Shawn Harris

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.

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.

In 2000 they came to the attention of Miles Hurwitz, former assistant publisher of BAM, through his eighth-grade son.

He attended one of their practices, later saying that "I saw a spark — talent, vocal charm, hook-tinged material, musical accomplishment and much potential. And much to be improved."

Hurwitz, 28 years the bands members' senior, became their manager.

He would play a critical role in their career, co-writing their songs with Harris and other band members, producing some of their tracks, directing some of their music videos, and participating in creative decisions including planning the group's image, wardrobe, and photographs.

In their later album credits, the band nicknamed him "The Wizard".

In late 2002 the group was contacted by a Chicago band also called the Locals, led by frontwoman Yvonne Doll, threatening a copyright infringement lawsuit if they did not change their name.

They complied, renaming themselves the Matches.

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.

The Matches recorded their debut album, E. Von Dahl Killed the Locals, in a series of basements and living rooms and self-released it in February 2003.

The title was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Yvonne Doll and the band's forced name change.

A show at the House of Blues in Anaheim, California on October 21, 2003 was filmed, and released the following July as part of Kung Fu Records' live concert DVD series The Show Must Go Off! 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.

Harris and San Souci created the album's artwork (Harris also co-designed the artwork for Earlimart's 2004 album Treble & Tremble).

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 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.

The Matches performed on that summer's Warped Tour, which they would repeat in the three subsequent years.

They appeared, along with the A.K.A.s, as guests on the Dwarves track "Kids Today" on the compilation Rock Against Bush, Vol. 2, released in August 2004.

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.

"Miles kept us together," said Harris in 2008; "We didn't know we could be in a band. We didn't know how to make that jump [...] We'll work with him forever. He's an integral part of our equation."

After graduating, Esposito left the band to attend the United States Naval Academy, and was replaced by Jon Devoto.

The Locals self-released a six-song demo and a three-song EP.

The band members took jobs as kitchen hands at historic San Francisco music venue the Fillmore, where they would watch bands perform weekly; Harris worked as a cook while Whalen and San Souci were servers, hoping that this would get their band an opportunity to perform there.

They took vocal lessons, and Hurwitz expanded their musical palette by having them listen to albums by Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, and Bob Dylan.

"He was a history teacher for a while," said Harris; "He made what we were doing seem more important and relevant. Subtly at first and then more and more, that set us apart from the other bands in the genre we play in."

The Locals built up a following in the East Bay.

Not readily accepted by the entrenched punk rock scene based around the 924 Gilman Street venue in Berkeley, they instead become popular at Oakland all ages venue iMusicast, where they launched a series of shows called "L3: Live, Loud, and Local".

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.

"We could barely play," said Harris in 2016; "like we broke all of our amps at every show, I spent more time crowd surfing than playing my guitar. I couldn't really tell you how to play a power chord at the time; we barely could play. But we put on this show that people came to and they freaked out, so I started focusing on lyrics and making songs have more substantial content."

They engaged in what they called "commo promo" tactics (short for "commotion promotion"), playing brief, unannounced acoustic sets outside schools, dormitories, shopping malls, restaurants, and music venues such as Slim's.

They would go to local high schools, enter classes that were in session, toss stacks of flyers in the air, and run through the halls strumming their guitars and singing their songs until they were chased off campus.

These tactics were successful in drawing hundreds of young fans to their shows.

"We didn't mean to start a completely different scene," recalled Harris a few years later, "but we ended up doing so. While I love punk rock, I also don't love punk rock. I think it's just as much of a dick as it is a savior. I love Bad Religion and Rancid and Green Day, but I'm not gonna throw my fist up in the air for the institution of punk rock."

A documentary film about the band, titled Bleeding Audio, premiered at film festivals in 2020.