Matt Andersen pops cork on 'Big Bottle of Joy'

Matt Andersen opens for blues legend Tab Benoit at Wave on Tuesday, May 30.

Though he will appear solo, his current LP, "The Big Bottle of Joy," was recorded with an expansive band that Andersen took on the road across his native Canada this spring. With it, Andersen seems poised to make the leap from rising star to a full-blown thing.

He spoke with KMUW on the eve of his run with Benoit about the album and what he looks forward to most while performing dates with one of his musical heroes.

The new record covers a lot of emotional ground. There are moments of uplift as well as deep reflection.

This was the first time I had the opportunity to know who was going to be on the album before I recorded it. Usually, the band on the album and the producer, all of that, is an afterthought. But this time I knew exactly who the band was going to be. I wrote all the songs with the people on the album and some good friends. This is the first time I've done songs written by other people but that they hadn't released yet.

The inspiration from the songs came from … it was in the middle of the pandemic so … I was getting sick of people being … to each other, really, and that's kind of what drove a lot of the narrative for the album for sure.

I hear that on the album, being thankful for the people around you and even the differences.

A lot of what was in my head was that people need to be better to each other. That's something I've been feeling a lot lately. Always kind of have, but that was in a lot of the songs and then a couple of songs are just good road songs, which is always love having on an album.

Tell me more about this process of writing with the band members.

The band is a band that I probably wouldn't be able to have together if it wasn't for the pandemic. Everybody has their own projects, and they're always on the road working with other people. They're all top-gun side guys, always on the road, so I had the advantage of everybody having to be at home. It was interesting to be able to write with specific players in mind, knowing what specific people were going to be able to do with the songs. It was great to have really good friends sit at the table with me and write songs.

Is this a way that you'd like to continue making records if possible, or do you think this is one record done this way?

I'd do it as many times as I could. We just finished a big tour with this band; we did 31 dates up here in Canada. It was an absolute blast. The band was absolutely smoking and after 30 days together on the road it's quite a machine. Everybody starts to lock in. And we all got along well.

I wasn't quite sure how it was going to go. In the band, there are people who are 20 years younger than me and 20 years older than me. There's a lot of room for things to go squirrely in there. [Laughs.] But it was amazing: Every night, the smiles got bigger, and the grooves got better.

Are you ever surprised by reactions to songs once you get out and start playing them live?

Something that's amazing with how people can access music now is that people can hear your album the second it's released. You don't need to wait for people to get to a store or see the video or anything like that. It was really cool to have people showing up and having heard the album already and having favorites that they wanted to hear. That's always a great feeling, that people are looking for the new music.

It was so fun [making this record in the studio] and it really felt like something people would connect to once we hit the stage and it [was]. It's hard to sell new music to people sometimes, but people were digging it, and we were having fun playing it. I think that's part of what's infectious about it: We're all big smilers. You gotta smile with somebody when they're smiling at you.

You said something in the press release that I thought was really generous. You said something about having a band where you're the weakest link.

That was advice I got a long time ago from a friend that I used to play with, probably 25 years ago. He said, "Make yourself the weakest player, and you'll get better from there." The band [I had for the record] are all just monstrous players. It's so great to feel like I've got to catch up to my band instead of them catch up to me. It makes me better; it makes the show better. We feed off of each other. Everybody's got their ears on and is getting inspired by what other people are doing on stage. That's when the best show happens for me.

I know it can be hard for Canadian acts to break in the U.S. You seem to be doing well here. Was it hard for you to get across at first?

It's easy to get across; it's hard to get people to come out and hear you play. I'd love to bring the band down here but that's bringing 13 people on the road. So, it's going to be just me for a bit. It used to be frustrating to show up and not have big crowds, but I've been working in Canada for about 25 years and in the States for about five or 10 years. It's getting better all the time.

There's no other way to say this about Tab Benoit, who you're currently opening for: He's such a monster player.

Totally, yeah.

Was he somebody you spent time listening to and going to see when you were younger?

We've got a really great festival close to home that Tab's played before and that was my first introduction to him. Like you say, he's absolutely a monster [player]. I'm really excited to play for his audience as well because I think he gets a pretty interesting mix of blues fans; they're not just hardcore blues fans. They're pretty open-minded. I think it's going to be a lot of fun going out and getting in front of his crowds and just seeing how he does every night, too.

What are the biggest differences for you between doing opening slots and headlining gigs?

It feels like there's a lot less pressure when you open. The crowd being there doesn't depend on you. Which is a big difference! I'm just happy to have people there, that's kind of taken off [my shoulders]. When you're an opener, too, you have that element of surprise. I think there's going to be a lot of new people for me on this run. I love getting to play for new people. That lets me know that what I'm doing is still right; it's not just [the people who are used to what I'm doing]. This last tour we had it was a big show — 13 people — a lot of work. This one is just me and my tour manager. I drive around in a minivan. It's gonna be a breeze. It's going to be awesome. A 45-minute set. I can't wait!