Blue Light Fever - Biography

BLUE LIGHT FEVER

If you've lived nine of your lives wasted, welcome to the soundtrack of your tenth.

Matt Preston's prodigious talent as a classical musician led to an invitation to The Royal College of Music to study cello and piano. At the same time he made his first foray into the world of recording, singing on the St Georges' Church Choir vinyl classic Cantate Domino. Another forte was full time social miscreancy, in hindsight the first glimmer of a malevolent artistic flair. Pinballed from one South London school to another, Matt was ripe for rock's revolution at the tender age of twelve. Glue sniffing and punk duelled with LSD fuelled choral meltdown. A collision course of diametric opposites was set. The Blue Light Fever die was cast. "They took it well", he muses thoughtfully on his parents reaction to a valiant ascent into acme narco-supremacy. "But they did have a chain fitted to their bedroom door."

Flunking his Art A-level, Matt followed the example set by artists such as Future Sound Of London and 808 State, embarking upon a sound recording course in Manchester's ugly sister, Salford. The least suitable friend possible was entrusted with the job of house hunter, resulting in rodents in the bed and a subterranean cellar dweller. "We only noticed someone had been living down there when we moved. They'd been lighting fires." He served his time; an extensive tour of duty through the city's finest ghettos followed, and grimy streets dyed the music darker still. The soundtrack spans Psychic TV, Coil, Sonic Youth and the Butthole Surfers, whilst also scavenging from around the edges of hip hop, dub and electro; influences that endure today along with a continuing belief in experimentation without alienating the audience.

The soundtrack spans Psychic TV, Coil, Sonic Youth and the Butthole Surfers, whilst also scavenging from around the edges of hip hop, dub and electro; influences that endure today along with a continuing belief in experimentation without alienating the audience.

Happy to poison pigeonholes at any given opportunity, Matt has worked with musicians as diverse as the legendary Mark E. Smith, Danny Hyde from electronic extremists Coil and Paul Waterman (son of PWL supremo Pete).

The track Shutdown is to be released in November this year, taking us on a four-part journey through the fragmented shards of Matt's thought processes. "They say 'don't you trust anyone anymore?'" comes the pursued and paranoid vocal, "Pretty girls stay away from me, pretty girls can't you see that I don't know where I'm going. To heaven or hell to Beverly Hills or a prison cell, there's just no way of knowing." Guest vocalist Adam McConnachie hammers additional nails into the track's psyche: "Sock! Biff! Bang! And cut your fucking head off violence."

"I like music which makes me feel scared, you know, evil music," confesses Matt. Blue Light Fever? Matt recollects, "You know, when you're on your way home, from a club or a heavy session, and every car, especially white ones, start looking like the Old Bill. It's worse on acid because the brake lights start tracing into red stripes and the roofs start sprouting blue tits far from ideal. Everybody tends to start fiddling around with their pockets half the people in the car try to subtly check behind them whilst the other half snap at them to keep looking ahead. Beginning to wish you'd never gone out at all?"