Music

If you have ever felt an unfamiliar ache somewhere deep inside – born of yearning, heartbreak or some other kind of romantic grief – then Matt Maltese probably has a song for that. His debut LP Bad Contestant, released via Atlantic Records in 2018, mixed piercing personal reflections with surreal, writerly metaphors involving lucid dreams, fish, wartime food rations and chocolate-based sexual exploits, all atop a warm guitar and organ combo.
At the apex of the record was the swooning ballad “As the World Caves In,” an apocalyptic depiction of an imaginary love affair between Donald Trump and former British prime minister Theresa May. The track experienced an unprecedented resurgence in 2021 when it broke into the U.S. Spotify Charts (No. 90) off the back of sudden TikTok virality, leading to Maltese finding new, unlikely fans in Doja Cat and BTS member V.

Trending on Billboard

It was the album’s dark humor, and how its author divulged his gnarliest impulses across 11 tracks, that set it apart upon release. Here, Maltese crafted narratives that feel immersive, brutal and soberingly real — though seven years on, he looks back on that era as a time where he felt “overwhelmed” by what the moment required from him: signing with a major label, topping “Ones to Watch” lists, putting out jaunty baroque-pop in a landscape that was dominated by post-punk acts. 

It’s a feeling that first began gnawing at Maltese when he was deep in the songwriting for Hers (due May 16), his fifth studio album and most vulnerable and engrossing work to date. “I used to have lyrics that were often outrageous, which came from a combination of thinking I was smarter than I was while also not really knowing myself yet. I could never fully cry about something without being sarcastic at the same time,” he tells Billboard U.K. “But now, I’ve realised that I don’t get a kick out of being ‘shocking’ in my writing anymore.”

When we meet Maltese in a busy central London café, he is soft, eloquent and deadpan in conversation, often laughing when he makes such pronouncements – which repeatedly come with an explicit caveat about how privileged he is to do what he does. Spring is breaking through, and the glass-walled corner we find ourselves in lets in ample light. “At the start [of the creative process], I thought, ‘No one is in desperate need of a new Matt Maltese album. I knew it was worthwhile when I began producing it solely for myself,” he says, smiling.

He’s right in a way. Maltese has grown into a stunningly prolific musician with over a billion combined Spotify streams to his name. Alongside five full-length records (including Hers), he has released four EPs alongside 2024’s Songs That Aren’t Mine, a collection of covers of tracks by a diverse cast of musical inspirations, from Sinead O’Connor to Sixpence None the Richer. The record also featured vocal takes from rising acts Liana Flores, Dora Jar and Searows, the latter whom is signed to Maltese’s own imprint Last Recordings On Earth (via a partnership with Communion Records).

Elsewhere, he has quietly become an influential figure in the U.K. scene as a label boss and songwriter. He’s spent time working with Grammy winner Laufey, as well as British sensations Celeste, Jamie T and Joy Crookes; Maltese has also been sought out by newer names such as Etta Marcus and Matilda Mann. Despite being dropped by his label shortly after the release of Bad Contestant, he’s managed to spin that moment into a positive and collaborative ethos, one that has carried him through a trajectory that has been anything but conventional.

“At the beginning of my career, I was acting like Noel Gallagher when it came to the topic of co-writing,” he explains. “I used to think, ‘What a joke, who needs people to help them write?’. I was really quite snobbish about it. But then, things shifted when I turned a corner after having had my ‘period of failure’ by getting dropped. It was the ego knock I needed.”

In his early 20s, Maltese used an exaggerated version of himself as a Trojan horse to share his deepest feelings. Now, he understands that music is the place where he can find clarity and optimism. It’s what enables him to tell the truth and not let discomfort get the better of him.

This shift in mindset manifests itself in the cover art for Hers’ lead single, “Anytime, Anyplace, Anyhow,” which shows Maltese immersed in a moment of passion with his partner. At times he strips back the track’s gorgeous, tumbling arrangements – which, sonically, feel flush with the jitters of new love – to reveal little more than a gentle guitar. It forces listeners to consider his playful albeit blunt language, full of a sense of a worldview having been upturned: “I’m apoplectic looking at the stars/ They look like you with your top off.”

Maltese views Hers as a warts-and-all project about allowing yourself to fall in love when you are a wounded cynic. “It felt really good, for the first time, to sing about the physical side of being in a long-term relationship,” he says, stewing over a pot of tea. “So much of this record felt like I was dipping my toe into a whole new pool of emotion.”

Hers marks the first record that Maltese has produced entirely himself since 2020’s hushed and reflective Krystal. Across the LP, he is joined by friends from Wunderhorse (drummer Jamie Staples) and Gotts Street Park (guitarist Joe Harris) to flesh out his acoustic arrangements. “Pined for You My Whole Life” starts hazily, cracking open into a R&B-flecked melody two-thirds of the way through. “Always Some MF,” which tackles jealousy and deceit, sounding increasingly despairing before an enjoyably rambling piano solo takes over.

When Maltese takes these songs to stages across the U.K. and US through the fall, he says will do so without big displays or sets. Since becoming an independent artist, he has graduated to bigger venues year upon year (a night at London’s iconic Roundhouse is in the diary for November), but he would rather talk about the marvel of collaborative spirit than accolades.

“Getting out of my own head and supporting the visions of others has only pushed me further,” he notes. 2024 bore witness to two major milestones: his stage composition debut and the launch of the aforementioned Last Recordings on Earth. The former saw him partner with the Royal Shakespeare Company, writing music for a production of Twelfth Night. The latter, meanwhile, has allowed Maltese to share the learnings of his early career with Searows and new signee Katie Gregson-Macleod, a singer-songwriter from the Scottish Highlands.

Last year, Gregson-Macleod was dropped by a major label over creative differences, or “things that were not compatible with my vision of my life,” as she put it in a nine minute-long clip posted to TikTok in January. In the following weeks, she met Maltese for a coffee in London; the pair bonded over the parallels in their respective artistic journeys, leading to her landing a new deal through which she is releasing her Love Me Too Well, I’ll Retire Early EP in July. 

From The Snuts to STONE and Crawlers, a series of U.K. indie and rock acts have similarly spoken out about struggling to fit into the major label system due to shifting commercial expectations, all having chosen to take the independent route in order to rebuild their respective careers. “Knowing our shared experiences, I felt at peace with stepping back into a label partnership if it was Matt at the helm,” Gregson-Macleod tells Billboard U.K. over email.“I just feel at ease, and confident with him by my side. For one, working with a songwriter I respect as much as Matt inspires me to constantly challenge myself. But also, there’s this quiet understanding, unwavering support and trust in me from his end that is really quite rare in this industry.”

Labelmate Searows (born Alec Duckart) concurs: “Matt’s kindness, talent, drive and humour have proven to me that art and passion can be your life’s work and you don’t have to sacrifice who you are in order to be successful. I have been so lucky to have his friendship and guidance, and understanding of who I want to be as an artist.”

Maltese attests maintaining a busy schedule to a work ethic gleaned from growing up with his Canadian parents in Reading, who would encourage him to travel into the capital as a teenager to pursue music further. Over time, he fell in with an emerging punk scene in south London, which furnished him with a close group of musicians (Goat Girl, Shame, Sorry) despite being worlds apart in sound and aesthetic from his peers.

“I was given a sense [by journalists] of being part of a quite elite group,” he recalls. “I was surrounded by all of these wonderful bands. We were all hanging out together, feeling like we were part of something special, and it’s really easy to get drunk on that – especially when you’re being given cultural capital.”

Press duties, in other words, became what Maltese had to do to help fulfill his passion of working with other creative people. He recalls, at age 18, being asked by a BBC radio station to record a cover of John Lennon and Yoko One’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” only to turn the offer down in fear of “being seen as a sell-out” unless he was able to rework the song to his own pleasing. 

He sighs at the memory. “It’s decisions like that that make me want to pull out my own skin. Though I look back and realize I was just a kid with an inflated sense of self, who was getting attention from lots of different angles. It’s been a process of reckoning with that time, really.”

Hers is marked by this exploration, of learning to loosen up and let go. Though Maltese says he still struggles to listen to his earliest material – particularly the jaunty and gruesomely funny “Guilty” – it’s his ongoing evolution that has taught him to remain curious, to never stay in one place for too long. For all his palpable excitement about the future, Maltese is feeling an equal amount of compassion towards where he’s been and what it has taught him.

“As you get older, you realize that everyone is flawed as hell. It’s a choice to not live in bitterness, particularly as someone that has had to re-angle the lens in which they view their own insecurities,” Maltese offers. “But weirdly, falling in love helps with all of that. It really does.”