MATT BACON - VOCALS & GUITAR
"I started playing guitar in fourth grade, being inspired by Ace Frehley from KISS just like practically every other kid that picked up a guitar at that time. Since I was getting into guitar at the beginning of the 1980's I consumed a steady diet of all the hard rock and heavy metal guitar heroes of the day."
"I joined my first bar band, "Prince Charming", at 17 and we did our best to pull off all the hard rock and hair metal music that was so popular then. Try as I might, I always found that I was better and more comfortable when we covered music that was closer to what at the time I considered "old style rock" like Aerosmith, Nugent, Zeppelin, etc. as opposed to more of the shreddy music like Van Halen, Dokken and the like. It would be years later that I realized that the "old style rock" was all rooted firmly in blues and blues-rock and was truly where my musical mind was drawn."
"Next up was an original band named "Godhead" in the early 1990's with a style that was consistent with the grunge music scene that was getting popular. This was a ton a fun but I consider this the "dark ages" for my playing because I really didn't practice at all during this time. Our thing was more about making the biggest, slowest and scariest riffs we could."
"In the mid-1990's maturity called and I decided to pull out of music and go off to college to try something new. After years of study and hard work I walked out of UofL with an accounting degree and began a career in accounting and ultimately became a CPA of all things!"
"I never stopped playing guitar and kind of wandered around in styles trying to figure out what a "mature" Matt wanted to play. I can't remember what inspired the purchase, but one day in the year 2000 I picked up the "Eric Clapton Live at Hyde Park" DVD and that was it!! I can't possibly say how many times I watched that DVD but I became obsessed with Clapton. I dug into his 1994 CD "From the Cradle" and learned every note of every song. I couldn't get enough of Clapton's playing, so I worked backwards through his catalog, although I did skip over a big chunk of his more mellow 1970's material (e.g. I shot the sheriff, Lay Down Sally, etc). I liked it when he cut loose so when I landed in the Cream catalog I was in heaven. I still listen to that stuff all the time!"
"In addition to Clapton, I got into Stevie Ray Vaughan, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, the Allman Brothers (I was more into Dicky Betts). From these guys I found my way back to the "founding fathers" like Albert King, BB King, Muddy Waters, and ultimately to discover Michael Bloomfield, who became my greatest inspiration. And around I went collecting more influences including Gary Moore, Joe Bonamassa and Warren Haynes. More recently I've expanded my exposure to players that expand beyond traditional blues such as Robben Ford."
"After a long period of woodshedding, in 2010 I got the itch to start a group again. I decided from the beginning that I wanted to put together a group that would play more deep cut blues and blues rock material. To say that the group had a long formation period is an understatement! Skipping past a revolving door of players, some great and some not as well as my decision to also handle lead vocals, it wasn't until the summer of 2014 that the lineup that became THE SUBOURBONS would fall into place. All that summer and fall we worked up our material and in December 2014 we had our first public performance, a full 20 years since I had last been on a stage!!!"
"The Subourbons have been playing gigs ever since and are having a blast playing these songs. I definitely feel like I'm finally playing the kind of music that I belong playing."
"So that's my story, or at least the part relevant to music! ....And I'll spare you the details of the endless guitar and amp searches and my ridiculous declarations that 'I've finally found the amp!!' only to turn around a month later and decide it's time for something else!"
GEAR:
Guitars:
Gibson Les Paul Standard - Goldtop - 1957 Historic Reissue
Gibson Firebird - Sunburst -
Gibson ES-335
Fender Telecaster
Amps:
1966 Fender Super Reverb
Amplified Nation Bombshell Overdrive amp
Mather Cabinets 2x12 cab loaded with Celestial G12-65 speakers
1988 Marshall model 2555 "Black Jubilee" 100 watt head
Sourmash 2 x 12 cabinet loaded with EV 12L Classic speakers
Sourmash 2 x 12 cabinet loaded with Eminence Legend EM12 speakers
Fender 1957 Tweed Twin Reissue
Lil Dawg 5E3 Tweed Deluxe
Other Gear:
Ernie Ball Slinky strings: 10-46 gauge strings
Fender heavy picks
Sennheiser microphones
Mogami cables