WHO ARE YOU:
'Green', 'G', 'Matic' and 'Greenoid', but you can call be Green. I was called Mel when I was born, but that's a bit boring, especially when you add my last name to it - 'Smith'......... pretty exciting stuff huh,

WHAT DO YOU DO:
I am The Greenmatics, it's my solo project to keep me from getting bored, plus I also have to write music or I'd go crazy and feel naked and like something really big was missing from my life.
I write the songs, make and maintain the websites, release the singles, book the gigs, manage the band, do all the networking, plus I hire a backing band that is kind of like a rotating backing band..... they move on to other things sometimes eg. they have babies, move overseas, start their own projects and other stuff like that.... so I'm working with new people quite a bit, which makes each incarnation of The Greenmatics quite interesting.

I started The Greenmatics in my bedroom back in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2003. There's no way in hell I started the band to be rich and famous, I just need to do this thing and that's it. The whole fame aspect scares the hell outta me.... I don't deal with anything like that very well (but I am learning), for example, I was walking down a street in my area a while ago and this guy just kept staring at me and I got SO paranoid and ended up yelling "Why are you staring at me, do I have food on my face or something? What is it!!!!" and then he very nervously said "I'm sorry, I just saw your band play the other day and I really like you guys"... So of course I felt like crap by going off at him and apologized. Now I try to look at the ground so I can't see if anyone is staring at me.

The only goal I had was to write songs and hopefully get them on the radio..... now I've been nominated for a Music Award in New Zealand, toured NZ and Australia, had music videos on Nationwide TV in NZ and Australia, had songs on pretty much every single Radio Station in NZ, had songs played on heaps and heaps of Radio Stations here in Australia, I've played festivals, played with bands who were our idols while we were growing up, I've worked with Brian Canham (pseudo echo frontman) on production, I've been #1 in heaps of Top 10 Charts on various Radio Stations and other Internet websites and have had songs selected for lots of compilation CDs... the list goes on.... it's all exciting stuff.

WRITE AN ACROSTIC POEM OR HAIKU USING YOUR NAME ABOUT YOU:
The Greenmatics is an electro band
Having fun keeps me sane on this land.
Electro pop is our game

Green is half our name.
Red is my hair colour.
Eagerly awaiting the
Excitement on stage at
Noise Bar for our next gig.
Mel is my real name
And
The band
Is fizzy, fun
Catchy
Stuff that I love

*note to self.... wow that was lame. I am SO not a poet, especially an acrostic one!

HOW DID YOU GET INTO PHOTOGRAPHY/ART/CREATING?:
My mum forced me to have piano lessons from the age of about 6 and I learnt for about 10 years, so I'm a classical pianist (forced), but am thankful that Mum made me because the training has helped immensely with song writing for The Greenmatics. It took a really long time to get the band thing happening because I'm from Christchurch (NZ) and there's not many bands there, which made it practically impossible to find one to join. I eventually joined the 1st lineup of Shocking Pinks, then moved on to make my own music and then the hardest part was finding band members.... Arghhhhhhhhhhhhh I can't explain with words how difficult it is to find band members, it's like trying to track down people who are going to be your new family. I've been through quite a few members and had to move to Melbourne to find the perfect backing band. I decided to go for a backing band, rather than band members because The Greenmatics has pretty much been a solo effort since day one and I've been doing this for too long by myself and would find it hard to work with others who may want to change everything.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST PHOTO AND DRAWING OF:
I'm assuming that this could also be asking what was my first song, but I'll go with the photo one: One of my first photos was of my childhood cat Mittens with his head stuck in a gumboot, it was a black n white photo taken with a great old SLR and I developed the negatives with my dad, who is also into photography/music. Back in NZ I accidentally halted my music career by becoming a music photographer for a few years and had photos in Pavement, The Press, The Star, Rip It Up, Rolling Stone, The Package, Groove Guide and heaps of others.... it was fun, but it actually stopped me from being able to do the band thing because people thought I was only a photographer, so it took ages to change their minds and get them to understand that I'm a musician 1st and photographer 2nd..... infact it was so hard to change their minds that I ended up moving to another City to start afresh and I made sure I didn't get into the photography scene.

WHERE CAN WE FIND YOU:
http://www.thegreenmatics.com
http://twitter.com/thegreenmatics
http://www.facebook.com/thegreenmatics
http://www.myspace.com/thegreenmatics