40 Fun Facts About Matt Maltese

Matt Maltese's As the World Caves In imagines Donald Trump romancing which British prime minister?

Theresa May was in Downing Street when the song came out in 2017, and Maltese hoped the pairing would feel romantic, sinister and stupid all at once.

Which Last of Us star sings under an alias on a 2025 version of Matt Maltese's Cure for Emptiness?

Bella Ramsey records as Bello, and Maltese said the two had been making music together for about a year before the duet appeared.

As a teenager, Matt Maltese funded his move to a small room in Camden by buying and selling what?

Vinyl records paid his way to the capital at 17 or 18, where he worked in a café while writing his early songs.

Matt Maltese says he missed a university place by one mark after getting a D in which subject?

Music Performance, of all things, cost him the place, a detail the now-professional performer recalled with an eye-roll.

Which Matt Maltese album, home to Curl Up & Die, is named after shop signs he saw from London buses?

Krystal is not a real person: Maltese said he kept seeing the name on shopfronts near his home off the Old Kent Road in South London.

On which app did Matt Maltese's As the World Caves In blow up in 2021, four years after its release?

TikTok gave the 2017 single a second life, yet Maltese says he was not even on the app when it went viral.

Matt Maltese wrote his first stage score for which Royal Shakespeare Company comedy in 2024?

Twelfth Night opened in Stratford-upon-Avon that December with his original music, including a Christmas song written just for the production.

Matt Maltese said his single Curl Up & Die is about the disgusting, absurd force of what?

Love drove the first song listeners heard with Maltese's own production, after outside producers had shaped his debut.

A chat with which relative about his breakup inspired Matt Maltese's first Driving Just to Drive single?

His mother felt the split too, and Maltese realised a breakup spreads change and grief through everyone around a couple.

In Matt Maltese's As the World Caves In, two leaders share a final evening before triggering what?

Nuclear war was on his mind because Britain's leaders were talking about renewing the Trident missile programme when he wrote it.

Matt Maltese was born to Canadian parents but grew up in which large town west of London?

Reading still surfaces in his writing: memories of rail replacement journeys there fed the nostalgia of his single Buses Replace Trains.

Which American singer's cover of Matt Maltese's As the World Caves In went viral in 2021 and later went gold?

Sarah Cothran first posted it as three short clips before a full release, and she later wrote the song Funeral with Maltese in Nashville.

Which title did Matt Maltese give his 2018 debut album, produced largely by Jonathan Rado?

Bad Contestant swings between heartbreak and jokes at his own expense, and NPR noted how much apocalypse runs through its songs.

Matt Maltese recorded and produced Curl Up & Die in which room of his Elephant & Castle home?

His bedroom doubled as a studio after he lost his major-label deal, and he made nearly all of that second album alone there.

Which songwriter did Matt Maltese name as his obsession when he was younger, alongside Joni Mitchell?

Leonard Cohen stayed with him: an interviewer later spotted the sleeve of Death of a Ladies' Man pinned to his wall.

Which British pop singer recut her single Cate's Brother with Matt Maltese as Matt's Version?

Maisie Peters chose the subtitle as a nod to the re-recorded albums of Taylor Swift, her main musical influence.

Which Sixpence None the Richer hit was Matt Maltese's first single from Songs That Aren't Mine?

Kiss Me opened a run of covers Maltese called his favourite songs since childhood, recorded at home with friends.

A cover of Matt Maltese's As the World Caves In plays in the first episode of which teen drama?

The Summer I Turned Pretty used the viral cover in June 2022, and The Morning Show featured the same recording the following year.

Which Avril Lavigne hit did Matt Maltese rework for his 2024 covers album Songs That Aren't Mine?

Complicated became a song about looking back on a past relationship in his hands, one of thirteen covers on the album.

Matt Maltese recorded most of his debut album over twelve days in which American city?

Los Angeles left him with nothing but good memories: his producer kept calling in musician friends, including a drummer who was a part-time actor.

Which major label released Matt Maltese's debut album, then dropped him before his second?

Atlantic had signed him through its Café Bleu imprint, and Maltese says being dropped turned his second album into proving himself to himself.

Jonathan Rado, producer of Matt Maltese's debut album, is best known as half of which indie rock duo?

Foxygen were long-time favourites of Maltese, who called it surreal to work with their guitarist.

Hugo White, who produced Matt Maltese's As the World Caves In, played guitar in which London indie band?

The Maccabees also gave Maltese an early break, booking him as a support act for some of their farewell shows.

Which Frank Ocean collaborator produced Matt Maltese's Jupiter, a single released after Curl Up & Die?

Vegyn was a rare outside pair of hands on a record Maltese otherwise wrote and recorded almost entirely alone.

Which American indie-folk artist was the first signing to Matt Maltese's label Last Recordings on Earth?

Searows, the alias of Oregon-raised Alec Duckart, had toured with Maltese a year earlier, and his single Older was the label's first release.

Matt Maltese covered My Funny Valentine for a 2025 tribute album to which jazz trumpeter and vocalist?

Chet Baker made the ballad one of his signature songs; Maltese set his version against shimmering guitar and hazy keyboards.

Matt Maltese features on Orla Gartland's So Perfect, written for the soundtrack of which Apple TV comedy?

Trying reached its fifth season with a soundtrack by Gartland, who wrote eight songs for it including this collaboration.

Matt Maltese co-wrote and played guitar on Thank You, from which songwriter's The Theory of Whatever?

Jamie T released the album in 2022 as his fifth, with Maltese also singing backing vocals on the track.

Which singer did a 2018 Vice headline call Matt Maltese a new and improved version of?

Morrissey comparisons follow him: asked whether anyone had noticed how alike their voices can sound, Maltese said he gets that on YouTube a lot and is a big fan of the singer's work.

Matt Maltese's satirical, apocalyptic lyrics are most often compared with those of which fellow Jonathan Rado client?

Father John Misty is the comparison Maltese hears most, though he stresses that, unlike Josh Tillman's alter ego, there is no persona behind his own songs.

On which streaming platform did Matt Maltese post his 2015 debut single, Even If It's a Lie?

SoundCloud carried the solo piano ballad that led to his first label deal, with the EP In a New Bed following a year later.

Matt Maltese is the only child of a parent who once performed professionally in which art form?

Opera was not the only music at home: Maltese says his grandfather, a jazz trumpeter, played him plenty of Gershwin.

Matt Maltese reworked Nearly Daffodils for a 2025 remix album by which Mercury Prize-winning band?

English Teacher won the prize for This Could Be Texas, then invited artists including Fontaines D.C. and Baxter Dury to remake its tracks.

Which band's song Dreamer does Matt Maltese recall as the first music that truly moved him, aged seven?

Supertramp reached him through a film he saw as a child: he remembers wanting the song again and again, played loud in the car.

Profits from Matt Maltese's single Ballad of a Pandemic were pledged to which UK anti-poverty charity?

Trussell Trust works to stop hunger across Britain, and the song first appeared only on Bandcamp before reaching the major streaming services.

Matt Maltese briefly began an English degree at which university before leaving to pursue music?

King's College London followed a spell at a contemporary music institute; he left the degree behind and signed a record deal soon after.

Which producer, the first Matt Maltese ever worked with, helped him make Songs That Aren't Mine?

Alex Burey and Maltese began playing other people's songs for fun, and the sessions grew into a full album made at home.

Asha Lorenz, who sings on Matt Maltese's 2020 single Queen Bee, fronts which North London indie band?

Sorry were part of the scene Maltese fell in with after moving to the capital, and Brian D'Addario of The Lemon Twigs plays guitar on the track.

Matt Maltese finished Good Morning It's Now Tomorrow at a studio in which Sussex seaside town?

Eastbourne hosted what he called a bizarre two weeks in December 2020, right at the edge of lockdown, with producer Tom Carmichael and bandmates.

Matt Maltese headed the bill on the BBC Introducing stage at which British festival in 2017?

Glastonbury came a year before his debut album, when he had only an EP and a handful of singles to his name.