Surely Mat McHugh must be getting tired of being asked about his solo work vs. The Beautiful Girls. To be clear, there is little difference between the two except for the name – Mat is the sole mind behind it all. Yet, he decided to release his latest album Dancehall Days under the name The Beautiful Girls, which he retired back in 2012. If the two are so alike, what does the name even mean anymore?

It doesn’t mean that much to me, what matters is the music. When I was touring around under my name, there was a bit of confusion. People were asking when The Beautiful Girls were coming back, even though everyone on stage was the exact same, and we were virtually playing the same set. It became clear that it was a battle that had to be waged and it just came down to – why don’t I just call it The Beautiful Girls if it makes it easier and causes less questions?

True fans don’t really care much about the name either, just the music, and the latest album Dancehall Days is filled with iconic Roland keyboard sounds, and uses vintage samplers instead of computers.

A lot of the album was made in an old-fashioned style. A big part of art is the concept, and for me the process is important. A lot the samples on the album came direct from vinyl records and were put into an old-school sampler. It probably takes a hundred times longer and is way more messy, raw and rough… but I love that. And we take that to our live shows too – we sequence a lot of things live but we don’t have any computers on stage. Every step of the way, we honour that tradition.

Like the album title suggests, Dancehall Days presents a dance vibe, and shows an attention to detail in its sounds, production, and songs. It’s a logical progression from the previous Beautiful Girls album Spooks, and Mat explains that he approached both albums with a similar mindset.

When I was first writing for the band I would provide sketches that I recorded myself and they would play the parts I had written. With Spooks I decided to just chop everything and use samples. In the back of my mind I was always conscious of making it sound like a real band with real instruments. I found that really limiting. But I got over that hurdle, and decided I was going to be honest to myself and what I want to hear. With Spooks I realised I don’t need to make it sound like real instruments. I just need to make it the best I can, and that realisation freed me up a lot.

As for the rest of the future, Mat has little idea of what it holds.

We’ve got a bunch of touring locked in with a South America tour that includes a big festival in Costa Rica. I think the next album for me will be the opposite of what I just did. I recently found the first guitar I ever played in my mum’s cupboard – my dad’s old nylon string. He got it in the 60s and he passed on when I was younger. I’m in the process of getting that fixed up so I can make an acoustic record. It might even be solo acoustic, just to get away from one element of music and into another for a while.

I need to balance it out – I’m not one of those guys who can repeat the same sound over and over – that just drives me mental.

Lastly, Mat leaves us all with some beautiful parting advice that we would do well to heed:

Life is too short to be bored. Just don’t be bored.