Name: Matt Dowling
Position: Owner/Operator
What does your day to day look like? I help manage sales and production, check in on equipment maintenance and contractors, manage vendors, manage finances and help plan events. It's all over the place, but it's all about getting records done by the artists' deadlines.
How did you get into vinyl record production? My background, outside of music, is in chemical/biomedical engineering and entrepreneurship. It's amazing how much of vinyl record pressing IS chemical engineering. I re-connected with Jeff in 2021 after not having played music for a year due to COVID shutdowns, and I was telling him how many bands in my network were having trouble getting vinyl made. He told me he had serious interest in starting a plant in Pittsburgh. I oddly had some time in my life, and I started learning about vinyl pressing: I became a bit obsessed. In 2022, I said to Jeff "you still want to do this?" And here we are pressing records everyday as Hellbender Vinyl.
Do you have a favorite record you own? What is it? Tough one! If I absolutely had to pick an absolute favorite, I'll go with Trans Europa Express by Kraftwerk. It's just an absolute masterpiece, and it branches into so many areas of music: rock, rap, pop, experimental, and so on. I dig ALL of those genres, so Trans Europa Express is particularly meaningful for me.
What are your current top 3 favorite musicians/bands?
Tough again, but current/active and not like a legacy sort of thing and not incredibly massive, I'll say:
- Infinity Knives
- Omni
- Fake Fruit
What's the best live music performance you've ever seen? I think the one that probably stands out in my brain the most was The Death Set in about 2007 at a place called Lo-Fi Social Club, which was in a weird spot across the Hanover St Bridge in Baltimore. My old band Deleted Scenes played that show, and I believe right after our set, The Death Set (a 2 piece at the time) had already set up on the floor in the room next to the show space. They pulled in their own rig for live sound. As soon as we're done, they just rip into this super high energy punk rock set. It was very foreign and confrontational feeling, largely because it was not "part of the room." They created their own little world, and people were going fucking bonkers. That version of the Death Set was really really great.
What was your first concert experience? Oh boy. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Silverchair and the Rentals at US Air Arena in Landover, MD. As I think about that now, that lineup can't be a more perfect paradox of "both mysteriously cool and profoundly lame" of a first concert experience.
Instagram? @matthewbdowling
