Page 61 of When We Were Young

Liv

I pull out my new phone. Actually, it’s Dad’s old phone, but it’s better than the one that was stolen from me.

Thank God he could download everything from the cloud.

Well, almost everything. The interview with Brett Lewis was gone – it was too recent to get backed up – but the number Mary gave me was still there in my contacts.

I dial and a male voice answers on the third ring. ‘Hello?’

‘Is that David Matteson?’ I ask.

‘Who’s asking?’

‘My name’s Olivia Lawrence. I’m a journalist at Amplify magazine,’ I say, mimicking Tumi. ‘I was hoping to talk to David Matteson for a Will Bailey feature we’re working on. Is he available?’

‘I’m David Matteson, but everyone calls me Matty.’

‘Matty, would you be willing to do an interview? We wouldn’t take up much of your time and we could come to you – wherever’s convenient…’

‘I work in Southwark. I could meet you in a café one lunchtime?’

‘Perfect. How’s tomorrow for you?’

‘Er… okay.’

We arrange to meet at one o’clock, around the corner from his office. I message him to confirm the moment I hang up, just like Tumi does.

I’m absolutely shitting myself.

Interview transcript – David ‘Matty’ Matteson

OL: Thanks for doing this, Matty.

DM: It’s good to talk about Will. I still think about him every day, even after all these years.

OL: I’ll dive straight in, if that’s okay? What was the band’s songwriting process?

DM: Will would come up with a riff. The three of us would jam along. He was always scribbling ideas for lyrics in a notebook. He’d have a new song every week. Songs came easily to him because he had girl trouble. He was in love with his brother’s girlfriend.

OL: His brother’s girlfriend?

DM: Yeah – Emily. She went out with Aidan for a couple of years. Will always maintained he saw her first, but Aidan got in there before him. He won her over eventually, though.

OL: How did he do that?

DM: Will caught Aidan cheating on Emily.

There was a big family hoo-hah one Christmas, and it all came out.

Emily chose Will, and when they got together, his family kicked him out.

He stayed at mine for a while until he got his own place.

After that, we got signed and were living out of suitcases, anyway, so it didn’t matter.

OL: So, he wasn’t talking to his family?

DM: No, not for a long time. Not till they split up…

Anyway, back to the music. Fragments was all about wanting someone you can’t have.

He spent years writing it. I’m so proud to have been a part of it.

It did so well, the record company wanted to get the second album out as soon as possible. Will was under pressure.

OL: The songs didn’t come as easily?

DM: He had all these years to write the first album, his whole life to pick the best songs and, two years later, they want another twelve songs of the same quality, and he wasn’t happy with what he was coming up with.

Now he was loved-up with Emily, he had nothing to write about.

I was convinced that was the problem. I’m ashamed to say I panicked.

My livelihood depended on him writing more songs.

I was shitting myself. I’d never done an honest day’s work in my life, so I did something I’m not proud of…

OL: What did you do?

DM: [Sighs] I told Emily she should break up with Will so he could get his mojo back.

OL: And did she?

DM: No. She told me to piss off, which is exactly what she should have said.

OL: But you said they broke up. What happened?

DM: Well, I’d tried asking her to split with him, but she wouldn’t, so I made her want to split with him for real.

OL: How?

DM: Will bought a picture from her art exhibition. He didn’t want her to know. It was a secret. He got someone at the record company to buy it for him so she wouldn’t find out. Come to think of it, that thing’s probably still in my parents’ attic.

OL: What’s it doing there?

DM: Will didn’t have anywhere to live – we were touring at the time – and he still wasn’t talking to his parents, so I offered to store it at my mum’s. I need to check if it’s still there – I hope it is.

OL: If you find it, will you let me know? I’d love to see it.

DM: I’m going there this weekend. I’ll check.

OL: So, he bought it, and he didn’t want her to know? Why?

DM: Well firstly, he bought it because he loved it – it was the artwork for the Yellow Feathers EP – but he didn’t tell her because he wanted her to think someone other than him would want to buy it. I knew it would piss her off if she found out that he’d lied.

OL: That’s why they split up?

DM: No. I mean, I had to have a few drinks to pluck up the courage to tell her, so all I remember is that she didn’t really react. Not in the way I was expecting, anyway. So, I pushed her even more.

OL: How?

DM: I broke the bro code. I told her he spent the night with Christie Blackmore.

OL: He cheated on her? With Christie Blackmore?

DM: I don’t know. I doubt it. Christie was coming on pretty strong, but Will wasn’t interested in anyone other than Emily. He went to her suite to listen to her new track, and he didn’t come back to our room that night. And I told Emily; what sort of friend does that?

They probably didn’t even do anything. When he finally showed up the next day, he was really ill. Turned out he had a virus and was suffering from exhaustion. He was probably just knackered and fell asleep in her suite.

I put him through all that for nothing.

OL: He didn’t start writing again?

DM: No. My plan couldn’t have backfired more spectacularly.

Before, at least he’d been writing, it just wasn’t up to his standard.

After the split, he wrote nothing. We stayed on in Wales for a couple of weeks, then the record company came to hear what we’d been doing all the months we’d been there.

We only had four songs, but we played them anyway.

They were shit, and we knew it. The suits said we should go home and come back once Will had more ideas to work on.

One suit suggested we work with this songwriter he knew.

He thought it would be a great collaboration like Bernie and Elton.

Will wasn’t having any of it. He wrote his own songs. He didn’t want to play anyone else’s.

OL: What happened when you left Wales?

DM: The record company put us up in a house in Notting Hill.

There was a small studio in a fancy shed at the bottom of the garden.

Will was down there all the time. I don’t know what he was doing in there, though.

One time I went down there, he was asleep on the sofa with Nick Cave blaring out.

Reu and I had nothing to do. We played video games all day.

I had to feed the record company a pack of lies to keep them off his back.

If I hadn’t told Emily that stuff, she wouldn’t have broken up with him. And if she hadn’t dumped him, he’d still be here. I’m sure of that.

OL: I’m sure that’s not true…

DM: I didn’t think he would do anything like… what he did. I wish he’d come to me. We could have talked and maybe… [pauses] I wish he’d come to me, you know?