Matthew Sweet doesn’t really do leftovers. Tomorrow’s Daughter, the 2018 follow-up to 2017’s Tomorrow Forever, may have been built from the same sessions, but he’s adamant it’s not some odds-and-ends sweep-up. “To me it feels more like a real album than leftovers,” he said. “I put the songs together at the same time… I liked how some of them coalesced.”
Originally released as a download-only extra for Kickstarter backers, Tomorrow’s Daughter got the full release treatment a year later, and Sweet’s still proud of the kinetic energy captured on songs like “Lady Frankenstein.” “It kind of popped out,” he said. “It was also kind of a joke between my wife and I. We used to have these giant cut-outs of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein we’d stick in our windows when we lived in L.A.”
The song, like much of his work, blends monster movie kitsch with earnest emotional weight. “She’s Lady Frankenstein, sure,” he said, “but it’s also about how we’re all made of different pieces, and it’s okay — you’re beautiful despite the face you were made from.” Leave it to Sweet to wrap a love song inside a Universal horror homage and have it work as both.
Other tracks on the record benefit from Sweet’s studio experimentation. “Ever After,” a jangly standout, features a string part that sounds like a mandolin but is actually a guitar played at half-speed and pitched back up — a trick inspired by Lindsey Buckingham. “It ends up sounding all gossamer and tight,” he said. “You never really know what it’s going to be until you speed it up.”
Even as Sweet mines the vault for unreleased material, he's managed to keep the flow going. “I still feel strong about making the next record,” he said. “It is a good period for me.” Part of that comes from the vinyl revival, which has made it possible for albums like Girlfriend, Altered Beast, and 100% Fun to be reissued via Intervention Records, complete with bonus tracks, remasters, and even unearthed radio recordings from the XRT vaults. “They found stuff I never would’ve remembered on my own,” he admitted.
And there’s more on the way. A new LP, Wicked System of Things, recorded with Jason Victor and Rick Menck, arrived as a Record Store Day exclusive later that year — no digital release, no streaming, just wax. “I had this record that could’ve fallen between the cracks, and vinyl gave it a home,” he said. “It lets me release something without necessarily pushing it as the new album.”
For fans, it was a feast. Two albums in two years, a vinyl-only third, reissues of cult classics, and unreleased gems showing up like time capsules cracked open. “Lonely Summer,” a holdover from the Tomorrow sessions, even landed on a Canadian heart-disease benefit comp — Sweet’s catalog of misfit B-sides now feels like a legitimate second body of work.
And even his deep cuts have staying power. “Farther Down,” once tucked away on the Can’t Hardly Wait soundtrack, earned him a co-scoring credit due to a legal quirk. “I always felt kind of guilty — the guy who really scored it had to share credit,” he laughed. But the movie's legacy lives on. “I had a party once — and I never have parties — and the cast came over, played drums in my house… it was surreal.” Somewhere in Sweet’s collection is a signed photo of the Can’t Hardly Wait cast, a time capsule of its own.
He still lights up at the mention of Altered Beast, which turned 25 in 2018. “It wasn’t Girlfriend,” he said, “but I liked it. It was artistic. I just went in and did what I wanted.” He had Mick Fleetwood, Nicky Hopkins, and Pete Thomas in the studio, recorded straight through the high of success into a fog of exhaustion. “I think I was reacting to how fast Girlfriend had become successful… I stopped flying for a few years after that.”
Even now, he looks back fondly on that strange period between ‘90s radio dominance and 2010s fan-funded freedom. “I was like a kid in a candy store,” he said. “It was still a party in the studio. Everyone didn’t have their own setup yet, so we were all just in the same place, making noise.”
Maybe that’s the common thread across Sweet’s decades of output — whether he’s writing monster love songs, remixing B-sides into full albums, or accidentally scoring teen movies, he’s always chasing the same feeling: joy in the noise.
Listen to the full interview above and then check out the video below.
