THERE and Back, with Stephen Mattos

Stephen Mattos is a born-and-raised Rhode Islander, experimental music maker, and librarian. When not cycling or working on photography, he cooks and gardens with his wife, artist Alicia Renadette. Since the late 2000s he’s been performing under the moniker Chrome Jackson, and he’s got a new band playing out, THERE. Previously, Stephen was a founding member of acts like Arab on Radar, Athletic Automaton, and Doomsday Student. 

TW: So you’re from here, originally?

SM: I grew up in Providence; a child in the 1970s and a teenager in the 1980s. My family moved to the East Side from Silver Lake when I was three.

TW: Do art and music run in the family?

TW: I am the youngest of four siblings, two sisters and one brother. My dad worked for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in Boston, and my mom was mainly a stay at home mom. But her passion was theater and singing. She acted in community playhouses and dinner theater for many years, and sang in the church choir and in musicals. My dad was a jack of all trades—an avid antiques and books collector, book binder, minor antiques repair guy, and picture framer. I believe I got my interest and curiosity of the world from my dad, and the performing bug from watching my mom in plays.

TW: How’d the bug materialize for you; when did you start making things?

SM: I started showing an interest in music in elementary school. I really loved the clarinet as a kid—I think from seeing Benny Goodman on TV—and started taking lessons from the school teacher...playing in the school band. This extended into middle school where I played in the school and All City Band. I was a novice at best; never got better than playing second clarinet. 

Around 13 years old I started to play the guitar, after finding out about classic rock, hard rock and heavy metal. I took lessons from a guy named Rocco at Axelrod music downtown, and bought my first guitars there: a Yamaha acoustic and a generic electric. Started a band with high school friends; practicing hard rock and metal covers in the basement. We never played out, but did have one original! Around 17, I started branching out musically when I first heard Jane's Addiction. That was my gateway band. Then I started rediscovering my dad's record collection and got obsessed with his The Best of John Coltrane. That blew my mind! From there, the flood gates opened.

Above: Stephen circa 1987

TW: Do you still play the clarinet?  

SM: Kind of. I have played it at some Chrome Jackson shows over the years. More recently, I've created some loops with it for newer material.

TW: And this high school band—what was it called? Who did you cover?  

SM: Ha! Ok, so, we had three different names during high school: Persuader, Blank Stare, and Problem Child. We covered songs like I Don't Know by Ozzy, My Michelle by G'N'R, Master of Puppets by Metallica. Stuff like that.

TW: Metallica themselves are no stranger to covers. In 2018, they did a Xutos track live. So you’re Portuguese too, yeah? Do you have a strong connection to East Providence?

SM: While my relationship to, and understanding of Providence is fairly strong, my relationship to East Providence is purely geographic. I grew up on the East Side, and East Providence was right next door over the Seekonk River—but I will be honest, it has always been a bit of a mystery to me. There’s a heavy Portuguese population, and I am a quarter Portuguese, so there is a bit of a relationship to my Portuguese kin, I guess?

TW: Close enough! Unlike many, you’ve left Rhode Island at least once in your life. What’s the farthest you’ve traveled or, have what experiences have felt like you were very, very far from home?

SM: I have done my fair share of traveling as a musician. The farthest from home I've been was Budějovice, Czech Republic in 2017 with Doomsday Student. What I learned from playing in Budějovice was that sometimes sleeping at the venue you played that night can turn into one of the worst tour experiences of your life!

TW: We’ve got all day. Let’s hear it.

SM: We played this venue called Velbloud Music Bar, a dive with a small green room in the back where fans and band members were hanging out on dirty couches drinking Budvar (the local beer). People were getting very, very drunk pre-show. Very drunk. A harbinger of things to come. The show itself went really well; people were freaking out. At the end of the evening, we were unsure where we were supposed to sleep. Often in Europe the promoters are very accommodating. You usually end up with a nice place to stay, and this is usually already established beforehand between the booking agent and promoter. But there was either confusion on our part, or a lack of communication with the promoter—who was also getting shit-faced—which led us to believe we were sleeping right in the green room where we’d all been partying. The room had large bunk beds, so we assumed it was the right spot.

Above: Arab on Radar opening for Marilyn Manson in 1995 at Club Babyhead.
Photo by Lisa Gourley.

TW: Not the worst setup so far?

SM: People were still hanging around there after 2am; we were tired and wanting to sleep. So we proceeded to the bunk beds and closed the door. Not long after, drunk people from the venue started coming into the room to go to sleep, too, as if this was a normal thing for them to do. We were very confused by this; the language barrier wasn’t helping. This made things very uncomfortable. At some point, a really fucked up guy with a broken arm came in to go to sleep claiming he owned the venue; I still don't know if he actually did! We all had to try to deal with this by sleeping in the room with all these smelly, drunk people we didn't know. That morning, after no sleep, and leaving the room to try and sleep in the van, we saw one of the other bands coming out of a different building with sleeping bags. We were left thinking that we chose, by accident, to sleep in the gross room with the drunk people. It’s hilarious to think about it now, but it was a very rough night!

To cap things off, that morning, when we were loading our gear out of the venue, we found a guy sleeping in Craig's rolled up drum rug like a burrito! He was completely confused by what was going on. I learned a few things that night.

TW: Yikes! Good heads  up for current acts swinging by the Velbloud Music Bar, though? We don’t want to harp on bad times here but, you really have toured a lot—got any other notes? Lessons learned?

SM: Here’s another tour story. In 2000, Arab on Radar went on our very first European tour. At the time, we had a booking agent from Italy, but we didn't have a driver, so we did all of the driving throughout Western Europe ourselves. None of us had ever driven a car in Europe. This trip was obviously very exciting, but driving through customs checks, exchanging currencies (pre-Euro), language barriers— all very new to us. 

We were getting near the end of our tour, driving through Germany outside of Berlin, and stopped at a petrol station. I filled up the tank and we headed out. All of a sudden the van stalled out. It seemed like we had run out of gas, but that could not have been the case—I just filled the tank. It occurred to me I mistakenly filled up with unleaded gas in a diesel engine, not paying attention to the pump nozzles. It was a horrendous blunder! We stalled out on the side of the road in a very quintessential old German town, looking out at an old church, rolling hills and lots of sheep. 

Above: Stephen performing with Athletic Automaton at O’Brien’s Pub in Allson, MA in 2007. In the background from left to right: Dan Gonzales, Sarah Delorey, Matt Zaccarino, and Kevin Driscoll.

TW: Sounds scenic, at least. How’d you get out of there?

SM: Despite my fuck up, my bandmate Craig was nice enough to go out with me looking for help. Eric and Jeff stayed with the van. We must have looked insane walking around asking random people in rudimentary German, "Sprechen Sie Englisch?", "Auto kaputt!"  We knocked on people's doors with no luck, until finally, we met this very nice family and one of them just happened to teach ESL! We felt so lucky! They called a tow truck for us. Then the four of us, and this old German truck driver we didn’t speak to, had to sit together up front in his vehicle. Back at the rental place at the airport, all they had available was a minivan and, Important detail: the previous, larger van barely fit all of our stuff. Another predicament!

We ended up taking some of the seats out of the mini van and left them in the parking lot of the car rental facility; we didn't know what else to do. It was a very shitty thing to do, but we were desperate. For the last leg of the tour, we piled equipment and bags on top of us so we could fit everything in. This was our situation for about three or four more shows, on some of our longest drives. It was ridiculous! When I called our booking agent to tell him what happened, he broke out into a very impassioned cry. He said he was kidding, but I am convinced he was serious.

TW: Lesson number two: check those pump symbols! OK enough bad memories. We want to hear about what you’re psyched about! Give us a rundown of your favorite projects over the years.

SM: I am very proud of all of my musical projects: Arab on Radar, Athletic Automaton, Chrome Jackson, Doomsday Student, and THERE. In every one of these projects—with the exception of Chrome Jackson, which is a solo project—I have worked with a host of extremely talented people: Pat Crump, Eric Paul, Craig Kureck, Brent Frattini, Josh Kemp (Mahi Mahi), and Paul Vieira. In some instances, cross-pollination occurred: e.g. Eric Paul and Craig Kureck in Arab on Radar and Doomsday Student, and Pat Crump in Athletic Automaton and THERE.

THERE is my latest project, and I couldn't be more proud of it! All of the people in this band have been good friends of mine for years, and now I have the added joy of working with some of them for the first time. We've had our set of challenges over the last three years, with life setbacks, injuries, and COVID, but the quality time that we have spent together has been so worth it to me. It’s been my goal as a musician to never stop challenging myself; and I’ve always enjoyed creating challenging, experimental music.

Above: Stephen’s class photo, est. 3rd grade.

TW: A question about the Chrome Jackson moniker. We were reading an insane story Eric Paul wrote about AOR’s time opening for Marylin Manson; he mentions listening to the 70s San Fran rock band Chrome. I was wondering, is Chrome Jackson a kind of Marilyn Manson-esque name-play? Chrome plus...Janet?

SM: First off, I was initially going to answer one of your questions by mentioning this very article! Glad you read this, it's great! But no, it actually had nothing to do with Chrome, even though I am a huge fan of that band. The simple answer is, for many years I made my own Halloween costumes at the very last minute, putting random things together and calling it a costume. One year, I painted my face silver, put on a cowboy hat, and a suit jacket and just wore that for Halloween. I saw my friend Tony out at a party or something, and he said, "Hey, look, it's Chrome Jackson!" which I thought was funny. I pocketed that name away for years.

TW: Reading about that Manson show and thinking...You've been here long enough to see clubs like the aforementioned Babyhead, The Met Cafe, the original Lupos, the Living Room, and Fort Thunder all come and go. Could you give me a list of your top 5 venues from Providence history?

SM: You listed 4 of my favorite venues already. The (Old) Met Cafe, The (newish) Living Room, Club Babyhead, and Fort Thunder. I will also add a venue that didn't last many years, Aurora, which was a few years later. The old Met Cafe was right next to Lupo's downtown. They had a lot of great bands play there in the early to mid 90s; some of the earliest Arab on Radar shows were there. Club Babyhead was such a great raunchy place! I saw Jesus Lizard for the first time there. Great place. At the old Living Room, I saw some great shows there like Guns N' Roses, right when Appetite for Destruction came out. The new Living Room was in an old abandoned restaurant, that they barely did anything to when they opened it. It was a large, raunchy punk venue. Played a great Halloween show there with Lighting Bolt, Men's Recovery Project, Dropdead, Six Finger Satellite, and many more. It was insane. Aurora was on Westminster in the Down City area. I don't remember how many years they were active, but they were around when Doomsday Student was a band in the mid 2010s. We played a couple fun ones there, and I saw some great shows, too. I really miss that venue. 

TW: Memories! Besides the bands, what’s keeping you active?

SM: I love bike riding. So I try to do that as much as I can. It has probably been my most consistent physical exercise practice that I have stuck with over the years. I also try to eat as healthy as I can. Alicia and I like to cook a lot.

TW: Providence's DIY scene and cycling have always seemed to go hand in hand. I think of people like Peter Fuller, C.F., Ian Cozzens, etc—people who approach their work with a lot of intentionality; all super into bikes. 

SM: I think punks, artists, and underground music fans have always had a strong connection to, and love of bike riding. There's always lots of bikes outside of venues at noise shows, both here, and in lots of other cities. This could be out of financial necessity, and / or an environmental decision. But whatever it is, there is a kinship there.

Above: Chrome Jackson performing at Sonia in 2022. Photo by Becky DiGiglio.

TW: Being born here, and having been active in the music scene so long...how have you gotten by, generally over the years? 

SM: I am a very practical person; maybe due to a fear of being broke and out on the street, or something like that. Not sure why I have that fear, but because of this, I never really took a lot of chances in life aside from being a musician and going out on the road. I always felt the need to keep a steady job and for years, I worked at Bread & Circus (RIP), which became Whole Foods. I spent all of my years in Arab on Radar working there. This is actually where I met Jay Ryan from Six Finger Satellite and Eric Paul. If it wasn't for that job, Arab on Radar likely would have never existed, weirdly enough. But I spent many, many years at that job. Thankfully, I was able to go away for weeks at a time working there; they were very cool about it.  

TW: So this was in the 90s or so—did you keep that gig after bigger things like the OOPS tour happened, into the 2000s?

SM: Around 2002, after Arab on Radar broke up, I kind of had a pre mid-life crisis and didn't really know what I was going to do with my life, besides music. I never made enough money as a musician to even call it a part-time job; the kind of music I make...it never seemed like a lucrative career move. So, I decided to go to college and ended up getting a Bachelor's Degree in Art History and Studio Art with a focus on photography. Not long after I graduated, I landed a part-time job at a university and proceeded to work three jobs for a few years before landing a full-time job in the library at Providence College, where I’ve now been there 10 years. I guess I made it work by making sure I had a job that would help support my passions.  

TW: We like this approach, and appreciate all you’ve done for local music! As our thanks, we’re going to let you hype an upcoming gig taking place somewhere other than Myrtle.

SM: THERE has a show at the News Cafe in Pawtucket, RI on July 17th with Chaser (NYC), Dull Care (PVD), and solo country performer, Craig Wreck (Craig Kureck from Arab on Radar/Doomsday Student/Chinese Stars), that I am very excited about.

TW: Have a blast! We’ll be here in East Providence where the DB meter will run a bit less hot that night.