Podcasting

Matt Mahaffey of sElf

The interview with a musical polymath.

I am about one year in now, and I’ve done more than a couple of episodes of Abandoned Albums. The one comment I hear the most is: “Huh, I’ve never heard of that artist.” I typically follow up with: “Yea, you have; they’ve done (insert whatever well-known piece of work the artist has produced).”

“OHHH, that’s them?”
A big sigh as the words fall out: “Yes, that’s them.”
”Cool!”

Of all the interviews I’ve done, I can now put Matt Mahaffey in the same category as Danny Wilde and Phil Solem of The Rembrandts. These artists and their work transcend their chosen professions and have embedded themselves in the larger canvas of popular culture.

You know Danny and Phil because you’ve seen the television show Friends… and if you haven’t seen the entire show, you’ve seen the intro… and if you haven’t seen the introduction, you’ve listened to the radio in the 1990s. As The Rembrandts, they wrote the theme song for the hit television show — a top ten hit in every country in the western world (for real).

And Matt Mahaffey? His accomplishments, influence, and successes are as varied as the colors in a…