Music Man Matt Costa
Nov 17 2006 / Los Angeles, CA
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Though Costa bought himself an acoustic guitar a few years later, he wasn’t taking music super-seriously: in the interim, he’d gone on to get sponsors and became a pro skateboarder, participating in tournaments and shredding in California. But fate had a funny way of showing Costa his future. He was skating with Anthony Mosely when he shattered his leg in a skating accident. His hospital stay lasted a week, but rehab lasted much longer: it took two years for Costa to get back on his deck. “It’s still not 100% normal, even now,” Costa says.
While he was recovering, Costa started playing music more seriously. And his friends started listening. He discovered some folk greats, like Donovan and Dylan, and more current pop-rock: he counts the Shins and Travis among his favorite current artists. “I let whatever come out of me,” he says. “I’d be singing about whatever obsession I had that day: ‘East of Eden,’ the book I was reading, or [the day] Thursday. I figured the more lyrics I wrote the better my writing would get.”
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Eventually, he was signed via another athlete-turned-musician, Jack Johnson, whose Brushfire records is the perfect label for Costa’s breezy, poppy acoustic rock, which walks the line between Belle & Sebastian’s indie-pop and Johnson’s more beachy feel. Though he never writes about skating, his past plays a part on the record: “I know that I got turned on to music that inspires me was because of skateboarding and skate videos,” he says. “My whole world when I was younger was skate videos. I remember Fugazi, and Gorilla biscuits. An old Donovan song, “Get Thy Bearings” was in one of Andrew Reynolds’ parts in a Baker video. A lot of the music I originally attached myself to I heard in a skate video.”
Though Costa doesn’t skate all the time anymore – his schedule mostly only allows him to board when he’s home, when he hangs out at the Huntington Skate park in Cali – he sees a lot of similarities between his current life and his past as a pro. “There’s a lot of traveling involved with both,” he says. “You’re open to more culture than someone with a desk job. You’re following a passion, and throwing yourself into it 100%. That’s the biggest parallel.”
He doesn’t play favorites between his boards or his songs – Costa’s a pretty even handed guy. But though he doesn’t have a favorite, he’s pretty adamant about his past. “My least favorite board,” he says, “is the one I was riding when I broke my leg. I don’t know what I did with it. I think I burned it, or something.”
Still, he sees the bright side: “It did lead to this – which I never would have expected.”
- Jeff Miller
