If there's another thing he's learnt from owning two prominent live music venues in Melbourne, Old Bar and The Public Bar, it's what bands have to do to get noticed. It's only now, after being a band for six years, that Fourteen Nights At Sea are receiving recognition for their brand of experimental instrumental prog rock.
“It really is a mixed genre of music,” Matthews tells. “It's hard to get any kind of press or interest when you're an instrumental band. People don't seem to take anything from it; for some reason words are what people love when it comes to more mainstream music, so we struggled with the first release, our untitled album, to get any kind momentum happening with the band, or any kind of interest.”
But with the release of their second record, Great North, six tunes more accessible to newcomers, they caught the eye of Hobbledehoy Record Co, and finally have a mechanism in place to promote themselves efficiently, which makes touring more frequently an option, and sees them visiting Perth for the first time ever this month.
“We've been a band now for seven years and we'd only really played in Melbourne and maybe three times in Sydney, because it's just really difficult; we all work, some of us have kids, so it's not been the easiest thing to take such a specific genre of music to go away for a weekend and play to 20 people, it's hard to justify,” he laughs.
