipping a lot of the sadness, pain, strife, disappointment, etc. that we all inevitably experience in this world. I’ve read that Camus and Sartre thought that life was meaningless but did not think that death was a solution. I think that they were either pansies or not as smart as people give them credit for.
All of these ruminations came to a head at the tail end of my junior year in college. The key question in my existential journey was when I decided that either God was real, thus giving life a semblance of hope of meaning, or that an expedited death was the answer to my pain, which in my mind was the result of an awareness of an existence that was ultimately meaningless.
Early one morning—actually, it was rather late one night from my perspective—God informed me (conversationally, if you will) that he was, in fact, real. (Specifics are not really pertinent at the present, however, I certainly recognize that in this day and age some might find themselves a bit skeptical of this. I want to assure you of its veracity. Nevertheless, if there is interest or some future relevance I will certainly elucidate on the particulars.)
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Years went by/have gone by, and I have continued to muse on the nature of reality and what the point of it all is. I also have thought deeply about the point of me playing music, which I am definitely still driven toward. Fairly recently, I think I’ve gotten it. (The answer to the meaning of life?? Isn’t that like El Dorado, or the Fountain of Youth?)
So, music!
I tried to play in a band when I was in college, but I don’t think anyone else was as serious about it as I was, or at least they weren't as serious about it as I wanted to be. After I graduated, I tried to recruit a friend of mine to play with me but for whatever reason that did not work out either. (I actually have attempted this on multiple occasions… and with multiple friends.) Now up until this point, I had only wanted to be, and assumed that I would be, a guitar player in a band. Maybe I was lazy and thought I needed help getting everything done. I definitely didn’t think I had a good enough voice. I also think that at some level, I’d always wanted to be Dick Cheney—in control, but shirking most of the responsibility. Obviously, we’ve moved past a lot of that.
Thus, here we are. This is essentially my solo project. To quote Chris Rock, “Yeah, I said it.” (This is really a joke for me, as I have been adamantly against wanting to admit that a solo project is what the project matter is. I think, in part, that by admitting this, I am saying that I have been rejected in the context of a band. If I am so good, how come no one wants to play with me? Right? I also think that by admitting that this is basically just me, I set myself up to fully accept responsibility (I mean, judgment) for the quality. But let’s just call a spade a spade.)
So why a band name? I've actually always been very against using my given name as my stage name, as easy and convenient as that might be—especially when half of your gigs are solo acoustic engagements. I guess I think that at some level, and I mean no offense to John Mayer, etc., it would be quite presumptuous of me to do so. You aren’t experiencing all of me through this music, more like an aspect. This is getting metaphysical, but I think that, essentially, we are all a part of the whole. From a How, like mathematical, perspective, I wouldn't be able to explain this. Regardless, my desire is for this to be much more about us than me.
So, The Project Matter…how did I come up with this name? The name of my aforementioned collegiate band was Korova. (Which for the unfamiliar is the name of the milk and drug bar prominently featured in A Clockwork Orange.) This tidbit is not particularly relevant to the present discussion except to say that after college I’d wanted the name of my next band to be extremely relevant and pertinent to what I was trying to accomplish with the music. (Namely, changing the world.)
At first I liked the name, The Light. I enjoyed the fact that this was a bit of a pretentious name. (In my mind, the music would/should be illuminating for the reader.) However, I was made to be convinced that this actually sounded like it should be the name of a really dorky Christian band. (And of course a quick google search does reveal that this is definitely the name of a dorky Christian band…) So, I then moved on to liking the name, Matter. I liked this partially because I thought it was a bit of a double entendre. What I mean is that I wanted the music to matter, but I also wanted the music to inspire the listener to make their lives matter. (I now believe that everything is a...
multi-entendre, independent of conscious understanding or intent.) However, I don’t think my wife was sold on the name—actually, she flat out told me she that didn't like it. One night, I told her that I was really seriously thinking about calling the project Matter… it was Freudian, I’m sure.
That is the long and the short of it… or at least the some of it. I hope you enjoy and are affected and choose to affect.
Justin Menendez
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