Daily(ish)

I welcome my first guest of this daily podcast challenge, my friend Matt McGee, to mark U2’s 50th anniversary. We speed run the history of U2, the history of atU2, and Matt’s personal journey with and without U2 (see what I did there?).

Audio note: We live-streamed the recording of this on my Twitch and YouTube channel, so if we seem a little more distracted this episode than usual, that’s why.

Links Mentioned in This Episode:
Topics:
00:00 Intro
00:25 Meet Matt McGee
01:20 U2 History Speed Run
04:33 Book Updates Reality Check
05:37 Matt + U2
12:02 Silencio First Impressions
15:59 New Album Lolz
19:12 AtU2 Book Status
22:29 Where to find Matt
23:43 Wrap Up

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Creators and Guests

Host
Chris
I edit podcasts so you don't have to. I live in Saskatchewan so you don't have to?
Guest
Matt McGee
Marketing Director, Cari McGee Real Estate Team.

What is Daily(ish)?

Challenging myself to record a podcast episode a day for my 50th year on this planet.

Chris:

Hello. Welcome to Daily's for September 25. It's a Friday, and I'm recording an episode every day for this, my fiftieth year on the planet, which coincidentally happens to also be, U2, the band, their fiftieth year on the planet. So good things happened in 1976, I guess. I've decided to bring my first guest on since starting this challenge and figure out how guests work again on podcasts.

Chris:

My good friend Matt, who you hear laughing at my dumb jokes. Matt, how's it going?

Matt:

It's going well. This is so fun. It's been such a blast from the past. I can't believe you're doing one of these every day. That's insane to me.

Matt:

That's just crazy.

Chris:

Yeah. It felt, actually, it's been surprisingly easy, wanna say. It's given me a good focus of something to do and sort of challenge and practice and keep the, you know, the podcasting side of my skills going even while I edit other people's podcasts, Such

Matt:

a such a bigger commitment than posting a selfie every

Chris:

day. But I'll be curious because I did 60% ish was my ratio for the, or whatever for the selfie, and we'll see see if I get, I I'm on a good pace to be higher than that, but I realize I'm only about thirty days in, so it's too early to get too cocky about how this goes. Right. So, anyway, so with with YouTube being it's our today, literally, we record is, I think it's their fiftieth anniversary, or that's what they're calling anyways today, their fiftieth anniversary of Larry putting a notice on the school wall or whatever, looking for band mates. And so you were last actually, was looking back.

Chris:

You were on this podcast, Daily(ish) episode one zero five, which is back in, I forget when, 2017 or 2016.

Matt:

Oh, wow. Okay. Talking at

Chris:

you two, like at you2.com, which is where we met. So if you wanna hear more of our history and how we met or whatever, go back and listen to that. I'll put it in the show notes. But maybe I thought you at one point, you did write a book. I know you've had sort of another book in in the works for a while here, but, the at you two or sorry, you two a diary was your book.

Chris:

So in the, Cole's Notes version, I guess, what's the brief history of U two from the author of U two: A Diary? I knew it. Brief history.

Matt:

It's fifty years it condensed into into a brief history on a

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

Short podcast.

Chris:

So, don't see.

Matt:

Let's see, four guys got together, started playing guitars, then put out a single and then did live shows. Put out, got rejected by every record label. Boy, you're really testing my memory. And then they finally got Island Records to see them and they got signed and they put out a great debut album, and then they put out a crappy second album that almost got them dropped entirely. And then they got in there.

Matt:

They were really heavy into Christianity and almost broke up because of that. And then they put out a third album that went huge and a fourth album that went huge and then a fifth album that made them worldwide superstars and they've been worldwide superstars ever since. Except for that they then they put out a movie that kinda a lot of people didn't like the movie. And then they changed their sound in the next decade and that shed a lot of fans because they, God forbid, they do make anything other, any other kind of sound. And then they put out a couple more albums that were really the one that was really experimental that turned off even more people and then they put out one that they announced in a Kmart and that turned off even more people and then everybody thought they were done and then they decided that they needed to sound like a band again so they put out an album and then they became hugely popular again And they've been that way almost ever since except for the album in 2011 or 2009, which didn't quite go as well.

Matt:

And so, yeah, there you go.

Chris:

Yeah. So without naming a single album or song, you just did their complete history, which is good. I was trying I was tracking with you, and I was like, okay. I can rattle and tum. I hear that.

Chris:

No line on the horizon. I see where you're referencing that, but you did a very good, like, politically safe

Matt:

Thank you.

Chris:

Without angering too many people along the way. Maybe you were like, how dare you say anything bad about YouTube?

Matt:

Right. Right.

Chris:

Not that we've ever experienced that, I'm sure.

Matt:

Oh, god.

Chris:

Yeah. So, like

Matt:

a exercise. Okay.

Chris:

Because your book would have been when did you last update it? Like,

Matt:

The first version came out in 2008 and the second version came out in 2011.

Chris:

Oh, okay. Yeah.

Matt:

So So it's well well before any of the any of the the pandemic type stuff.

Chris:

Yeah. Crazy. Any thoughts on updating it, or is it kinda like done now?

Matt:

I think it's probably I mean, yeah, I've I I I hear from the publisher once a year just saying, you know, this is how many copies sold in the year, and it's usually like three. So thanks to my relatives that are still looking it up. Exactly. Right? Like, why would you buy a why would you buy a history book that hasn't been updated in fifteen years?

Matt:

So,

Chris:

yeah. That's crazy. '15 2011 still doesn't sound like fifteen years ago, but that's yeah. That's getting old for you, speaking of fifty years. But yeah.

Chris:

So the the new stuff that they just put out, just out of curiosity, so you have had a chance to listen. Are you still actually, before we do that, are you still listening to YouTube? I know you've you and I both have gone through phases in our lives of, I love YouTube, and they're like, like, like, I'm a lifer for YouTube for sure, but, like, I don't always want to listen to YouTube, and I think a lot of fans do that, but, like, even through phases of my life where I'm like, I just don't even wanna hear much from them at all. And so where are you which phase of YouTube interest are you in?

Matt:

I'm in the I would call it a careful phase. Like, I stop I stopped listening to them entirely in May 2019 and went four years of just entirely Could could not yeah. Like if a song came on or if somebody wanted to talk about it, I was like, Nope, I don't wanna have anything to do with it. And so yeah, didn't listen to any music, avoided all conversations, avoided all news. And there's so much, like my son Sean still, you know, stayed, you know, involved and all that sort And he'd share some things, but like that's a section of their history that I have no idea, like what they were doing and what they released, if anything, and all that sort of stuff.

Matt:

Like, that's just a total black hole. But then May 2023, I like kind of gently, I was like, all right, I think I'm ready to do this again. And so I started then and but, like, I can't listen to anything gosh. Probably, like like, from No Line on the Horizon, anything since No Line on the Horizon, I I cannot listen to anything any any of that stuff, which is a shame because I remember really liking whatever the album is that they did in 2014. Was that Experience or Innocence?

Matt:

I can't I can't. Yeah. Whichever one that was, I I remember liking Yeah. Yeah. I remember liking that album and liking the tour, but I just I can't bring myself to listen to to any of that stuff at this point.

Matt:

So like if something comes on and it's the older stuff, for the most part, I can listen to that. And then I guess, like Sean told me, they did two EPs earlier this year, I get. I have not listened to any of those.

Chris:

Wow.

Matt:

But I did listen. Heard he sent think I think it was Sean that sent me they they did a little teaser a couple days ago on Instagram of an of the new song. And so I was like, alright. I'll give it a try. And I listened to it.

Matt:

It was, like, twenty seconds. I was like, alright. And then I guess yesterday was it yesterday or the day before they did what was the song? Yeah. Yeah.

Matt:

Yeah. So so Sean and I were driving around yesterday and we listened to that in the car and so that's like literally the first new U2 song I've heard since 2016, 2017, whatever that album was.

Chris:

Yeah. So. Which is fascinating. Like, it may take, like, U2 itself, but obviously this could transplant this to many other bands. I'm sure people's experiences with artists, like, or being a fan of a band or artist, like, because for someone like me or even people who know you from at U2, you used to run, like, without going to the whole history, like, one of the top, if not for a while, the top YouTube fan site at you2.com, which is hard to say on a podcast because it's a tyou2.com.

Chris:

But and so it's just it is funny, and we record a podcast almost weekly for, I don't know, 100 and some episodes. Mhmm. And and so, like, to go from that level of, like, deep immersion to, I'm out. And, like, even just to hear for me to hear you be like, I don't even know what they did for five years or whatever Yeah. Is kind of it's a little mind shift or whatever breaks my brain a little bit, but it's also, think, I mean, you have good reasons I know and and whatever for disengaging as well, because it's I I think, just like anything you get into so deeply, it's when you kinda pull your head out of it, you're like, oh, I need like a fresh air from this.

Chris:

Yeah. Not have that for a while.

Matt:

Yeah, it was, yeah, I mean, there was, I mean, not to get too deep or whatever, but yeah, like my my parents died in 2015 and 2017. I was just in a dark place and and there was all the mental and all that sort of stuff associations with songs and albums and with the stuff with the website not going well. And so Yeah. Yeah, I just I just needed to break that cord and go figure some other things out. So

Chris:

Yeah. Yeah. Did these songs of surrender, the, like, issue, the sort of acoustic y, did that resonate with you at all or not even touch that too?

Matt:

I've not heard that.

Chris:

Okay. This is wild. When I say wild, I'm not mocking you, like

Matt:

I get it. No. No. I I took it. Well it's wild for me too.

Matt:

So I remember walking, I think I was with Sean or maybe I was with my wife, but I remember walking into Target one day and right on like the end cap at the thing, there was this book that I guess Bono wrote some book and I was like, he did a book? And I had no knowledge, that's literally how I found out about that. Wow,

Chris:

that's amazing. For all the like, yeah, just thinking of all the ways you would have had YouTube piped into your brain, like by choice and not, to then be like completely unaware that Bono wrote a book is

Matt:

Yeah.

Chris:

It's actually impressive, yeah, again, setting aside all the obviously dark reasons you also felt like you needed to do that, but like, it is impressive to be able to even do that in this day and age to pull back from something that was so, you know, every stream of information flooding you.

Matt:

Yeah, well and it was, you know, it was tough. Like I had to unfollow all my friends on social media. Right. Like anybody that I thought that was or I thought might post about YouTube, I was like, I gotta unfollow them. I gotta, you know, just, like it was that bad.

Matt:

And so like there's, yeah, so like there's friends that I went years without hearing from or being involved in their life. It was, yeah, was crazy. Just crazy.

Chris:

Yeah. So okay. Well, that's, yeah. No. It's interesting.

Chris:

I know that's that's a I like, you know, the deeper dive on stuff because that's I think it's it's the the band itself is interesting, but then there is this kind of like intensity that comes with liking a band like that, that you kind of have to be all in, and it doesn't necessarily have to be that way either. And yeah. So I I'm curious though, like, coming out, you said you listened to the new track, Solencio

Matt:

Yes.

Chris:

Just like once or twice or whatever. Did it do anything at all in your emotional brain or otherwise?

Matt:

We we we listened we listened on the drive. We I think we were going to Costco yesterday and we so we and it's, know, ten minute drive or whatever. So we we listened on the drive there. And and I was like, okay. It's not bad.

Matt:

It didn't like like then when we were in Costco, I was kind of humming the chorus. I was like, I just and I said to Sean, I said, did I just the chorus of that song? And he said, yeah, think you did. So that stuck with me. So there you go.

Matt:

Then we listened to it again on the drive home. And after it ended I was humming the chorus again. And so I was like, you know, all right, it's kind of catchy. And then I was texting, I don't know who I was texting, maybe Answer Guy or whatever. Anyway, texting some folks and it sounds like vertigo to me.

Matt:

It's like a modern vertigo to me is what it sounds like. And it's not, I mean, I don't know. Yeah. It's catchy. I don't think it's great.

Matt:

I don't think it's terrible but I'm glad I was able to listen to it, guess.

Chris:

Did you add it to your library or is it kind of

Matt:

I have not added it to my library yet.

Chris:

That's the Now test I

Matt:

I have not heard that is, what's the one that was like a month or two ago that Street of Dreams. Okay. I've I heard that's not

Chris:

so I I'm actually this is interesting because I I was also kinda like, I don't get what that's supposed to be about. It feels like a it's just like, you know, I I I don't know what all the categories would be, but YouTube kinda has like, let's say 10 song categories that you kinda like, like there's the vertigo one, there's the streets, like where the streets have main one, there's the the one, like you know, the emotional whatever one, and they have those kind of genres within their library. And so you kinda like, as you hear a new song, you kinda slot it into that, and like, where does it fit or whatever. So Street of Dreams was kinda like, oh, this is the like pop yay world, we're happy in the world anthem kind of vibe, it felt like. But then after just today, actually, was I had Solincio playing, and then I put made a playlist of just Silencio and Street of Dreams, and they're kind of back to back just to hear, because they'll be on the album obviously together, but they're not after each other in the track listing.

Chris:

But anyways, and actually somehow it made hearing Silencio and then Street of Dreams kinda like maybe it made a more cohesive vibe theme, I don't know, whatever you wanna call that, where the biggest thing that jumped out at me is like Adam, the bass playing stuff is like front and center for both the songs. Like, it's it's a very bass driven song, and it's both of them. And so that actually has me excited for the album because it feels like that's not necessarily guitar driven or bono, you know, whatever, ego driven. It's like drum and bass kinda like our Yeah. Sort of back being in charge in a sense.

Chris:

I mean, knows? We'll hear what the rest of the album's like, obviously. Yeah. But I think they do some of their best work when those two guys are engaged, and it feels like they've been, as someone who has been paying attention a little more than you have

Matt:

Just a little.

Chris:

For the last ten years or whatever. Because this is actually their first album in nine years too, so it's not like they've put out anything a lot in the Right. The absence. But Right. Anyways, it feels

Matt:

like Yeah. It was it was, yeah, it it was when I heard that little Instagram clip, the twenty seconds or whatever earlier in the week, it was the base on that. Was like, alright. That that sounds good. I think I can listen to this.

Matt:

So

Chris:

Yeah. So there's a smell of men, which I don't particularly like. Anyways, give me a little. I had to go back and dig up the old soundboard a bit and resurrect it just because I there's so many fun, well, like Edge says.

Matt:

You have to try new things to keep the relationship fresh.

Chris:

For any, YouTube podcast fans out there who happen to stumble on this somehow. So

Matt:

so many good memories.

Chris:

Anyways, so the other cool thing with the album, just for not to be, like, YouTube news guy, but, like, that happened is the last song on the album, they, so they put out the track listing yesterday or today or whatever, Carnival, De Lulz, Luz, Luz? I wanna say Lulz, like l o l z, like laughing out loud. But I know it's not what their intention was, but even the font looks a little weird.

Matt:

Yeah. The font is weird.

Chris:

I think it's I like the I think in a world of I do think in a world of like dreary news depressing, whatever, I'm happy that so they with this the EPs they put out earlier this year, it feels like, no disrespect to America, but it feels like they got some of their, like, our songs are gonna help save America theme out of the way with their the one EP, Days of Ash, think it's called. And then the second EP is kind of the Easter something, I forget what it's called now. And that was kinda like all the deeper spiritual lovey dovey stuff out of the way. And so now this album could just be like a fun rock, we'll see whatever, you know, kind of album. But anyways, the last song on the track reminiscent of Zuropa is Torn featuring Dolly Parton somehow, which is Right.

Chris:

Gonna be she recorded apparently, you know, while she was sick, and, so it's just an interesting I don't know that they've ever featured a woman's voice alongside Bono on an album. I don't wanna I'm not putting you on the spot to try and remember that either.

Matt:

I actually They definitely had

Chris:

women's voices on.

Matt:

There wasn't there wasn't there a song on the one album that I liked? What album? Wait a sec. That came out wrong.

Chris:

Came out wrong.

Matt:

The the the the one in 2014, didn't that have a a a female?

Chris:

Oh, yeah. Like, an Irish no. Irish lit.

Matt:

What was her

Chris:

I'm good.

Matt:

I can't remember then. I've gosh. See

Chris:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt:

That's the one.

Chris:

See, you do know stuff.

Matt:

I'm well, ten years ago, would have recited the name and the Yeah. The length of the track and the whole.

Chris:

So but yeah. I I don't know. We'll see you. I mean, I'm obviously everybody in light of her passing and it's happens to be 09:25 today, which they're calling Dolly Parton Day But, for nine to so I'm really curious what that's gonna sound like. But, yeah, it's kinda reminiscent of Johnny Cash appearing on the last track of Zero Opa as well and kinda this weird voice that somehow I I really liked anyways in in The Wanderer.

Matt:

So Have they said when the album comes out yet?

Chris:

November 13.

Matt:

So November 13.

Chris:

It's gonna come pretty quick, which I remember when we back when we were doing the podcast, I forget which sort of albums we kinda like I know there's definitely we were recording the podcast when in between albums, and like it was stretching on to like three years, or it's been four years or whatever. And we're like, holy crap. There hasn't been an album in this one. Like, yeah, if we were doing the podcast these days for the last nine years, so we're like

Matt:

Nine years. That's insane.

Chris:

Yeah. I mean, they've had the songs of surrender thing, which this, they didn't count that as a studio album, I guess, Or maybe that, no, that's twenty twenty something, so anyways. But, so yeah. That's a

Matt:

long that's a long time, Chris.

Chris:

A lifetime in between there. So, alright. You're you do have another book, the history of at you two. Is that a thing that you're actually still working or has that kind of been shelved or where are you at with that?

Matt:

Mean, Yeah. No. Shelved is probably the the right word just be so so I did. I I wrote and it's finished. I wrote a book about the history about YouTube.

Matt:

It took, I don't know, took like two years. It was like a pandemic kind of project for the most part. And it is finished. And then another one of our old staffers, Sabina, who was one of our forum mods for a while on You Too, self published her own book or at least one, maybe even two by now. I can't I can't recall.

Matt:

But hers was she, like, quite successfully did that. And so she was super helpful with me. Like when I was working on mine and getting to the end and just like kinda like laying out, know, here's what you have to do once you're done and blah blah blah blah blah. And it just got to a point where the the the process of getting it done and getting it done right was like way more expensive than I expected. And I, you know, and like, obviously no publisher is going to be interested in the history of a silly website.

Matt:

But so I knew all along that if I did this that it was going have to be a self done project. But I guess I just wasn't prepared for like, you you have to buy your ISBN numbers and you have to pay for this and you have to pay for that and blah, blah, blah. And it was just more than I was willing to spend maybe, and that was, gosh, that was three years ago, two years ago that So I finished maybe now things are different. I don't know. I think at some point I'll probably look into it again to see if it's easier to self publish a book.

Matt:

I just, it was just harder and more expensive than I expected it to be. So yeah, the book is done and I like it. It was, whether anybody else does, I don't know. But it was very cathartic to write and get all that out and all that sort of stuff. So it was, served its, at least half of its purpose.

Chris:

Yeah. Exactly. That's good. That's good. Yeah.

Chris:

Well, hope, yeah, I hope you can because that would be, even doing the like

Matt:

You're in it by the way.

Chris:

Oh, really?

Matt:

Well, of You

Chris:

need permission.

Matt:

Well, no. I didn't get anybody's permission. That's good.

Chris:

Because even for, yeah. Even like self like just doing the Kindle thing, whatever that's called, I don't I'm not trying to fix a problem for you here, but like, if nothing else, let's build a let's build a website version of it if you don't ever publish it with,

Matt:

like, publishing it. I mean, it comes it comes down to like how yeah. I mean, I I think you can just do an electronic version of it. It comes down to like how serious and formal do you want to be with, like do you want it to be like a, you know, like a traditional hardbound book with the cover and, you know, all this sort of stuff? Or do you just want to like have it be, like, magazine type quality paper?

Matt:

Know, it's there's just all that kind of stuff that goes into it.

Chris:

So Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Alright. Well, we made it past our ten minute mark, think.

Chris:

So hopefully the Daily ish listeners who are only in it for ten minutes they may be tuned out after whatever amount of time we're out here. But where where are you at these days? What I I actually realized you had a blog that you're actually publishing or writing on every so often. So I subscribe to that in my RSS readers. Mattmcgee.com, but

Matt:

Yeah. I've I've I've mattmcgee.com where I mostly put concert recaps because I'm just trying to go to as many concerts as I can these days from all kinds of all the different bands that I ignored when I was devoted to U2, going to nothing but U2 concerts. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's like kind of become my concert recap kind of thing.

Matt:

But yeah, I don't I'm on threads and blue sky and that sort of stuff. I don't do Twitter. I'm on I'm on Facebook, but that's mainly just for either business or or family. So

Chris:

Mhmm. Speaking of random bands that you and I are connected with, I don't know if you saw Gang of Youths have a new album apparently coming.

Matt:

Yes. And I've heard their new song as well. It's kinda it's kinda it's kinda, like, not the rock kinda song that you expect, that I released that I expected from. Kinda interesting that they released such a, it's a very melancholy, slower

Chris:

For single or whatever?

Matt:

Yeah. Yeah, it's kinda, but yeah, I mean, I'll look forward to hearing their album as well. Well, Matt.

Chris:

We will Chris, thank you. Do this again sometime, maybe in nine years.

Matt:

I would let's do it sooner than nine years. Yeah. You you you know where to get me. I'm I'm always around.

Chris:

Yeah. Exactly. Alright. As always, thanks to you for listening. Thank you.

Chris:

Feel free to reply to this post on social media where I told you about this episode if you happen to see it there, or you can email me at chris.enz@gmail.com. If you're not already subscribed, you can visit daily.chrisenz.com slash subscribe to see all the ways to subscribe to this show or search for Daily ish wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening. I hope you'll be back tomorrow. Have a great day.

Chris:

Bye.