Wreck-defy began as a solo effort in 2016 with Matt teaming up with good friend Justin Steer to help with the vocals. Songs that were written 20 years earlier were finally recorded and began to take shape. Glen Drover was involved in the mixing and mastering of the album and was instrumental in having his brother Shawn play the drums on the album as a guest player. The album was released independently and via Alone records on Vinyl in 2018. The band did some touring and played some festivals, opening for such bands as Demolition Hammer and Kataklysm, Sebastian Bach etc.
The album was well received, albeit on an independent/underground level, which fueled Matt to continue building the Wreck-defy machine. In 2018 Matt began working with Aaron Randall on a new batch of songs which ended becoming their sophomore effort, Remnants of pain. The album was released via Inverse records on CD and Floga Records on vinyl. A quantum leap in production by the amazing Juan Urteaga made the band sound much more polished and relevant in today’s vast musical landscape. In addition, Greg Christian became a member in 2019 officially and has been instrumental in bringing Wreck-defy’s musical prowess to the next level with his distinctive bass playing. The final piece to the puzzle was to find a drummer that give the band the sonic pulse needed to bring the songs to the next level…enter bay area session drummer Dave O’Neal. According to Matt, “one of the greatest drummers to ever strike a tom”. It wasn’t long after the release of Remnants that Matt began writing the next batch of material which would become their 3rd and most powerful offering to date, Powers that be. The technical aspect of the band had reached a new plateau and the lyric became much more socially relevant than previous albums. The main themes for this band are loss, depression, war, tyranny, addiction and anger… Plagued by a background of haunting memories from Afghanistan.
Matt’s lyrics sometimes seem very venomous, but according to him are merely tongue in cheek sarcasm and have proven to be a rather cathartic outlet. While the band is eagerly awaiting for the new album to be released, they are already deep into the creation of album number 4 for a late 2021 release. According to Matt, on the next album, the heavy songs got heavier, and the mellow song got mellower.