Carleton University graduate Kalle Mattson was recently nominated for a Juno for Best Music Video.
The Charlatan called Mattson to discuss putting music onto film, breaking into the music industry and his wildly popular “Hotline Bling” cover.
The Charlatan (TC): You’ve been recognized for your music videos before, they’ve been the subject of articles in Time Magazine, Huffington Post, Yahoo and even premiered on USA Today, on top of winning Northern Ontario Music Awards. How does being nominated for a Juno fit in with all that? Does it feel like an even bigger milestone, or would you rather focus on the music itself?
Kalle Mattson (KM): Yeah it feels like a pretty big milestone, you know? I think most people would say that after being nominated for their first Juno. It’s pretty cool, I definitely had a big hand in making this music video, and coming up with it, and sort of seeing it through conceptually and stuff. So yeah, it’s pretty awesome.
TC: What was the inspiration for the “Avalanche” video, and were there any challenges along the way in making it?
KM: The idea of the video started from [when] Jay-Z did a commercial for Rhapsody. He sort of re-created all of his album covers in one shot in a big sound stage. So that was the inspiration for “Avalanche,” to do it with the best album covers of all time, mixed in with my favourite albums, and to give people a nice history lesson on album covers, and to show people my influences and the records I love.
TC: Jumping off the Jay-Z thing a little bit, your cover of “Hotline Bling” has gotten over a million streams on Soundcloud and surely many more on Spotify and similar platforms.
KM: It’s silly.
TC: Why did you choose to cover this song, tackle it in the way you did stylistically, and why do you think it became so popular?
KM: I dunno why it’s popular. I covered it, like Drake put that song out, I don’t know if they knew it was like a massive smash hit, they just put it out online, and I heard it and thought it was a really good song. At that time, me and my manager were trying to figure out a cover I could do that would be different, and get new fans and do all that stuff. I heard a way I could record that song, so I recorded a little song demo and sent it over to him and he said it was perfect. I recorded that song, it took like a day, and we put it up online and I don’t know—it just sort of caught on. I think it was a lot of like, right place right time, but I think I sort of did the song in a different direction, I put my own spin on it. People seemed to dig it, and now it’s unquestionably the most successful thing I’ve done.
You can catch Kalle Mattson when he opens for Jason Collett at the Blacksheep Inn in Wakefield, Quebec on Friday, May 13, and watch the Junos on Sunday, April 3.
