Matt ready to rock with baby shoes and gas cans

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.lie

Performing as The Suitcase Junket, American Matt Lorenz brings his unique one-man show to the sidebar in Monroe’s on Tuesday next, November 22.

Although Matt voted for the now-defeated Clinton in last week’s US Presidential election, he would have preferred to have seen Bernie Sanders on the ticket. In light of the result, it’s interesting to hear what Matt has to say about Sanders.

“Bernie was a populist in a true sort of way,” he says. “Trump is barely a real person, he’s not a serious man. Bernie would have trounced him. I think there was a lot of people who wanted to give the middle finger to the establishment. I think they would’ve felt like they were doing that with someone like Bernie.”

But it’s music that Matt’s on the phone to talk about, and The Suitcase Junket sounds like quite a show.

“I sit on a suitcase that I play as a bass drum with my right heel,” he says. “My right toe is playing a high-hat. Then I’ve got these three homemade can drums. One of them is an old gas can mounted on some spare parts. A baby shoe hits that! My left heel hits a cook pot. Then I’ve got a circular saw blade that’s drum-pedalled activated.”

The Suitcase Junket “sounds like a three-piece rock band”, according to Matt. Which is apt, given that he plays in one.

“The drummer didn’t want to drum anymore, so we started splitting the drums amongst us. That’s when I started foot-drumming. That band, Rusty Bell, we’re not touring as much but we’re working on the next album. This project spun out of that one and evolved into this other thing.”

The one-man show is visually arresting, but it’s Matt’s guitar and vocals that give The Suitcase Junket a raw and rootsy feel.  It’s a direct sound that will appeal to fans of blues musician and fellow American, Seasick Steve. Matt describes his guitar as an ‘old beater’ and, unsurprisingly, it’s an instrument with a story.

“I found the guitar in a dumpster,” Matt says. “People throw away great stuff, so I’ve spent a decent amount of time splashing around in trash piles.”

“I sort of owe this project to that guitar in a lot of ways because you get different songs out of different guitars. They all have their own stories. This one, I’ve been sticking with it. People often ask me ‘when are you going to upgrade?’ I say I don’t know if I can, I owe too much to this one!”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.