So you might know Matt Berry from the IT Crowd, but he does music too. With the trademark baritone voice familiar from confrontationally weird boss Douglas Reynholm, he sings songs that seem to be in homage to the great British pre-punk tradition. He’s been making music longer than he was ever an actor or a comic, but since then he’s gained in an uncannily cred-worthy list of credits. It started with Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, a sitcom about a programme about an overacted, underfunded 80s hospital drama, with the added excitement of the supernatural. Meta stuff. Between then and now he’s done the Mighty Boosh, a series called Snuff Box with fellow Boosh alumnus Rich Fulcher, work with Adult Swim in America, a small part in the Sam Rockwell existentialism-in-space epic Moon, and even a nixer doing voiceovers for the Driver’s Theory test in the UK. A noteworthy voice, then. This is what it said.
I was wondering if you’re tired of write-ups always starting with ‘So you might know Matt Berry from the IT Crowd, but he does music too’?
Yeah, I think that’s safe to say. But I kind of expect that.
Your music sounds like there’s a lot of British late 60s, early 70s influence to it, Bowie or the Kinks or Nick Drake.
Yeah, I’m interested in basically most records that were made in the early 70s, the way that they sounded and the sort of instruments they were using. And that’s what I wanted it to sound like, that’s what I had in mind.
You once said you’d prefer someone to download your music for free than to not hear it at all.
I didn’t really say that. That kind of sounds like I’m desperate for people to hear it. I’d rather that they downloaded it than that they couldn’t afford to download it. I’ve been skint. I’ve done shit jobs and had no money and I couldn’t afford records. And it didn’t cost me money to make the album, so I don’t have a big beef with giving it away for nothing.
How is your live show? Do you think the crowd expect a comedic persona from you?
I would imagine, yeah.
There isn’t one, presumably.
Well no. I’ve never been able to take anything particularly seriously anyway. They don’t get a serious muso with his back to the audience. I give them some fun hopefully, a bit of a show. I get bored really quickly, so I would kind of have to make it fun for myself anyway.
Are you conscious of it being a side thing at all?
No, I’ve never thought of it like that, maybe because I was doing it first. Before the comedy.
So how did you initially get into comedy then?
It was an accident really, I was just playing some songs before the Boosh came on, years ago, sort of rude songs. And it just went from there, I ended up doing Darkplace and it kicked off from there. I never had any game plan for being in sitcoms or doing any kind of comedy really.
So what do you think about Darkplace becoming almost a must-watch for people who get really into comedy, even though it didn’t have much success initially.
Well that did absolutely nothing when it came out. No-one gave a monkeys. It didn’t have any viewers as far as I can tell. It was put on after Father Ted, so after Father Ted ended I think everyone just turned over.
Why do think it got a cult following?
It’s not very broad, so it wouldn’t have got a massive audience anyway. It just sort of found its rightful audience, it took ages, but it’s still cult viewing. And by that I mean it’s seen by a very small amount of people.
What did you expect while you were doing it?
I was kind of surprised to be doing it to be honest. It was great fun. And it’s good work. I was in the London Dungeon and in call centres the weeks before we did that, so it was a massive bonus for me.
So the IT Crowd is the flipside of that, it’s Graham Linehan, it’s more conventional, it’s got broader humour. It’s more guaranteed to get viewers. How do you feel about doing that in relation to the more obscure stuff.
It wasn’t as broad as it is now when I got into it in Series 2. I don’t think it was watched by anywhere near the amount of people that watch it now. I knew it was broader comedy because it was in front of a studio audience, but it didn’t feel hugely different to what I’d been doing. Mainly because there wasn’t any real fuss about it when I first started doing it.
Was the part of Douglas Reynholm written for you?
It was, yeah.
It’s your personality, kind of.
Yeah. Well that’s what he says.
So what sort of other programmes do you watch?
I watch Autumn Watch and that cook guy who’s on Channel 4. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. They’re probably the only programmes I watch.
You’ve done a couple of small things on Adult Swim.
Yeah.
Are you interested in watching that sort of stuff at all?
If it’s on Sky I wouldn’t be able to watch it. I don’t have Sky. I like animals. I like watching programmes about animals and I like watching people cook them.
Oh, no.
Not in a horrible way. Just in a natural way.
Not the same animals.
No, I don’t ever want to see that.
You seem to get into things that are called cult hits again and again.
That just means they’re not watched by very many people.
But they’re highly regarded by the people who do watch them.
I suppose, yeah.
Is that something to do with your personality or is it just coincidence?
I wouldn’t have a clue. It’s certainly not done on purpose by me.
Are you looking for a breakthrough that’s not a cult hit?
I’m not looking for anything. I’m just happy not to be in the Dungeon.
Would you take mainstream chart success with your music if it was put in front of you with all it entails?
Well I don’t think they would put it in front of me. I don’t think there’s much risk of that.
How did you get involved in Moon?
Duncan [Jones], who made it, he’s a friend of mine. So he said ‘do you wanna be in it?’ I said, yeah, I’ll do it for you. It’s a really cool film.
It is. That seems to be the way that you get into a lot of the things you do.
Yeah it does. It’s just very lucky, isn’t it?
So if you were in a Royal Rumble with every British comedian ever, who would win?
What, a fight? I have no idea. Probably Jo Brand. No don’t write that, because then it looks like I’m being horrible about Jo Brand. Charlie Chaplin.
Charlie Chaplin? He’s dead.
You didn’t say they had to be alive or dead.
That’s true. How would you fix the Irish economy?
I would get Bono to buy everyone a pint of Guinness.
Would that help?
At least you’d know you’d got something off him.
Words: Karl McDonald
