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American rock band

The Matches are an American rock band from Oakland, California, active from 1997 to 2009. Formed as the Locals, the group changed their name after five years to avoid conflict with a Chicago band of the same name. As the Matches, they self released their debut album E. Von Dahl Killed the Locals in 2003, then signed to Epitaph Records who re released it the following year. Decomposer followed in 2006, seeing the band move from their pop punk roots in a more idiosyncratic direction with contributions from nine different record producers; it reached no. 18 on Billboard's Independent Albums chart. With their third album, A Band in Hope (2008), their sound became even more heavily layered and experimental; it was their only release to chart on the Billboard 200, reaching no. 179. The band went on hiatus in 2009, releasing a digital album of previously unreleased songs, previously released B sides and bonus tracks, and demos. Between 2014 and 2018 they reunited several times for shows and tours celebrating the ten year anniversaries of each of their studio albums, resulting in three live albums and a new single. A documentary film about the band, titled Bleeding Audio, premiered at film festivals in 2020.

Bishop O'Dowd High School sophomores Matt Esposito (lead guitar, backing vocals) and Justin San Souci (bass guitar, backing vocals) and freshman Matt Whalen (drums, percussion) started the band in 1997. Sophomore Shawn Harris (lead vocals, rhythm guitar) saw them play at the school talent show and soon joined them: "I offered to play second guitar and add some original songs to the mix, and we spent the next four years getting noise complaints from neighbors." The four named their band the Locals. These tactics were successful in drawing hundreds of young fans to their shows. Through self promotion and performances with bands including Reel Big Fish, Lit, and Zebrahead, the Matches gained attention for their energetic live shows and sold over 4,000 copies of the album without the support of a record label. The band contributed the song "December Is for Cynics" to the compilation A Santa Cause: It's a Punk Rock Christmas, released in November 2003. By year's end, the Matches had signed to Epitaph Records. The label had E. Von Dahl Killed the Locals re mixed by Joe Barresi and re released it in May 2004 with a slightly altered track list. That November, a music video was released for the song "Chain Me Free", and the band went on tour opening for Yellowcard. At this time, the Matches' music was rooted in pop punk. Reviewing the re release of E. Von Dahl Killed the Locals, Rolling Stone remarked that the band "join the long list of punk pop bands that have made their clichéd mark on today's music scene" and "wear the influences of Green Day and Rancid proudly." The Dallas Observer called it "an energetic romp through the same ideas lots of pop punk bands romp through: broken relationships, boredom, depression, the lure of the road", while AllMusic remarked that the band was "young enough not to raise eyebrows at the punk pop kiddie park. But they have a better grasp of dynamics than much of their peer group". That July saw the release of Takeover Records 3 Way Issue No. 2, a split album which they shared with Near Miss and Reeve Oliver, with each band contributing three tracks. Harris and San Souci created the artwork for the album (they would later co create the artwork for Newbury Park group Stole Your Woman's 2007 album The Scene). The Matches played the Warped Tour again that summer.

The Matches made a guest appearance on MC Lars's album The Graduate, released in March 2006, performing on the track "Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock". After a stint on that year's Warped Tour, their second album, Decomposer, was released on Epitaph that September. Extensive touring followed: By March 2008, the Matches had done four tours of Australia (including that year's Soundwave festival), seven of Europe (including their first headlining club tour of the United Kingdom), and three Warped Tours. The band embarked on that spring's Alternative Press Tour with All Time Low, The Rocket Summer, and Forever the Sickest Kids to support it. The album found the band moving further away from pop punk, incorporating elements of album oriented rock, mainstream Top 40 paradigms, and alternative rock. An AllMusic review also drew a comparison to Queen, as well as to Andrew Lloyd Webber, saying "the Matches don't seem to know exactly what they're doing [ ] big chunks of A Band in Hope are almost shockingly unexpected, verging at times on just plain weird." Reflecting on the album a year and half later, Harris remarked that "on Decomposer and A Band in Hope, we played around with a lot of studio tricks—especially Decomposer, which was us learning about a bunch of studio tricks. And then on A Band in Hope, we got carried away a number of times." "Wake the Sun" was released as the album's single, and music videos were released for it and "Yankee in a Chip Shop". According to Harris, Epitaph did not expect the album to perform well commercially, but opted to release it anyway.

Quote box |quote=There was this thread going through the Matches like, "Hey, guys, let's do what popular people do." And somehow, the Matches were so much about not doing that, you know? And even in the sub culture of the Warped Tour scene that the Matches existed in, we were not even doing it the way that they did it. And they weren't even the main pop culture. It wasn't fun to think about the Matches in that sense, and when we attempted it, it didn't feel genuine to me—it didn't feel right. He was replaced by Dylan Rowe, who toured with the band that fall. Creative differences were forming between the band members: A year later, lead guitarist Jon Devoto stated that he had wanted the band's new music to be "a little more straightforward. A little bit less quirky, indefinable. I want to keep the element of cleverness to a certain point, because that was one of the best points about us, our cleverness and all that. But there was also a point where every song was completely different and I think we lost a lot of opportunities with that." Harris stated that "There were really conflicting views within the band as to what the direction should be. For me, the direction has always been, 'Well, I wanna do what is fun when it comes to music and hopefully other people find what I find fun and enjoyable also fun and enjoyable.' There were definitely heated debates over, first off, how commercial a song should be, and second off, over what makes a song commercial in the first place." The title was the subject line of an email from Hurwitz asking about the proposed album. Maniac released one EP and one album. Harris then started a new project, Fortress Social Club, who released two albums and an EP in 2013; he followed that project with a solo effort under the name St. Ranger, releasing several singles and one full studio album titled Leaves L. A., which was recorded while traveling with his wife across the U. S. in an Airstream trailer. Harris also continued to work as a visual artist, contributing to the album artwork of Bayside's Shudder (2008) and Milo Greene's Milo Greene (2012) and Control (2015), and finding critical success as illustrator and writer/illustrator of numerous children's books including Her Right Foot, What Can A Citizen Do?, Have You Ever Seen a Flower, The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza, and The First Cat in Space and the Soup of Doom. After The Matches went on hiatus, Matt Whalen attended Columbia University and received his JD from The University of Texas School of Law, and is a practicing attorney.

In January 2014, Shawn Harris, Justin San Souci, Matt Whalen, and Jon Devoto met while all were back in Oakland. They began teasing the release through social media, prompting inquiries and demand for a reunion concert. It sold out immediately, as did a second date added at Slim's and a third at the Great American Music Hall. Two performances at the Troubadour in Los Angeles were recorded, and released as the live album 10YearsEVDKTL in December. In October 2015 the Matches released a new single, "Life of a Match", with "Crucial Comeback Song (Mary Claire)" as the B side. Harris and San Souci created the artwork for the single. A music video for "Life of a Match" was released, consisting of snippets of other bands' music videos as well as the Matches' own past ones. Later that year, to celebrate the ten year anniversary of Decomposer, the Matches re released the album as a double LP; the second disc, titled Precomposer, consisted of demos the band had recorded while writing the album. That April they released an animated music video for the Decomposer song "Little Maggots"; they had begun work on the video in 2006 but left it unfinished. In May and June the Matches played three shows in Australia and five in the United States, performing Decomposer in full. A performance at the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles was recorded, and released digitally as the live album Recomposer. The band next reconvened in 2018 for the ten year anniversary of A Band in Hope. As with their previous two records, they re released the album as a double LP; the second disc, titled Don't Shake My Hand with Your Sunglasses On, collected demos and unreleased tracks associated with the album. The documentary, which features interviews with Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman, Tom Higgenson of Plain White T's, and Justin Pierre of Motion City Soundtrack, finished filming in 2016.