We spoke to the polarising musician/provocateur.

Do you remember the “Bunnings Snag Guy” video? It involved a dude going to a Bunnings, picking up a snag and bothering the staff for a high-five that never came to life. It’s difficult to explain, but it was perhaps the cringiest thing ever and has now (perhaps thankfully) been wiped from the internet. Matt “Jekel” is the man behind that video, and a bunch of equally confronting videos shot from his kitchen wherein he drinks bulk vodka, attacks the Perth music scene, and shares his opinion on pretty much anything. Oh, and he also promotes the hell out of his music.

He’s a brash character, and while you may not agree with much (or any) of what spews from his mouth (which is often actual spew itself), there’s something undeniably entertaining about “Jekel”. With hundreds of thousands of collective views and six thousand Facebook followers, it’s clear that his content is doing something for a lot of people – even if they’re only stopping by to hate on him…

Of the comments he gets on his videos (particularly the older ones), the vast majority of people are either taking the piss or saying some pretty heinous shit. It would have to be weird to have people commenting on your posts trying to figure out where you live/where they can meet up with you, just so they can “bash you” right? He gives as good as he gets though, often hitting the trolls back with a sarcastic comment that dumbfounds them, all the while sliding in details about his new music or videos.

His latest single ‘There Will Be Blood’, taken from his forthcoming record REDEMPTION THROUGH REVENGE, sways between screamo choruses and rap-metal verses with Jekel seemingly taking aim at his detractors. Vocally he leaves nothing on the table, producing a guttural scream that rattles you right in your core.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E1qDsSzT0A&feature=youtu.be

A track featuring Thy Art Is Murder’s CJ McMahon is also on the horizon for Jekel, so you can guarantee you’ll be hearing a lot from him in 2020. Check out our interview below and head here to follow him on Facebook if you dare:

Lots of people see you online in your kitchen or travelling around the various Asian/Indonesian tourist hotspots. What do you do for a job? Where’s the money coming from?

That’s a good fucking question man haha! I get asked that so much like holy shit but hey I’ll come clean. What I can say is I went from being a marketing sales consultant at the age of 18 for a telemarketing company to now working in logistics for a very well known mine site company.

I have the freedom in my life nowadays to travel whenever I feel like it (every 6 weeks as flights aren’t expensive at all to Asia) and the freedom in my work gives me the ability to make these intentionally cringe vlogs/ bitching in the kitchen videos as I please. I want to reiterate, there is no sustainable income in the music scene, putting a track out or video related to my music costs an upwards of $3k (and the rest involved) in order to put it out professionally.

But it’s all good, I love doing it so I have no plans of stopping anytime soon! I have admitted in a past interview a year ago about winning a decent sum with the lottery so there is also that, haha! Life is fucking good, my man!

What changed for you after the infamous Bunnings Snag video?

So the first thing I noticed when this damn Bunnings video hit 2.3 mil hits or whatever the number was in the span of only 12 days was the increasing amount of death threats I received from absolute idiots. The original video had been uploaded three months on a live stream before it had been re-uploaded a few times by meme related Facebook pages. The comments were as savage as it gets and so many people initially didn’t get the intended joke behind it.

What had changed for myself personally when it went viral was I was afraid to leave the house for a good two weeks. Like, damn, anxiety kicked in pretty hard for a bit there whilst I was initially thinking “Am I going to get randomly jumped by a few dickheads over a cringe piece of content?” The internet is a savage place and all it takes is one asshole who thinks violence is a good answer to content they don’t like on social media then it’s all game over, in my opinion.

After a good year of putting my cringe content out whilst juggling my serious music I have been noticing how people actually get the intended fuckery behind the whole thing. People that have recognized me out in public, or whenever I’ve been in another state travelling etc have been pretty decent in person. Still waiting to get flogged over a shitty video I post though haha, fingers crossed Freddy (jkz).

I will admit I’ve had to be more cautious about being transparent about my whereabouts on social media (just for normal reasons) along with not posting about my personal life/ family as much as I would use to… getting doxxed twice by a few broke angry bogans wasn’t the coolest thing to happen to me last year.

How did/do your friends/family react to that video/your current vids?

So… My family was initially like “what in the fuck” but they get the whole concept behind this thing. My friends have been like “Just don’t include me in it” but the weirdest thing is since all this shit went viral I’ve had people I’ve never even met come out of the woodworks claiming they knew me from highschool, random people that have hit me up to tell me they love it and get the piss-take behind the whole thing and my closest friends been have been laughing about it with me since the beginning.

It’s a crazy fucking ride but it’s way too much fun not to enjoy the process of this Jekel shit.

What genre of music is Jekel? How do you describe it?

So I would personally call it CringeCore. The thing is that music is subjective. My genre has been called so many different things such as emo, metal, metalcore, death-metal, rap metal. I have changed it up a bit in a few of my tracks, especially the new ones we are currently working on at the moment so I wouldn’t want to just fit into a set sub genre. But it all goes down to metal or heavy music in my opinion. The way I see it is if it’s catchy then I fuck with it. I put out music that I’d enjoy listening to.

You call yourself the King of Cringe and claim that you’re using the hate from people online to feed into your music project. Was that always the plan?

Hell to the no haha! Ok, so 4 years ago I used to put events on in Perth with my band called Greylands and we were taking our music as serious as we could. The event was called Summercore & it seemed to get a bit of pull. I ran the event with a good mate called Paul Colombera from the band Drown The Faith. I even put a show on with 13 bands on one stage, one night.

Over time we found it wasn’t cost effective, bands were ungrateful, the shit talking on social media was ridiculous and it felt like being back at highschool. At some point I turned around and thought what is the point of trying to take yourself seriously as a musician when people will go out of their way to diminish your brand as much as they can for their own personal satisfaction.

Having to look and act professional all the time whilst just wanting to wild out and speak my mind without repercussions took it’s toll eventually and I just said fuck it, created the alias Jekel (play on words from the Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde) & now here we are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ORNz9H-tdw

Some of the comments on your videos are pretty heavy. Does it ever affect you reading something like “Please kill yourself” or someone trashing your music?

Nahhhh hahaha, honestly you need to take everything with a grain of salt when it comes to social media. The way I see it is if you can’t handle the backlash in the comments, stay off social media. If you can’t handle abusive comments from entitled assholes then just don’t read them. Clearly nowadays I like to only indulge in the comments when I’m actually in the mood but it did take a good 6 months to adjust to the negativity. I personally wouldn’t send someone a death threat or abusive comment over a cringe video I don’t like so I know when someone gets upset on social media, I’ve won.

But fuck em, half the time they are miserable, broke, lashing out… And why do most of the negative comments come from men with kids?? It’s so fucking crazy haha, best social experiment I’ve ever done.

In saying that I’ll admit I’ve started a trend of offensive comments on my page, most of the time people are trying to just one up, or make a joke. The amount of people that have messaged me to make sure I knew they were just fucking around is hilarious haha. It’s savagery at its finest, I love the comments.

Your comebacks are pretty solid though. Do you have a favourite comment (yours or someone else’s) on your posts?

I live for that shit hahaha! So this one guy told me to do everyone a favour and kill myself immediately on some comment. Went into detail about how much of a loser I was and how I’m a virgin, gay and my music was terrible.

I checked out his profile and this guy looked like a thumb… a fucking thumb hahaha.
Like legit, a thumb… bald fat head, no neck, middle-aged, wtf. I went hard in the comments section about his thumb appearance and eventually after some witty fun back and forth with this thumb looking bitch he spent a few days commenting on my shit trying to get me to meet him at the park for a chon? What even is a chon?

The dude was fucking 40… ahaha man, now I’m gonna find that shit and repost it lol the moral is, if he didn’t want to have his profile pic posted all over my shit for laughs about his thumb looking head then don’t come at me. These people literally come into my world on my page on social media, it’s fair game once you speak out of turn.

Does the “Perth scene” refer only to Perth screamo bands? Why do you hate it so much? Were you ever part of the scene yourself?

I had a good few years where I networked hard to get my music out there. Made some great friends with musicians (I still have a good relationship with these talented ppl) The scene in general pisses me off, the Perth scene is so fucking fake it makes me sick. The same people in bands that try to talk publicly about mental health and violence against women are the same idiots making gay/rape jokes behind closed doors in their rehearsal rooms.

I’ve seen so many bands in the Perth Scene alone act one way just for their own band to look good then turn around and be another way behind people’s backs. It’s fake, it pisses me off… these are the same bands that talk mad shit about my music and my image? Get the fuck outta here…. haha I call it like I see it.

You’re always slamming beers/shots when you’re bitchin’ in the kitchen. What are your go-to beverages?

Vodka is life but the trick behind my videos is I make sure I get super plastered before I start filming.
That way I’m super triggered about the music scene/current topics and I’m ready to fucking go!
The issue is being so drunk means my tolerance for alcohol is at an all time low when I’m filming.

You claim that vegans hate you and you regularly make fun of them. Why is there beef there? Are they actually going to protest your shows?

Hahaha beef. So I’ve got a few close friends who fit into these stupid militant vegan groups and I’ve been told my name comes up quite a bit in Perth. At first I was just making jokes towards vegans who always want to promote how they fucking “SAVED ALL OF THE ANIMALS” because of their plant-based lifestyle.

It’s smarmy, hypocritical and the self-entitled vegans really piss me off. I could have been vegan for a month and wouldn’t have told everyone in a 5k radius… who would have thought huh. If they rock up to my show I’ll have an awesome sausage sizzle ready to go… no vegan options, soz.

You also spit on your floor a lot. Do you have housemates?!

I own my own house haha. I mean I am very hygienic and I clean like crazy but hey… when in the moment sometimes spitting is necessary to portray the emotion, right?

What do you get up to when you aren’t working/bitchin’/doing music stuff?

I like to read, arts & crafts are my passion…

Haha nahhhhh, I’m always plotting my next move, always working, always thinking of new content, new music, new potential shows for 2020. When I’m not doing any of this I’m either working, travelling or hanging with my friends trying not to get arrested on a big night out in whatever city we are in.

What’s your ultimate goal with the Jekel project? What have been your biggest regrets about your online persona?

I have zero regrets to be quite honest. I see record “label-backed” bands come home from tour just to be forgotten about in a month and then have to work a day shift. What I’m working on a bit too late I guess is to have people realise this is one massive piss-take at not only my own expense but everyone else’s in the music scene.

My main goal has always been exposure and I have no plans on slowing down with this Jekel shit. Whilst I enjoy doing it I’m going to keep at it and just see how far I can push the barriers with it.

I have a brand new offensive podcast coming out where we discuss current topics, viral videos and just speak the fuck out of our minds without limitations. There will be new events announced shortly and I’m working on the second of three new tracks to release.

By end of September, we want to have finished filming the music video for ‘Insidious’, featuring CJ McMahon so that’s going to be a fun one. No matter what you do in life you always have to own it, whether a hilarious accidental mistake or not. I wouldn’t change this Jekel shit I’m doing for anything in the world!