Matt Farley is likely best-known as the singer-songwriter who's released over 24,000 songs on Spotify, many with simple, easily searchable names like "Best Song About Chicago" or "Poop Into a Wormhole" under band names like "The Guy Who Sings About Cities" and "The Toilet Bowl Cleaners." It's a strategy that, unlike many of the songwriters on Spotify, has allowed him to carve out a relatively stable income from the notorious music service, but there's much more to Farley's work than his most easily memeable songs. He's a serious musician, performing concerts in his native Massachusetts with his band "Moes Haven" and has built up an enviable run of low-budget and endlessly watchable films under the Motern Media label.

Along with his creative partner Charlie Roxburgh starting in 2002, Motern Media's made over a dozen films, with recent years seeing the duo increase their output to two films a year. These are often community projects, starring their friends, family, and neighbors, many of whom have been performing in their films for years. Each film is a little different, but they all feature a small Massachusetts town, Matt Farley and his songs, and a hard-to-describe sincerity and charm that only grows the more of them you watch.

Hyperreal Film Club sat down with Farley to talk about the life of a working artist, singing film criticism, and the myth of Hollywood celebrity.

Hyperreal Film Club (HFC): So, I wanted to start with in Local Legends. [Farley's 2013 quasi-narrative documentary about his life as a working artist in his home town.] You've got kind of the the commerce side of your brain and the creative side of your brain battling it out when you're making art. Do you feel like your perspective on that changed in the last 10 years since you made that film?

Matt Farley (MF): No, no, not very much. I think in the movie, I even say it in a bit provocative way when I say, "I prefer the businessman side of the brain" in the movie, right? In part just because I also say in the movie that artists are the worst. But, obviously, I prefer artists over a cruel businessman in general, but it frustrates me when artists are so out of touch with any kind of reality. When they expect you to have these pure artistic intentions (that they never actually have either). Or people will look at what I do and say, like, "Oh, he's just trying to make money from his art," and I'm like, who are your favorite artists? Give me a list of your top 10 favorite movie directors or singers. I bet you they work for gigantic mega corporations. How is it that they get a pass? I don't even know if I answered your question, am I making any sense here?

Matt Farley and Tom Scalzo in *Local Legends*

HFC: Yeah, that makes sense. I guess, to dial in more, you wrote that scene. And it's an exaggeration, obviously, but you'd been making movies for about 10 years by then, and you'd written 1000s of songs at that point. And now 10 years later, I would say it's fair to say you're a lot more successful. You've had a massive amount of work put out since then. I'm wondering if you would write that scene differently now, if you have a different perspective on it than you did then.

MF: Um, no, I don't think so. I watched it just last week and I was enjoying it. And I don't think I'd do anything different about it. Just the whole concept is fun for me because I like to poke at the artist who talks a lot but doesn't actually produce much. Those people bugged me. You have to have that businessman if you're gonna be independent. You have to have that businessman who's constantly prodding yourself to create more, so I guess the businessman kind of represents the drive to some degree.

HFC: So with that, I was kind of wanted to pivot to of like, what does success mean to you? Because like I said, you've had a lot more press about yourself since then. You've been on Jimmy Fallon, you've had all these write ups. Like, do you feel like you've, for lack of a better word, made it? And if not, what does that mean to you?

MF: Yeah, well, I don't have a day job anymore. So that's it. Anything else is gravy, frankly. And so now my day job is writing silly songs. And I'm also able to chisel out time to to write what I call my "No Jokes" albums. A couple times a year, I'll put out a serious album. Nobody wants to listen to it, but still, it feels good to have that integrity. Lately we've been making two movies a year, which wouldn't be possible for me if if I was working a 40 hours a week job. Of course I would accept more money, but as long as I don't have to work a day job, I'm not gonna complain very much.

HFC: You brought up the the silly songs and the serious songs. Do you kind of have to sit down with a specific intent or focus your brain in certain ways to work on the name songs versus your "No Jokes" songs?

MF: I know what I'm going to do when I go to sit down at the keyboard and at the recorder. It's like, "Alright, today's today's goal is to do 50 name poop songs" and so I'm just doing it. One thing I find is that it's such a free-flowing process and the stakes are so low that it doesn't have to be anything close to perfect because it's the Ronaldo poop song. There's not even that many people named Ronaldo. I think that in a way, it's good practice. I'm kind of pushing what I'm able to do melodically or in terms of chords and rhythm. And then maybe I'll apply some of the stuff that I've learned from that to the "No Jokes" songs when that time comes. But sometimes a chord progression has come to me for a poop song, and I've just been like, "This is too good. I can't waste it." So I'll like record it a little bit on voice memos, and then save it for when the time comes that I'm going to do something with a little more artistic integrity, right?

HFC: Do you find that the inverse is sometimes true, where you're kind of catching yourself finding little creative shortcuts or something where you're like, "Oh, I gotta maybe stop myself from making that same song four times in a row?"

MF: I mean, even a "No Jokes" song has like 20 jokes in it. Obviously, it's not me just saying the name of a person followed by the word poop over and over again. But in terms of serious work, I have the same philosophy and it's basically that whatever idea you come up with while you're recording, you have to see it through. And preferably, also release it, even if it's embarrassing. You just have to put it out there. Or I have to put it out there because it allows me to move on to the next one. If I have a finished work that's not been released, it blocks the next song from coming out.

It can be embarrassing. It's humiliating. But I think that if I didn't release stuff that I consider subpar, then I wouldn't I wouldn't be freed up to write some of the better stuff. And then the crazy part is people end up liking the subpar stuff more than the stuff I think is good. So who even knows what's right?

HFC: Yeah, well, that's a that's a nice transition to something else I wanted to talk about: your singing film critic album. On our site, I really try and expand what film criticism can be and how people can talk about movies, and I never thought about singing film criticism. So yeah, first off, I loved it. One thing I noticed is that you've got some TV shows on there. And I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but there's discourse about TV shows showing up on the letterboxd and TV shows being counted among the greatest movies of all time. So are you coming down on the side of TV shows can be movies in there?

MF: Yeah, well, I definitely wasn't. I didn't think I was dipping my toe into something kind of controversial at the time. I don't I don't have a super strong opinion of it. I think. I tend to prefer movies over TV just because of the time investment and the fact that even the best shows seem to lose steam in the final few seasons. But if you know, if it's good, it's good. And who cares if it's considered if it's 20 minutes, 45 minutes or 90 minutes? If it's good, it's good. Right?

HFC: Right. So, the other thing that I wanted to ask off that is you released the album in 2011. I'm guessing you wrote it around that time, right?

MF: Yeah, yeah.

HFC: And you've got a defense of Ishtar on there, which I was really happy to see. Because a buddy of mine just finished his dissertation defense on Elaine May. He was telling me about how there's been a very slow, well-deserved cultural reevaluation of this movie since its release. And you're kind of ahead of the times on that one.

*Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty in Ishtar*

MF: Yeah, I mean, I was even more ahead of it. There's my other band Moes Haven, which has an album from 2006 called November The Tar, and in it, we said let's be Rogers and Clark. Let's embody that songwriting duo for all the songs we write and so one of the songs is called, "I Went Fishing for Love and I got Hooked, which you can imagine them writing that alongside like “Hot Fudge Love” or whatever. Yeah, I've been I've been a huge proponent of Ishtar since probably '03 or '04. I bought it on VHS at a video store that was closing down for a buck and was thinking of it as like this notoriously awful movie. I was like, "Oh, let me let me see for myself." And the opening 20 minutes… Perfect. Like, I saw so much of myself and my friend Tom [Scalzo, Matt’s songwriting partner and frequent co-star in Motern movies] in those characters. We watch it and we're like, "This is us. This is 100% us."

Maybe we have a little bit more self awareness. I can't get over how great that intro is. It is so perfect. Then they go to the Middle East and it's okay. You know, it's an okay '80s comedy with a few highlights. But you put that together with the most perfect opening 20 minutes followed by a pretty good movie and it definitely does not deserve the reputation it had at least.

HFC: Yeah, I remember there's a lyric in there, "If you haven't seen it, stop blasting it, just watch it."

MF: Yeah, the guy from The Far Side made a comic about it being in Hell's video store. "We only have Ishtar" and then he admitted that he'd never even seen it. That's cool.

HFC: Yeah, I remember him putting a note in reprints of that comic where he's like, "You know, actually go see it. It's pretty good."

MF: It just hits home so much. At one point they're writing the song and they're saying, "Telling the truth can be dangerous business." And then Dustin Hoffman goes, "Why?' I've written many songs with a songwriting partner, where you get a line and then you're just like… "Why?" It's just so great.

HFC: So any any chance of a sequel to that album?

MF: it's very possible. For sure. I don't want to make any promises. But I would like to do it. It's definitely not a big moneymaker for me. But, I mean, most of my stuff isn't anyway, so… Yeah, there'll be an update, let's say before 2030.

HFC: That's great. So, speaking of movies that you love, I read that when you were making stuff like Freaky Farley and Don't Let the Riverbeast Get You, you were inspired by some regional low-budget '80s horror. And as one of the 50 people who've seen Rana: the Legend of Shadow Lake, I can definitely see the influence. But these are also such funny movies, and I haven't seen you mention any of your comedic inspirations in any of the interviews I read. So I'd love to hear about that part of the film.

MF: We might be a straight faced comedy, you know? Even down to the point where we're marketing them as scary horror movies. In some of the DVDs, we put a sticker on it, "This is not for the nervous." There's something so charming about a movie trying to be scary, but it isn't. We wanted to embrace that kind of thing. I think that you watch a lot of these '80s movies and you laugh and go, "Oh look, they were trying to be scary, and look at how bad it looks and blah, blah, blah." I think I think a lot of them knew and were aware of how silly and over the top and ridiculous it was.

So there's that but then in more broad comedy influences… You know, The Naked Gun and Airplane. I'm a huge fan of that, and so is Charlie. We really like Chevy Chase a lot too… Fletch, Funny Farm, Spies Like Us. I'd say those are my main comedic influences.

HFC: So, I know that you get this a lot, but I'd just love to talk about the phone number [Farley includes his personal number in many of his projects]. I read that you were inspired by The Curse of the Screaming Dead including a real hardware store's phone number, but I think it's fair to say you took it to another level.

MF: I wrote for the school paper in college and I would put my dorm room phone number at the end of every article I wrote, so it goes that far back. It's almost tempting people. Like, come on. I dare you. Yeah, this is really my number. And a few people called me in college, asking me "Why are you giving out your number?" And I was like, "I don't know."

And then I started singing it in a few songs. At this point, I think I've sung my number in like 1000 different songs, you know, so people will call and be like, I heard your number in that song. And I'll be like, "Which one?" They don't know what they're dealing with. And then with the movies, I'd just say to Charlie when he was doing the credits, put my number in there too. For one, I enjoy it. It's fun. I've gotten at least two calls today and it was a delight talking to people and just having a fun little conversation. So there's that, but then, I think it's a smart marketing idea because it gives people a very unique experience that they're just they're gonna tell their friends about. Yesterday, a guy called and he's like, "Look, I called you about four years ago. I told my friend about it. He doesn't believe me. I got you on speaker. Will you say something?"

That's a good way to get people talking about what I'm doing here. So there's many good reasons to do it. And everyone's like, "Oh, but you give out your number. Do you get harassed?" and no, pretty much everyone's cool or they hang up because they're nervous or something. But, I mean, we're talking 99% are just nice, short, fun conversations.

HFC: I guess the thing that kind of blew me away about it is, it's really breaking down that barrier between an artist and the people engaging with the work.

MF: Because I'm an outsider and whatnot, I like to call out mainstream entertainers and what I like to say is that they cultivate the persona of being untouchable. Like they'll get bodyguards even though they don't need them just because if you see them walking with bodyguards, you think they're important. I really think if if most celebrities gave out their number, they'd have downtime when they weren't getting calls. And that's what keeps them from doing it. That terror that if they gave out their number, it wouldn't constantly be ringing. I definitely like to demystify the artist and just be like, "Art is not a magical thing that you have to be inspired by. Art is something you can force out of you.” That and just pointing out that these cool actors, they're rebels. So many actors are rebels who happen to work for a giant corporation. And they have publicists who are trying to find unique ways to push their personal brand and there's nothing less rebellious than having a team of publicists pushing your brand. I just want to be front and center and be like, "Hey, I am not cool. I'm not cool. I scour letterboxd to read reviews of my own work. And here's a little secret: so do the rest of them. They just don't admit it.

HFC: Yeah, I came up writing on the internet, mostly for places that had comments. And it's hard to get out of the habit of just like, "What did these people think? Did they like it? Did they like me?"

MF: But I also don't think it's bad! This is so cool. I get to directly read what people think of the thing I made. And negative comments, bring it on. I mean, come on. I can't believe you were moved to write anything about what I did. This is so wonderful. You know, the negative ones are the funniest. Right?

HFC: Do you think that there's a movie that best represents what y'all are trying to do? Like, when somebody asks you, "What movie of yours should I check out?"

MF: Lately I've recommended Magic Spot just because I feel like people can wrap their heads around it and it looks nice, and it sounds nice. I feel like we I feel like we did a real good job with that and, and people just people just respond to it.

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Magic Spot, Freaky Farley, Don’t Let The Riverbeast Get You! and Monsters, Marriage and Murder in Manchvegas can be found on Tubi, and all of Motern Media’s output can be purchased or rented online here or purchased from Gold Ninja Video.

"Yeah, This is Really My Number": An Interview with Matt Farley