In this week's 10 Questions we get to know Matt Kik, a solo artist from the UK

Their song 'Timeflies!' is currently featured on the NAS Spotify playlists

You can follow Matt Kik on Instagram, X, and on their website

1. Tell us a little about where you are from.

I'm originally from Stockport (near Manchester) in the UK, but I have lived in Sheffield for over twenty years. When I'm not making music I work as a planetarium presenter for a company called Wonderdome. We take mobile inflatable domes into schools to teach children about space in an immersive environment. I wasn't too much of a space nerd when I first got the job (in 2016) but I am now. I'm also into reading (mostly space books) and photography. This is why the artwork on my album is all photographs, as it's all I could think of!

2. What inspired Matt Kik to start playing and making music?

Either my Dad or the Beatles, but probably more the latter to begin with. My Dad was in an exceptionally good folk band so I grew up surrounded by the best music. I didn't pick up a guitar however until I was seventeen, which is not long after I discovered the Beatles. Dad lent me a Marlin Sidewinder strat style guitar and flipped it for me (I'm a lefty), and wrote down the chords to 'House of the Rising Sun'. I spent the next four months playing that riff over and over, driving my poor mother crazy. Then a friend of mine called Paul revealed himself to be a) a Beatles fan and b) a guitarist, so we joined together with another friend named Dave (also a guitarist) to form a band. Dave was crap on guitar but Paul was great, so I felt driven to improve. He's still better than me today, but I'm a lot better than I was thirty years ago!

3. Who are Matt Kik's biggest musical influences?

The Beatles, The Who, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Simon & Garfunkel, Def Leppard, Jon & Vangelis, The Eagles, Bob Dylan, and the Monkees to name a few (and apart from Jon & Vangelis I've seen all of those in concert...well, solo McCartney and not the Beatles, of course). I don't delve at all into sub-grenres though, I just make what I consider to be rock. Maybe classic rock or "Dad rock"?

4. What are your goals in the music industry or as an artist?

Enjoyment. I'll keep making music as long as I enjoy it. I've not seriously been pursuing music all my life. After the couple of small and unsucessful bands I was in around 1996-2002 I didn't play guitar much. During Lockdown in 2020 though I had all the time in the world and nothing to do so I thought I'd dust off some of the old songs and "do them justice" so bought some basic recording gear. The first mixes were great! And as time went on I got better and better. Then I went back to the first recordings just a few months later...and they were dreadful.

I can now see how I've improved, both playing and recording, over the last five years, and currently it's still an upward trend. 'Eponymous', the album I just released on the 15th August, was a great learning experience for me, and playing every instrument on it too was a wonderful experience. Now I plan to keep making albums, but maybe see if I can get a few friends to join me. So as long as it's still fun, I'll just keep going.

5. Tell us about your creative process.

I'm not sure the way I write songs does justice to the word "process". Occasionally I may have an idea for a riff or chord progression, so I'll film myself on my phone and put the clip in my "Music Ideas" album.

If I have a lyric idea (which happens far less frequently) I jot it down in my Google notes app. If I want to write a song I'll go to the video first, and try to develop it into a whole song (or flesh out a verse and chorus, at least). Then I'll try to come up with some lyrics for it and when that fails, I'll turn to my note and see what I can crowbar in. Then once I've got a line or two I'll use RhymeZone to give me ideas as to where the song can go next.

Finally I'll reluctantly add a middle 8, or more likely shove in a guitar solo so I don't have to suffer the horror of trying to write yet more lyrics for the same damn song!

6. What is your all-time favorite song by another artist and why?

It's probably a cliché answer but Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Queen is the first band (after my Dad's band) that I remember loving. Me and my cousins were very close when we were growing up, and we all shared a love of Queen. Of course, we only had Greatest Hits I and II so those were the songs we knew all the words to, and it was years later when I would get all of the band's albums on CD, but as a child it was THAT SONG. I don't know what it is about it specfically. I couldn't even work out the lyrics for years (I thought Freddie was telling us that his Mum had just killed a man), but there has to be a reason it's consistantly voted as the best song of all time.

7. What is the best advice you have either given or received in terms of music?

Given to me (by my Dad) "Try not to use the word 'just' when you're writing lyrics if you need to pad out a line to make up the syllables. It's lazy and repetitive."

From me to everyone else: Don't get into making music for any other reason than to enjoy it. If you're here to make money, you're wasting your time.

8. What is your proudest accomplishment?

Releasing my album, Eponymous. Previously I was proud of releasing an album with my band, Storm of Crows, in 2022. It was my dream as a musician to be able to leave behind something that would go on (however ignored it may be) after I was gone from this world. However, now I have released my solo album for which I wrote every lyric and melody, played every instrument, recorded every note, mixed and mastered it, and created the cover art too. I just wanted to see if I could do it, and I did.

9. What's been your most embarrassing moment so far?

I once worked at a supermarket and one day I was stocking up the chilled section following a delivery. I was walking around a corner carrying some sausages to put out and came face to face with a woman doing her shopping. I dodged to one side as she did, then I dodged to the other side and she did the same (in that awkward encounter thing we've all done). So what does my idiot brain think is a good thing to say to her? "Looks like we're doing the sausage dance".

10. Tell us about your lowest and highest points in music so far.

My lowest point was when I realised Storm of Crows was probably dead in the water. We had three amazing years of laughs, writing, playing, hanging out, releasing music and having people actually enjoy it and pay for it (who'd've thunk it?!) and then it was over. I thought we'd carry on until one of us died (and then we'd get Keef to sub for us).

Highest point...you can probably guess by this point. I've banged on about it enough already!