Fuck the Techbros’: Al Matcott on Loneliness, Masculinity, and Making Meaning in 2025

I think, like most people, I hate social media.

But I have to use it as a musician.

And because of how it’s designed, I’m addicted to it.

I’d say that’s what sparked it.

And just knowing what its consequences have been.

I don’t have to go into them; everybody knows.

Silicon Valley has been allowed to take control of everyone’s 21st century without any regulation, seemingly to the detriment of everyone. When I was writing a lot of the songs, it was crypto, which seemed like a Ponzi scheme. Now it’s artificial intelligence, which is being sold as either a) a god or b) the devourer of all human jobs, and already has the environmental impact of, like, Germany.

I think some of the books I was reading as well, like Society of the Spectacle, Surveillance Capitalism, and Doppelgänger.

In short, fuck the techbros.

I would slightly rephrase the question and say I process those feelings creatively to ensure I don’t let them consume me.

Ummmm, there was more variety in the types of songs, I think. And I wanted there to be more variety in the sonics and textures.

I’ve always kind of written 50/50 rock songs vs folk songs. ‘Summer’s Coming’ was very, like, straight-up rock. Whereas this record felt more like a return to how I usually write.

Basically, every song I write starts on an acoustic guitar, and some of them don’t need much more than that.

But because a lot of the songs focus on our digital world, I wanted more digital sounds. So there are drum machines and lots of synthesizers.
I also think there was a lot more unknown when I was going into the studio. Which is fun. Feels very exploratory.

My wife was away overseas and I missed her a lot.

Umm, good question. At least in my experience, as you get older, friendships are harder to maintain. I know some people who are great at it, I do okay, but I know I’m not the best. I don’t have many friends’ birthdays memorised. I text more often than I call. Friendships take tending to and making time for. But they’re the most important thing in the world for saving you from loneliness, which we can all suffer from.

And at the moment, it feels like every minute of our waking lives is trying to be captured, bought, and sold by giant tech companies and is seemingly making us all more lonely. Even our sleeping lives as well, I guess, with all the sleep monitoring devices people now wear.

As for masculinity, the song ‘Rebel Without A Clue’ is about a pick-up artist, and the song’s kind of comedic, tongue-in-cheek, like “look at this dickhead”.

“I Decide” is about a guy at a party who sees his ex-girlfriend dancing with someone, and the guy throws a hissy fit and is kicked out of the party. But the song’s sung from his perspective.

“Wouldn’t Expect To See You Here” is about a guy, at the pub, too drunk, he’s been dumped, and it’s entirely his fault, but he’s taking it all out on his friends rather than taking accountability for his own actions.

I didn’t write any of these songs thinking about, like, the manosphere or from watching Adolescence.

But what it means to be a man, or be a decent man, and what does masculinity mean are things I think about. I don’t know to any degree more than other people.

But like it’s 2025, in a city as progressive as Naarm/Melbourne, and I still get messages like “oh, you’re on the same lineup as that band, just FYI, one of the guys in the band did X to a woman”.

I remember when there was this ad that came out which did a gender flip of a woman going into music stores.

It was very comical but was highlighting the serious point that even now, women still feel shut out of or unsafe in musical spaces.

I remember at a band practice asking Miranda and Phoebe in my band whether things were actually as egregious as that – and they just had story after fucking story.

I’m not trying to win an award or anything. I didn’t do gender studies at uni. I haven’t read any feminist books.

But it’s stuff I think about.

As to how loneliness, friendship, and masculinity all relate and connect to the themes of the album, I would say there are a lot of loud voices offering easy answers and snake oil to a lot of men, especially young ones.

Working honestly on yourself is hard work. I know I generally feel like I fail at it most of the time. As most people do, I guess. We’re all our own worst critics.

Unless you’re a narcissist.

I don’t know if I can say I did find the right tone.

The Ben Roberts Smith story, Australia’s most decorated soldier, father of the year, turned disgraced war criminal, having his defamation case funded by some of Australia’s richest people (Kerry Stokes, maybe Gina Rinehart), the fact that he’s obsessed with the movie 300. There’s a lot to it.

I like words and I like riffs \m/-_-\m/

Yeah, it’s a sick, sad world, but most people I meet are lovely. Even and especially the ones with whom I disagree on things. I can’t say I meet too many people keen to kick immigrants out of the country, though. I’m not sure how tender I’d feel towards them.