By Jacob Wilson-Hajdu
Sometimes a simple realization can set you on a whole new path. Matthew de Zoete showed just that through his latest performance at The Foundry on June 17th. Playing under the name Colour Film, de Zoete was inspired to write his latest record, Super 8, from footage he had found of his grandparents.
“They came here in the 50s and as I was growing up they were always old. They had thick Dutch accents and are kind of from a different world,” says De Zoete. “I guess never really appreciated how complex their lives were until a couple of years ago when I found some old Super 8 films.”
Watching those films, de Zoete was inspired to write a song called “Colour Film” on his previous record. The song was created mainly with lyrics taken from the footage and he also made a music video with the film to accompany the song. “I had never seen my grandparents moving around and doing stuff, so I realized that they had their own lives and that they were just as real as mine,” says de Zoete.
De Zoete became inspired by this kind of visual aspect of writing songs and took that into consideration while creating Super 8. “I guess I wanted to record a bunch of songs that acted like home movies or little films,” says de Zoete. “The songs that I really like the most, are the ones you can kind of picture what is going on. So I took Colour Film as my first name and used that as a guide.”
One of the songs off the album, “The Money’s On The Dresser,” isn’t exactly what you think. The slow positive tuned harmony embraces a more beautiful, different concept of what a title like that could mean. “That song, I actually had the title first. My first thought was that it was going to be about a prostitute,” he says. “Most people would think that at first. But I thought maybe there was a different situation I could write this song about,”
For more information, including tour dates visit colourfilm.ca
