Breaking Boundaries Podcast - Episode 11 with Mat Kerekes

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About our guest:

Mat Kerekes is an American singer-songwriter best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Citizen, of which he is a founding member. He was born and grew up in Michigan, and before Citizen, he was the drummer of a metalcore band called The Sound of Glory at the age of 14. Kerekes is also a solo artist and a member of The Flats. He has released a self-titled LP in 2014 and a full solo studio album, Luna & The Wild Blue Everything in 2016. In addition to his music, Kerekes follows a straight edge lifestyle, advocates for animal rescues, and owns two pit bulls.

Learn more about Mat:

Mat's Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/matkerekes/
Citizen IG → https://www.instagram.com/citizentheband/
Citizen Twitter → https://twitter.com/CitizenMi
Citizen Website → https://www.citizentheband.net

Episode 11 Transcript:

Hunter Molzen:
Hey everyone. I'm Hunter Molzen, one of the founders of Barbell Apparel. And we're here today with another episode of the Breaking Boundaries Podcast. I have the honor of chatting with Mat Kerekes today. He's the lead singer of a band called Citizen. People in my team introduced me to this band and I listen to them all the time when I'm working out, it's great music. If you need some some good music to listen to during the next training session, be sure to check them out on Spotify. It's Citizen, just like the word. But you guys, uh, you make some great music. It's awesome to have you here today Mat.
 
Mat Kerekes:
Thank you. I'm excited to be here. I love the brand. I love all the clothes and stuff. It's awesome.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah. And I think Kyle from my staff found you guys organically because he enjoyed the music and the notice that you were into fitness and, and we sent Matt some clothing for everyone listening and that's how we got introduced to him. But you're, you're a pretty fit guy. It looks like you spend a lot of time exercising, doing MMA, and kind of maintain that even with the demands of touring and all that.
 
Mat Kerekes:
Yeah, you know, fitness has always been a huge part of my life, you know, like most people. But I feel like it's kind of, you know, now I feel like working out and Muay Thai and stuff, which is what I primarily do, is like more mainstream than ever, which is great. But back when Citizen first started, it wasn't. And I was kind of like, you know, one of the few people that seemingly or front men, I guess, in a band that were very into it in my world of music, which would be like emo, alternative, you know, like that kind of vibe, you know, that was really into it. And...
 
Mat Kerekes:
Yeah, I wake up every day and I immediately go to the gym. It’s the first thing I do every single day. And then I do Muay Thai usually at around 6:30. I got it today in about three hours here. So yeah, big part of my life.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, no, I feel you. I mean, I read a little bit of the bio questions we sent you over before the interview and it was kind of a similar journey for me. Like I was not particularly athletically gifted when I was in like elementary school. Starting in middle school, I started getting into some sports. I did a lot of skateboarding and some other things, but I was pretty skinny. And so maybe, yeah, yeah, extreme sports. But I was like really skinny. I was like, I kind of grew all at once. So I was like 6'1" and 145 or 150 pounds and like on me, that's real thin. I have like a not a super small bone structure, but it was like sophomore year in high school or whatever I was like, man, I need to fix this. And so I started going to like a local Gold's gym and working out there. And I remember this is maybe back in 2005 or something, right before Instagram was really a thing, before Facebook was a thing, before fitness had all these outlets to get popularized.  And I was like the one kid in the gym. It was me and like a bunch of older people and then like actual bodybuilders. Jay Cutler actually was at this gym often when I was working out, which was kind of cool. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. But I remember back then, I was one of the few young people that liked to work out back then. And it seems that as social media has advanced, it's gotten more popular. But like you said, I'm sure when you first started, I mean, especially in the touring world, you're kind of like forging that path alone and then it's become kind of more popular over the years.
 
Mat Kerekes:
Yeah, a bit, you know. So like I said, in my scene primarily, there's not many people at the time too into it. And then we started doing things like Warped Tour, where we would tour with a variety of different bands would be on the tour. And once you hang out with the metal bands and stuff, that's where all the weight lifters are, you know what I'm saying, and all that kind of stuff. So that was pretty cool to experience that.   So that was 2013 we first did Warped Tour and we did it again 2015, but yeah when we first did Warped Tour was the first time I met a whole bunch of people on tour that were into the same things as I was and that was very cool, you know, and yeah, I'm just like you. I mean if you're 6'1 and you were 145 I could imagine because I'm only 5'9 and I weighed 145 my sophomore year and that's crazy, but I kind of got lost along the way. I don't remember what I was saying. Ha ha ha.
 
Hunter Molzen:
No, no, it's fine. We could circle it back. I mean, so yeah, it seems like you got back, you got into fitness during high school because of like similar reasons, right? You were skinny and you wanted to put on mass. So was your first introduction to fitness, was it more like lifting, just general weightlifting or?
 
Mat Kerekes:
Yeah, so I've I didn't play sports growing up. My brother was a very good athlete and still is. But I was like computer music guy growing up, you know, and but all my friends were the football players and the wrestlers. And so and everybody was small. And then we got into high school and around my sophomore year, I noticed all my friends were pretty jacked.  And I was still a
noodle, you know, and I was like, Oh, man, I will, you know, I need to bulk up a little bit. I'm looking puny, you know, so that was pretty much insecurity is what made me start lifting because all my friends were so fit and pretty, pretty big and burly, you know, and I was just the scrawny little scrawny little wimp, you know, so I that's what made me hit the gym. And yeah.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, for sure. Like in many ways form follows function, right? So if a lot of your friends or your brother, whoever were doing athletics, like they'll build muscle just kind of like by the nature of their activity. But if you feel like I was similar, right? Like I liked skateboarding. I liked I was a musician too. Like I had dreams of being in a band at one point and then went after a little bit and realized I would not actually like the touring lifestyle or the demands that it would take to be successful. And so pivoted out of that. But I was kind of similar. Like I didn't really play sports.  And I didn't like team sports and so I didn't really have this kind of hobby that would foster building muscle or physique or anything Like that and then I found weightlifting and I really liked that and I enjoyed kind of that I could do it alone I could measure progress it kind of like appeals to the inner nerd right like weightlifting It's like well, I can I can kind of like systematize this break it down. I can watch how my lifts go up I can see how my weight changes on the scale…
 
Mat Kerekes:
It's and if you're a musician too, weightlifting is perfect because if you're writing music I go to the gym and I'm just getting a pump on you know, and I'm listening to the demos or I'm listening to you know, it's like what you said like oh, I could do it alone. I don't like team sports I kind of I like that as well and that's a good point that I've actually never thought of is you could kind of like digest all your other hobbies within weightlifting,  So that's kind of cool.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And, um, like you can't tell cause you're wearing this baggy shirt. It's the, it's the style right now. But, um, if, if people go look at your Instagram, like you've definitely aren't, you're not skinny anymore. You've put on some serious amounts of muscle mass and you managed to maintain that and be consistent with it. Um, while being a touring musician. So first off, I think it could relate really well to anyone that has strict demands on their time or, or maybe finds themselves challenged in terms of like a regimen to be able to get into the gym and adhere to like nutrition and sleep and lifting. You're able to do that while touring, which is probably one of the more physically demanding jobs in terms of like you're sleeping in a different place every night, you're up late because you're playing shows, and you still have to manage to eat well, sleep, and get to the gym. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what your touring schedule is typically like and then how you manage to squeeze fitness into all of that.
 
Mat Kerekes:
So when you're on tour, at least at like, you know, a lower level of touring, right? You know, we're not, we're not playing arenas and we don't get catering. You know what I'm saying? Like not yet. Yeah, of course. Of course. Right. One day we'll make it. No, but, um, you pretty much see you wake up and you eat at gas stations all day. You know, you go to pilots and flying J's and I found that in terms of eating, you know, eating. It's, it's hard because when you're just driving all the time, you want to be like, you want to feel happy and you're not happy or you're riding in. So like, what do you do? You stop at a gas station. Your first instinct is like, Oh, I want this Carmelo bar. Oh, I want this bag of Sour Patch, which I still to this day indulge in knowing I shouldn't. But you know, like it just being overall uncomfortable and you're not getting good sleep creates bad habits,  so you gotta like, you gotta remember that, you know? And that's something I've been doing lately. So it's like, so if I go to the gas station, I just let on tour, all I do is count my protein. That's all I do. I noticed that if I just get like, I don't know, my body weight and a half and protein a day, like I usually just, I hold whatever physique I have at the time or whatever, you know, level of whatever.   Pretty much my rules are just is it fried? Don't eat it. You know, is there sugar in it? I guess depends on how much you know, but don't eat it. So, you know, I go to gas stations, I opt for the “natural section”. So there's the pre-packaged hard boiled eggs and the Chobani yogurts and I do get bags of beef jerky though. So I'm pretty sure that it's really high in sodium right?  I've heard conflicting things. Is sodium bad or is it good? I don't know, you know, like...
 
Hunter Molzen:
I think it depends on who you ask, but like some people, I think people in the more like traditional medical community might have less good things to say about it, but some people in the athletic space have a lot of really great things to say about it. So I don't know, not an expert, but I'm sure you're fine. And it's a great way to get protein for sure from a gas station. That's probably like one of my go-to snacks if I'm on the road to and need to get some protein. And it looks like, I mean, like that's worked well for you.  If you're just monitoring protein, you're getting enough of that in to maintain your muscle mass and your body composition from what I've seen in your Instagram looks pretty good. So it's not like you're overeating either. Do you do anything specifically to make sure you're not overeating or is you just kind of think you have a good intuitive sense of how that comes together?
 
Mat Kerekes:
No, yeah, I just- I eat a lot of bullshit, you know what I'm saying then then I fall off but if I'm eating smart and I could I am fortunate to be able to indulge in food, very much so without getting… without putting on a lot of weight, you know, so It's just my personal experiences. I could eat, I Mean as long as I'm not like loading up on the carbs really, you know what I'm saying. carbs right so like it's this like I don't know but yeah I I just eat until I'm full and I try to eat not heavy things on the road specifically when I'm home I do like sweet potatoes and steak and you know stuff that I cook and which is actually kind of a new thing I notice as I get older like I can't get away.  I used to be like a McDonald's Taco Bell guy. And I'd go crush two Big Macs after a workout. I'd crush a few McDoubles before a workout. And it's funny how I used to do that. And I would feel ready to go and really strong. And now I do that. And I'm like, I feel like I want to take a nap. And I feel horrible. I get heart palpitations. It's horrible.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah. Yeah. It's funny to hear. So you, so you're 28 saying like, as I get older, but I do think that like, there is a shift somewhere in your mid twenties, like maybe 26 or 27 was right when I was like, man, I can't just kind of like do whatever I want anymore. I have to be a little bit more intentional about this. And I don't know like how much of it is age versus kind of like the demands on your time as you get older and you're like less overall active, right? Cause like someday I'll spend a lot of time outdoors, right? And so like some days,  If I’m outside from like 6 a.m. and sometimes I'll be out past dark, right? So I've been outside for like 12 hours and I've gotten, you know, I've basically been out walking or hiking 12 miles and done other physical activity and stuff like that. And just basically shredded calories all day long. I can come back and eat whatever I want and I'll feel fine because like my body just incinerates it, you know what I mean? But if I don't do that, like if I did one of those days and ate a bunch of Taco Bell or McDonald's, I'd feel fine. My body just needs the food, you know? Whatever food I can get it.  But if I had like a normal work day where, you know, I wake up, I work out in my garage for an hour and then I set it to desk and do whatever else and I, something like that, I'd feel terrible. So obviously part of it's probably like biological age. But the other thing too is like when you're younger, you're a kid, you're kind of just, you don't have the demands of like a career or like a full blown adult. So like, at least for me, I filled that space with being like a lot of active stuff, right? Like I'd skateboard, I'd go hang out with friends, I'd do whatever. And so you are just kind of like.  I mean like I remember when I was a kid I'd be so hungry after I get back from like a day of doing whatever, And that doesn't happen as an adult unless I've done something like purposefully active. So I think that plays into it a little bit as well And then like for you when you're at home, right? You say you wake up and you're working out in the morning and then doing muay thai at night Like that's pretty active schedule. Are you doing that like regularly during like every day during the week when you're at home?
 
Mat Kerekes:
Yes, every well I take two days off a week   
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, so you're doing two a day, five days a week. That's a lot of exercise.
 
Mat Kerekes:
I guess that does make sense because I always feel Even if I'm eating like pretty okay, which once again is hard when you're at a gas station every day, but I feel the worst all the time, you know and if I do indulge maybe that has to do with sitting around because touring to touring isn't like it's funny because like people will be like all your tour like so awesome you're doing so many cool things. And it's like if you put a fucking GoPro on my head what you would see is me laying down in the van for like eight hours getting out loading in the gear doing a bodyweight workout and then I sit down and and then I wait to play.  And then I load the gear back in back in the van repeat every day you know so I am doing a lot of sitting compared to what I do at home which you know, two a days, but it's um I do still try to work out on the road and I do I have an app called mad bars I don't know if you ever heard of mad bars but it's like uh it's like body weight workouts I just do usually on tour unless I can hit a gym but..
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, probably often don't have the time to go find a gym, drive there and you know, get your workout in, go back.
 
Mat Kerekes:
Yeah, yeah. Anything that's like, I mean, cause like, when you're driving or traveling or flying or whatever for hours and hours and hours, it's funny how like you're doing nothing, but you're still tired when you're done doing that. Like you're done, I'm done laying down in the van or done driving or done sitting in the airplane seat. And I get to my destination, I'm like, you know, like I'm like all tired from sitting. To be consistent, it's best to have everything accessible. So, like when I get to a venue or a hotel, you know.  The last thing I want to do is getting an Uber and go to a gym or walk to a gym or, you know, like go get a lime scooter. You know, I just like, don't want to do that. You know, so the best thing for me personally and I feel like for a lot of people would be is to just bust out, have a plan to follow on your phone and just bust out the workout where you can like in your immediate area that I've noticed that's the best way to stay consistent.  If I'm ever scoping out gyms on the road it lasts a few days and then I and then I fall off because it's just it's just annoying.  You know, I'm just tired and so and I usually bring like a cooler or some sort maybe I just use like a suitcase, and I have a bunch of epic bars and a bunch of core powers, you know just with fiber gummies, of course, because if you drink a bunch of core powers, you don't have fiber you can't shit, right?  So, let's eat the fiber gummies drink the core powers, I'm good You know what I'm saying?  Because when you're traveling, that's hard too. Eating is hard. It's all hard. If you're not at home, you don't have the grocery store, it's very easy to indulge in things that are bad because you're uncomfortable and you're tired. Just everything. You just want quick reward. And how do you do that? Like junk food. And at least that's my personal experience.
 
Hunter Molzen:
No, I think there's a lot of interesting things to unpack there. I mean, it seems like whether you're doing this consciously or not, like you've basically been able to remove a lot of barriers to adhering to kind of like your fitness goals where you're traveling, right? And so it's like, even though you're stuck in a gas station, you'll grab protein bars, beef jerky, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, all like relatively high protein, low fat type of snacks that are still getting you like adequate intake as you have and then squeezing in body weight workouts where you can also again, helping you maintain the muscle mass that you have. And then when you're not on tour, you just hammer the gym. And that's probably where I'd guess you make most or all of your progress on your lifts and stuff like that. And then it's kind of like back to tour maintenance mode. And then you kind of go in these cycles. But I think that it's really good advice, whether you mean it to be advice or not for someone that does have to travel like that. It's like, you can make it work, right?  It may not be ideal, and you may not be able to like pile on a bunch of extra muscle while you're touring or traveling or whatever but you can maintain what you have in pretty suboptimal conditions right like surviving on beef jerky and yogurt and doing some push-ups so I think that the fact that you're able to make that work is pretty cool.
 
Mat Kerekes:
I don't think you even under very bad conditions, like I don't even think you lose muscle until like a month. Like the feeling of being deplete, or I don't know if that's factual or not, two to four weeks somewhere on there. But the feeling of being depleted doesn't mean you actually have lost progress. You could be lacking electrolytes or whatever, dehydrated as fuck like every time I leave for tour I always feel pretty good and I feel pretty full and even if I am on my best behavior the whole tour I come home feeling very flat and depleted but after four or five days I'm like pretty much back to where I was see does that make sense I don't know.
 
Hunter Molzen:
No, for sure. I mean, I'd guess most of the depletion he feels probably nutrition related because you're basically just cramming yourself full of like protein and nothing else.
 
Mat Kerekes:
Very low carb on tour and that I feel like that that contributes a lot to it.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, I wonder if that's part of how you're able to keep like a pretty reasonable body composition to is like accidental cyclic dieting. Like here you're eating like a bunch of healthy carbs and stuff while you're at home working out hard. And then when you go on tour, you're basically doing like high protein low carb diets Just because that's your only option unless you want to be total, you know total just like basically junk food No, that's pretty interesting.
 
Mat Kerekes:
Yeah, it's worked for me personally and yeah, touring is, I mean, it's great because I love playing shows. I love playing shows and I love music because you know, that's the whole thing, right? But every other part of touring, I just, I muscle through it. I would much rather, I'm very, I like routine and you don't get that on tour. I mean, you have some sort of routine because you’re going to the same gas station every day, driving the same dip, but it's just, it's just, it's not a good routine, you know? I like, I like waking up and going to the gym, taking a shower, get on my computer, do whatever I want, go work out again, and you know, like, just, I don't know.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, for sure. Now, I think it's interesting, you know, when I was late high school or early college, maybe, and I was like, you know, maybe, maybe I want to take a shot at being a musician. I was in a band and everything. And I did some like, things that were similar to touring and realize like, I hate this, I don't want to do that. And it's like, it seems like it was.. it was like an indie rock band.  If MySpace was still around, you can listen to the music, but it got all deleted in the purge.  Like touring probably only becomes cool if you're like one of the mega bands, right? Like you're on private jets and in like five-star hotels, then it might not be so bad But below anything besides like the top highest here it's a big grind like it's a lot of driving and sitting around and Like you said not having any of your creature comforts and kind of like surviving off of whatever food you can find.
 
Mat Kerekes:
Yeah. And, you know, you just miss your family, just all, you know, all that kind of stuff, you know, so it's just. And, you know, I don't want to sound like I'm complaining by any means. I would much rather be on the road for a few months and then get to do whatever I want than be working at wherever, you know, personally. So, I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, but, you know, just.  Traveling is tiring.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it's not so much a complaint, I think, as much as just like pointing out the realities of it. Like, yeah, it's awesome. You get to do something that's probably a lot of people's dreams, and you admittedly enjoy the cool parts of it, but it does have parts that a lot of people probably don't realize are not that fun. You mentioned missing your family. You got married recently. Does your wife come with you on tour or does she stay back at home?
 
Mat Kerekes:
No, so she is a nurse in the army. So she got stationed in Virginia and I moved out to Virginia with her.  So she can't really travel because of the military. So yeah, we're out here right now.  So I guess I miss my family all the time at this point, you know, but this is only we'll be back in we're from we I'm from Toledo, Ohio. So we'll be back in Toledo in a year and a half or so. 
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, so when you're on tour, she's, she's stationed. So you guys are apart when you're touring. Yeah. Yeah. So that adds to the challenge of it all, I'm sure.
 
Mat Kerekes:
Yes, yes. But yeah, she's not a musician. So I mean, well, I guess she dabbles in things, but, you know, she doesn't tour. So she, you know, even if she wasn't in the military, I don't think she'd really be on the road anyway. So so but yeah, I've been touring for like ten years at this point. So I'm, you know, numb to it. Yeah, I'm numb to it.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Used to it at this point. Yeah. I guess so we talked a little bit about how you eat and stuff when you're on tour and how you kind of like do the body weight stuff to maintain your fitness. How do you sleep when you're on tour? Because like obviously you're sleeping probably kind of wherever you can but.
 
Mat Kerekes:
Yeah, it's pretty bad on tour. It's just..  So we recently switched to this thing called a bandwagon, which is essentially a tour bus, an affordable tour bus, I guess you could say, right? Which it's still very expensive. So in my head, because I'm used to you play the show and then you drive till 1 or 2 AM. You get as much sleep as you can. You wake up at 8 AM and you know, you drive till 2 AM, but you don't go to sleep till 3:30 AM. So I'm used to not getting that much sleep and we recently made the transition to this bus bandwagon and It has bunks and stuff and I was really excited about it because now I can I could just play a show load out and go to sleep, you know and wake up whenever I want.  But the things are so bumpy that I the whole time that I’m trying to sleep, I'm like 50% sleep. What's that called? I'm not in REM sleep. Is that what it is? I don't know. It's like where you're like conscious. I think I'm asleep right now. But then I wake up and oh my god, it's almost like, it's almost better to just go to the hotels. But sleeping on the road sucks because you just drive late and then you got to leave early.
That's what's affected the most. And I sing, right? So did you sing in your band?
 
Hunter Molzen:
I did, yeah. Yeah.
 
Mat Kerekes:
You did, cool. Yeah, so sleep's important for us, right? I mean, a bad night of sleep, I'll wake up and my voice will just, it'll be shot, you know? And so that's something I struggle with a lot on the road is that the lack of sleep really hurts my ability to sing, which is my one sole reason I'm on the road, right? So it sucks, you know? I had to take some, what's in, they sell, what's in Zequil? I started taking Zequil on my last tour because I literally, I couldn't sleep and I had no voice and I like had to have like something to help me out. And I started wearing earplugs actually…
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, face mask maybe. Yeah.
 
Mat Kerekes:
That kind of helped. Yeah, face masks, earplugs, and I've never done that before. That actually helped quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, but yeah.
 
Hunter Molzen:
That helps a lot, yeah. I've used those too when I travel. Unfortunately, I'm kind of a light sleeper, so I need it like dark and quiet, which is not always in your control. And it's like the earplugs and the sleep mask can help for sure. There are some other nutritional supplements that can really help with sleep too. We could chat about that more after the podcast, but I can completely relate. And then yeah, as far as recovering from singing, like yeah, if you don't, like people, you're using muscles and your vocal chords, And like there's soft tissue that basically has like micro damage that you need to sleep and recover. So I can imagine if you're not sleeping, it compounds in like a big issue. Like it's the same for me. I have two young kids now. I have a three year old and a one year old. And so like I'm not seeing or really doing much for music at all anymore, but I do do a lot for working out. And it's like, I have my training schedule and stuff like that. And I know that like, if I have a bad night's sleep, my training the next day is either going to suck or it's just not going to happen.   I just won't have recovered, you know, so I can totally relate.
 
Mat Kerekes:
Yes. You know, as I get older, once again, you know, I value sleep so much more. It's just crazy to think about when I was 18 and I could just like pull it all nighter and then I'd go fucking rip an insane workout in the morning and you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know, then go play a show in Toledo later that night, you know? It was just like, how, how? I couldn't, I couldn't even, if I get even 5 hours of sleep now I wake up and I'm like where am I?
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, youth is truly the best performance enhancing drug of all of them, right? I remember the same thing. Like, yeah, when I was 18 or whatever, I could do whatever I wanted. It didn't matter. But yeah, I mean, we've talked a lot about kind of like the challenges of touring and all that and your fitness. Let's talk about some of the good parts of your musical career. Cause obviously you've done something that a lot of people try and never achieve, which is to be able to make a living being a band and touring.  You said you’ve been touring for 10 years, I guess, like, what was the year that you first felt like Citizen as a band was able to kind of like support you in its entirety? And you're like, okay, this is happening.
 
Mat Kerekes:
So we got the Warped Tour offer in 2013. And it was, we were, that year we released an album called Youth and I told everybody that I was gonna do Warped Tour and then I've done I'm gonna go to college.  Because at that point I drained all of my savings. We're just on the road all the time. I was miserable on the road and losing just I was like I can't survive like this I just can't like I got to see and do some cool things I'm calling it, you know and then we did Warped Tour and it was great and after that work tour I got my first paycheck from Citizen you know and I was like huh maybe I could and granted it wasn't shit it was literally like maybe I can't $900-$1000 it was like something like that and I was like whoa yeah I'm saying I couldn't even believe it.  I was just gone for eight weeks and made that you know it's like so I was like whoa like maybe this could be a thing you know so I was like okay you know like ride this out a little bit longer and thankfully things just worked out really well for us there's a there's a lot of bands that are way better than us and way more talented in every aspect you know I know like four chords I'm writing a song I wrote like 100 songs, they're all the same song. I'm not doing anything cool. Yeah, they're literally all the same song. So, and there's so many people that don't get that stroke of luck that we got. And I'm very thankful for that, you know, and I'm pretty happy I decided to, you know, to not be a quitter, right?
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah. Hey, you can do a lot with four chords, right? Like Blink-182 is one of the biggest bands ever with four chords. Yeah. But no, that's cool, man. So do you feel like you mentioned luck and that luck was obviously a component? I guess how much of your success do you attribute to the luck and how much do you attribute to the kind of hard work aspect? Because you mentioned that you know bands that are maybe more talented or better musicians, but the work is kind of like a component inside of your control too, right?  Being able to tour and put up with the grind and put yourself kind of like in the way of success.
 
Mat Kerekes:
I mean, to an extent, like, yeah, like you have to tour and you have to put yourself out there. Like if you wanna do anything in art, I mean, you could be an oil painter, you have to put yourself out there. But the truth is like, some things just don't stick for whatever reason. And I have no idea, there's bands that I love that can't draw 20 people to a New York show. And it's like, why?  They’re amazing.  You know, I truly don't get it. There's bands that tour way more than Citizen has or ever had, and they don't do very well, and they're better than us. And it's like, I don't know why, you know? I think Citizen came up at a time where the internet was, Tumblr was a big thing at the time, when Citizen was first starting.  And people on Tumblr loved us for whatever reason. You know, it was like emo was like a big thing on Tumblr. And we just, we caught a wave, luckily. And that wave carried us into other places, you know? And I do think a lot of it is luck, like I said. Like I said, a lot of bands do more, work way harder than us and don't have it as good. And there's bands that work less than us and have it way better. Like, I just don't, you know, like, I don't understand how it works. I legitimately don't. Being in a band is like very high highs and very low lows. It's a very, it's an emotional roller coaster. I mean,
you could play a show and you could feel awesome like oh man there you know it could be a sold out show and the crowd was awesome and they're singing every word and you just you just feel really good about yourself and then the next day you play and it's a quarter sold room and people are standing there with their fucking arms crossed acting like your dick's hanging out of your pants and you're like man I feel like such a loser right now like why do I think such a loser?  I felt so cool last night, you know, like, it's just, you know, I don't understand. I don't understand how things work. And maybe luck is the wrong word. I don't know. But that's, that's just the way I feel.
 
Hunter Molzen:
No, I'm sure there is a component of luck and, and, uh, like part of it is there's just so much outside of your control if you want to be successful as a band or as a musician, right? Like you have to, you have to get introduced to the right people. You have to be able to kind of like intuit some of the things. Like I'm sure luck was part of it, but I'm sure also like you guys probably did some things like with Tumblr that you just kind of like, it maybe just made sense to you, but it was something that you did in your control. Right...
 
Mat Kerekes:
Well, we weren't even on Tumblr. It was just a, like we weren't personally on Tumblr. It was just people that were on Tumblr started sending us links and they were like, oh, this thing is viral right now. Or you're like, look at how many reposts it has. And we were like, oh, that's kind of cool. We just caught a wave and it worked out really well for us.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah. No, I mean, that's awesome. And also interesting. I think that was kind of like one of the things I realized too, when I was, you know, making my feeble attempts at musicianship was like, I knew guys in other bands that were wildly talented and all, and not getting success or they would have a little bit and then it would fall and then they'd have to go back and work. And then I was like, man, this just looks tough. Um, and it is tough, but the fact that you guys have been able to achieve a level of success is awesome. You mentioned that with the luck involved and with the hardships, if someone listening to this had aspirations or dreams of pursuing music as a career, what would you tell them?
 
Mat Kerekes:
I say do it. And I mean, the reality of anything, anything like anything involving the arts there's no promises. It's not getting a job, a stable job that's going to be there for a long time. I guess anything, I guess nothing makes promises, but something more stable. Like if you're going to take a risk, I just feel like you should just do it.  I mean, like really, like what's the worst that's going to happen? You're going to fail, but you'll have cool experiences. And then you go get a job and like do whatever you want all the time. Like that's pretty cool. Or you go and you take the shot and maybe it works out. And then, you know, I don't know. I think that's really cool. And I encourage it when people are like, Mat I want to start a band, what do I do?  I'm just like go tour. That's the first thing I'll say to anybody. Make friends and don't be a douchebag and go tour. And if it sticks, it sticks. That's awesome. If not, like you wrote some music that you love and you traveled and you saw a bunch of things and you made a bunch of friends. Now you got friends. Now you got friends everywhere.  That's awesome.  Got back home and have all these friends.   It’s awesome, you know, like that's, that's one of my favorite, probably my favorite thing about touring is I just I know so many people and most of my closest friends, people I talk to every single day, I FaceTime every day, like they're not people from Toledo, you know, they're, they're people that I met on tour or that I met through the band, like the band, the band has given me so many relationships that I value so much.  And that's the coolest part about being in a band. So I would never want to rob anybody of that experience. I think everybody should experience something like that.    
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, for sure. It's better to live with like having tried and failed than the regret of never having tried at all, right? Like, uh, like, you know, I did enough with my musician stuff when I was younger that I'm totally comfortable with how that went. Like I tried, I realized I didn't like it. I'm good. I don't have to live wondering what would have happened. And if someone wanted to pursue it more than I did, obviously, I think you would be much better off like giving it a real shot and if it doesn't work out, like it doesn't work out, but like you said, you'll have the memories and the experience.  And you’ll know that you tried, you know, and I think that's really good advice.
 
Mat Kerekes:
And wouldn't that, that would even apply to like you, like with your, with Barbell Apparel, right? Like that's like, that's a risk. Like you're gonna get to, you know how many people I know that started clothing companies that, it's not a clothing company anymore, cause nobody bought it. Like, you took a risk and now you're chilling in your seemingly very nice house with your kids. And you know, I think everybody, I feel like if you have an idea that you should just, you should just take a nice swing at it. And if you fail, there's no shame in failing. There's so many people that that don't even do that. So why not, right?
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. And I mean, that's a that's an interesting comparison because like, Barbell Apparel was a wild risk to take and also involved a decent amount of luck. And I mean, business has ongoing risks, right? Like Barbell Apparel could still go out of business one day, who knows, knock on wood, hopefully it doesn't. But even if it did, like, I know that I've we've done the best we could have done. And I'm very proud of what we achieved, no matter what happens in the future. And I think that's like the best want to live your life.  Don't wait till you know some unknown future date to pursue the things that are meaningful to you or that you want to try like try them now and like I said the worst that can happen is it doesn't work out but at least you tried and now you know.
 
Mat Kerekes:
Yeah, yeah, words to live by you know?
 
Hunter Molzen:
Yeah, for sure. No, it's awesome. I guess what do you guys have on the future plans for Citizen?
 
Mat Kerekes:
So we're doing, we just, a few months ago, we finished our last tour for the year and we're actually doing a new record in February is when we start recording. So there's that and next year is the 10th year for Youth. So we're thinking about doing a couple shows for that. So everything is just kinda, we have a very open year next year and we're kind of figuring out what to do and what we want to do and what feels good and you know, yeah, clean slate really, besides recording. That's 100% happening in February next year in LA.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Nice. That's awesome. I'm excited to hear the new music when it comes out. Well, Mat, thank you for taking the time to chat with us today. It's been a fun conversation. If our listeners want to follow along with you, obviously they can listen to Citizen on Spotify or Apple Music or wherever else people get music. I listen to it on Spotify, but where should they, if they want to follow you along personally, where should they do that at?
 
Mat Kerekes:
Ah, citizentheband is the Instagram. @citizenMI is the Twitter, even though I guess we're from Toledo. I grew up in Lambertville, Michigan, which is like right on the border of Ohio, where Toledo is, so I started Citizen, it was Michigan, but everybody is from Ohio, you know, but yeah.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Awesome, cool. Well, we'll be sure to follow along. Look forward to hearing the new music once it's released. But again, thank you for taking the time to chat today and we'll have to chat again soon.
 
Mat Kerekes:
Hell yeah. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
 
Hunter Molzen:
Likewise.