By Lindzrox
- Matt Sims
When Ladytron sang “They only want you when you’re seventeen, when you’re 21 you’re no fun” obviously hasn’t met Matt Sims. This guy packs more fun in his week than a bus full of drag queens, scenesters and heiresses combined. At 21 years of age, this pouty-lipped prince has become a household name in the Toronto club scene and beyond. But there is more behind this social media whore than just online debauchery and gluttonous guest list requests from Facebook fiends, yes I said fiends not friends. This is one hard-working promoter that’s got the brains, the beauty and the balls to make things happen! Lindzrox met up with Matt at his office at Circa to get down to the nitty gritty and find out a little bit more about the man behind the Myspace.
- Lindzrox and Matt kickin’ back for a chat!
Let’s start at the beginning. Where does Matt Sims actually come from?
I’m from Kingston, Ontario. I moved to Toronto, oh my god it feels like yesterday, but it was probably 3 or 4 years ago. When I arrived I just started meeting people in the scene and then I became a flyer boy. I handed out flyers in some of the worst places. I started interning at this company called AT Productions, which is based on Church St and worked through that scene.
When you left home with two feet, a heartbeat and a Myspace account did you ever imagine just how far you’d go?
No, Dude sometimes I look back and it’s like I was couch surfing, eating nothing and working for like $7/hour not so long ago. It’s so funny how things happen so fast. Sometimes it feels like yesterday and then sometimes I think, you’re turning 22 this year, I need to get moving, and then sometimes I’m like I’ve done so much since I was 17. The reality of it is, not many promoters do it for more than five years. I am reaching that point that a lot of people I know are reaching in their late twenties because they started when they were 25. Everyone has their run of it, and then other people it’s something they’ve done their whole lives, look at Mario J from A.D/D and Industry. His friends joke that he can run for Mayor soon!
In your early days, as a flyer boy, just how much did you have to hustle?
Oh my god, I just remember being kicked out of so many places. Being treated like shit and having to work until 6 a.m. I started making $15/hour, which wasn’t bad for a 17 year old, but it was really late nights, always on the move, you always had to be on call. I didn’t really like that kind of music either, so I couldn’t really relate, it wasn’t my scene. Then I started doing more of the College Night stuff, I took over that weekly Wednesday night. I started doing it at 5ive and then brought it to Vice and then I brought it to Alibi. Then I threw my first big party Pixelrox, Toronto’s first Myspace party, it was at Fly, Barbi deejayed and it was Jeffree Star’s first Toronto performance. That was the “big night.” That was my breakout party and after that it is all a blur.
Do you remember one moment where you thought, “This is it, my life will never be the same again?”
It was around the same time as the Myspace party. I went to LA with my friend Jason and I had made some money off a couple of events. We were running around in limos going to all these parties and got completely drunk out of our minds. I don’t even remember if I saw any celebrities. I was hanging out with this girl who is friends with Courtney Love or something. Everyone was trying to be so cool. I went from Kingston to Toronto to LA in such a short time. It did really happen fast and there were those moments where I was thinking this is so much fun! I did hang out with Paris Hilton and started meeting all these people like Black Eyed Peas and I got a little star struck. That trip was probably the moment.
How did you establish connections with people like Jeffree Star, Samantha Ronson, Dragonette etc. How did you get to present them in the city?
That’s the funny thing about promotions it really is all about who you know. A lot of my bookings I don’t really do through agents. I ask people that I know and they hook me up with their managers. It’s a lot easier to do things that way. I mean friends in LA connect me to a lot of people. Going through booking agents is so much more expensive and there is a lot of bureaucracy. There are a lot of people who helped me out in the beginning like Ana Von Francis. She got me the first connection with Dragonette.
Who mentored you?
Rolyn Chambers first got me into Circa. Before Circa was even open, I went to the first meeting. Rolyn, Ana, A.D/D all these people I knew from the beginning really helped me out.
What was the biggest mix-up in the VIP at Circa?
I know a lot of the staff have been kicked out of the club by mistake. I’ve even been kicked out. Security are great, but there are a lot of them so they don’t always remember you.
Who is the biggest A-Lister you’ve partied with and what was that experience like?
Paris Hilton. She was cute, but that’s all I can remember from that night (laughs)
Who’s your bff and why?
Marc Smith, is my bff. We have fights and little tiffs and stuff, and we are both quiet similar in some ways, but all and all he’s been there through thick and thin. I had some pretty stormy times these last couple years, so its been good to have someone who doesn’t get scared when things get muddy, or just hop on the next boat when mine looks like its sinking. That’s what lifes all about I guess, when shit starts to sink, just put on your raincoat, get a bucket and start scooping up the water.
Tell me about your music, the stuff you compose?
Well this is a whole new chapter for me, not a new chapter actually I have been doing it before I started promotions. I started playing piano and violin when I was seven and then I started composing when I was 15. I took a break from 19 to 21 and started back again in November. I compose classical music, I’ve done three preludes, a scherzo and an adagio and I am working on a sonata right now.
I bet that is something that not a lot of people know?
Yes, a lot of people don’t know that. Where I’m going with this is I am working with a lyricist and a producer. I am working with Marlin who I am going to record with in New York in April. We’re just putting everything together. I have also been writing poetry again; I’ve always loved writing. I’m putting poetry and lyrics into a more digestible format. I am working on a unique experience of combining romantic poetry and classical music and modernizing it. This is essentially what I have always wanted to do. This is the next step; this is the main thing for me right now. I am going to use everything I’ve learned through promoting and use all my contacts to move forward with it.
What kind of music do you spin?
Dopplehertz was my dj project; I now spin under my own name again. I was doing events under my own name before. Max and I have gone our separate ways. I spin everything. Anything from old school house to nu skool electro, I’ll play rock even. I do it fairly casually. I dj once in awhile in New York and I’ll be playing at the Winter Music Conference in Miami.
What are your views on social media? I mean it’s what made you. The fact that the world is getting so small virtually and you can connect with other people, even celebrities with MySpace, Facebook, Twitter etc.
I have a weird vibe on it because it’s how I got my start in promotions, but on that same wavelength it’s scary because it changes so fast. It seems like it is getting harder to catch up. It’s like Andy Warhol said “Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes,” Social media is their 15 minutes.
Having said that where do you think it is going to take us, what does the future hold?
I can see two things happening. Right now things are pretty cold-hearted and we rely so much on technology. Kubrick was right in 2001 when he commented on technology evolving over humanity. When you put your future in the hand of a machine, you yourself become a machine. I can see it falling apart a little bit in terns of there being a Renaissance of the romantic era almost. A new interest in real art and just not cookie-cutting shit out. Not manufactured bullshit. With the exception of a few bands, it’s all shit, one band being Velvet Code. So it will either slow down to a Renaissance or become more mechanical.
What is the difference between the Toronto scene versus New York and LA?
I don’t see a big difference at all. The only thing I see different, not that I’m bashing Toronto at all, I love Toronto, but people here take themselves a little too seriously. In New York, they do as well, but they have good reason to. There are more social climbers in Toronto, people are always trying to grab at what other people have because they know how hard it is in Toronto to breakout to New York and LA, so people here are a little more vicious like promoters bashing other promoters and trying to steal jobs. New York has more of a family feeling people aren’t trying to prove anything and in LA that’s all it is. LA doesn’t try to hide that, and in Toronto they try to play it off like that’s not the case.
So in the summer you are leaving for LA?
Right now, my main focus is getting this demo done. So it is still looking like the summer is when I will move.
Why does Matt Sims “hate you”?
(Laughs) I think people just take themselves too seriously. I can’t stand the promoters that get so high and mighty on themselves in this whole party scene. Everyone needs to chill out a little bit, it’s a party. We make money from it and everything, but it’s supposed to fun, not some pedestal you put yourself on.
Are a lot of people fake with you, kiss your ass?
Yes, Oh my god, I’ve had every story in the book. I will not name names, but I’ve had some crazy people come into my life. Even act their way through a relationship just to get something from me. I feel like I am a magnet for psychopaths.
Are you having the time of your life or is it lonely at the top?
I am very honest in saying that it is. This is one step in my life. I have a lot of goals and dreams that I want to achieve. Where I am now, it is lonely. It is almost impossible to trust anybody. I find myself having a complex because I have been fucked over so many times, but I do have good friends and I do like what I do. You have to be really careful because people will use you to get what you have. I question why we take it so seriously because when people do that is when the viciousness comes in. It can be hard to be friends with people in the scene. And FORGET DATING! That is not going to happen. (laughs)
Great interview Matt. Good for you. Keep it up!
how odd that someone whose career was founded on social climbing would cite that as a low for Toronto’s scene… come on now, Matt.
well I mean drug addicts can have a moment of clarity once they are sober no?
moreover when I talk about social climbing I am more discussing “climbing to get nowhere”
facebook photo-ops, photoshoots supporting nothing,
facebook and myspace marketing supporting nothing,
of course people have to promote themselves and climb some sort of ladder to get to where they want to be, but its important to have an objective, which I find in toronto is hard to find.
but yes I will admit I was certainly certainly guilty of it, in the back of my head i always knew where I wanted to go, even when I did get distracted along the path..
Great interview, nice read… you’ve come a long way in a short time and it was cool to read about it!
Excellent post