I sat down with Jordan Brown and Matt Wilson of Set Your Goals while at When We Were Young Festival. The California natives made their highly anticipated homecoming this past February, playing their first gig in 6 years. We spoke about their return to live performances, whats next for Set Your Goals, and how good “One Battle After Another” is.
Logan Melia: How are you guys doing today?
Jordan Brown: It’s hot.
Matt Wilson: Yeah, exhausted.
Logan: Are you not desert folk?
Matt: No. We’re actually from California.
Jordan: The 8:30 sun here is blistering. So different from California sun, I think.
Logan: This is my first time here, does it really get that cold at night?
Matt: Yeah it’s freezing.
Jordan: Yeah, it’s freezing here. But Nevada’s awesome.
Matt: Hoodie or jacket weather the last couple nights.
Logan: How long have you guys been in Vegas for?
Jordan: Since Thursday. We got in in the morning and did a rehearsal. We rehearsed at MDV rehearsal space. So, plug for MDV.
Logan: How was that?
Jordan: Very good. They’ve got, like, four rooms for local artists and touring bands who want to stop in and a full back line. You know, bring your own gear or borrow from them. So we got to play there for a few hours.
Logan: Now, I never thought I was going to be able to see you guys. This is huge. I’m 20. I grew up with guys in the background but a little too young to go to your final gigs.
Matt: We’re also 20. Our band is 20.
Jordan: 20 years old. Yeah. We play at 5:40 on the Allianz stage. If you don’t have other interviews, come on by.
Logan: I will definitely be there. I’m absolutely stoked for you guys.
Matt: Appreciate that.
Logan: Your first gig back, Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, how was the preparation for that? How were you feeling going into the gig?
Matt: We booked an adequate amount of time to get prepared. And we felt really good going into it. It was just so cool to play music again after five years off and see so many old friends and family. People flew in from all over the world. It was crazy. So yeah, it was a warm welcome back.
Jordan: We didn’t really know what we would be doing exactly. Matt and I hung out in 2023.
Matt: Yeah. Something like that.
Jordan: Like, the end of 2023. We went into COVID lockdown like everybody else and just went our own ways, you know, doing our own thing. And then, end of that year, I asked Matt.
Matt: Whenever “Dune Part 2” came out.
Jordan: I asked him if he wanted to go see “Dune Part 2”. And so we watched that and then, I thought during the film, ‘Hey, this is some great music. Hans Zimmer is a genius again. I miss music. Matt, do you want to play shows?’ He said, I’ll ask the rest of the guys. And so, we just thought we’d do a couple of shows in our hometown. And then, we got offered When We Were Young and Four Chord Fest within weeks.
Logan: Which was a crazy lineup. Four Chord Fest. I mean, anything with Jawbreaker.
Jordan: Yeah. AFI headlining with Jawbreaker. blink-182.
Matt: blink. Jimmy (Eat World).
Jordan: Jimmy.
Matt: Great lineup.
Jordan: Yeah, Knuckle Puck.
Matt: I like this lineup, really.
Logan: Oh this lineup’s awesome. Don’t get me wrong. You mentioned “Dune 2”, they just released a teaser for “Dune 3”.
Jordan: Yeah. They’ll probably keep going.
Logan: Are you guys big movies guys?
Jordan: Oh yeah.
Matt: Jordan’s the biggest movie guy.
Jordan: Me and Dan and Matt, though. Matt and I hit up movies pretty frequently. I work at a movie theater on the weekends so, it’s like a nice amenity being able to just hop in and see anything. We watched “One Battle After Another” a few days ago.
Matt: Best movie of the year. 10 out of 10.
Jordan: Incredible. It is the best Paul Thomas Anderson movie. It is an odyssey. It’s filmed in VistaVision. It looks and feels exciting. It’s funny and thrilling at the same time. I’ve never laughed so hard and been on the edge of my seat for like nearly three hours. Wish it had been five hours.
Logan: The Springsteen movie is coming out. Are you guys Springsteen fans?
Matt: Yes.
Jordan: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You’ve got a great cast supporting that feature. I think it’s opening later this month. Yeah. I’ll be there. I liked the Bob Dylan movie, that was good. The Queen movie was excellent. Biopics are great. Even if critics are not on them, audiences love them. If you have fun, you’re having fun.
Logan: You guys announced Slam Dunk Festival, so this is going well. You guys are having fun if you’re still going next year.
Matt: Yeah. The ball is rolling.
Logan: The ball is rolling. I understand if you can’t say anything, but have you guys started jamming maybe some new tracks here and there?
Matt: We are working on some new music. Very excited about it.
Logan: It’s been a minute, but if you can remember back then, how long did it take to get a track going for you guys? Is it a laborious thing or does it kind of fall out of the sky?
Matt: It depends. There’s some songs where we just, I don’t know, Jordan will come up with an idea that’s really complete. And other ones, it’s just a riff and we build around it.
Jordan: Mikey and Dan are contributing a lot as well. Mikey, our drummer, plays a lot of guitar. We’ve just been working on one of his songs. We’ve also been working on a song that we first originated in 2019, pre-COVID lockdown. Mikey and I had a batch of, I’d say, 10 to 12 songs pretty ready to go. And then 2020, everything shut down. We went a little hard that first year because we had nothing else to do. But yeah, Matt, I remember you hit me up in 2023 and were like, ‘Hey, I heard some of the songs you and Mikey were working on a few years ago. How do we get this ball rolling?’, and I just had no idea at that time. It’s nice to not have a deadline. Just spend our time with tracking it and getting it to where we’d like to be.
Logan: When you guys are in the studio, do you ever say, ‘let’s get a banjo in the mix. Let’s do something off the wall.’ Is there any wild ideas that you guys either want to do or have done?
Jordan: Yeah.
Matt: I’m trying to think of a good one. We used a shaker in one song, little egg shakers.
Jordan: We do like percussion. Any sort of texture you can add to the underground of a song.
Matt: Yeah, we’ve been talking about some very subtle synth, stuff like that.
Jordan: Yeah, I saw John Williams play two summers ago at the Hollywood Bowl, and it was phenomenal. It was like a bucket list thing. But there’s something about cinematic film scores, the cues and the way they lift the scene. So we’ve been playing around with effects, even a basic tremolo effect on some of our guitars. Things that are pleasant to hear in the headphones, but we might also be able to play live if the audience reacts to it once we release them. There’s a great studio in Oakland, California called Shark Fight Studios. It’s like $350 a day, which is very, very affordable compared to LA prices. We hit a day there for drum tracking, and we’ve just been enjoying tracking guitars, bass, vocals with a buddy of ours. He has a recording studio in his ADU in his backyard. So it’s got a very… what is it, the vibe is good? The home vibe is good?
Matt: The vibe is chill.
Jordan: The vibe is chill.
Logan: You mentioned Oakland. Your first gig back in 2016, if I’m correct, was 924 Gilman Street. For any kid who listens to Jawbreaker, that’s the coolest venue in the world.
Matt: Thank you. I agree. We’re fortunate to have grown up going to shows there. That was incredible, that was a great gig.
Jordan: Yeah, no barriers.
Matt: Uncomfortably packed, but that’s the best way to do it. That’s how you do it.
Jordan: Gilman. Another venue on the rise in Berkeley is Cornerstone. I don’t know if the UC Theater is still doing shows. Berkeley is an incredible city. It would be great to play Gilman again.
Logan: Do you guys have any dream venues?
Matt: I would love to play Red Rocks one day. That would be incredible. I guess we played The Gorge on Warped Tour.
Jordan: Yeah.
Matt: Red Rocks would be unreal.
Jordan: Outdoor amphitheaters like the Greek Theater, another Berkeley venue. The Greek Theater would be a very neat place to open for anybody if we could get that opportunity.
Matt: That would be really cool. A hometown venue on the bucket list.
Logan: Do you guys have any favorite gigs you’ve been to?
Jordan: So many. You just saw two Oasis shows.
Matt: Oasis was great. One of the most recent ones was this last Nine Inch Nails tour. The production is incredible. They have a live camera and a see-through screen around the stage that they project onto. It was just so cool.
Jordan: Going back to John Williams, two nights at the Hollywood Bowl. He played everything from the Jurassic Park theme to Princess Leia’s theme, Yoda’s theme, Asteroid Field. He had some deep cuts. Then he had the Indiana Jones theme. A new pick from the most recent Indiana Jones movie. They had the whole Cal State University Fullerton Choir on stage for A Duel of the Fates. That was an unbelievable experience. That’s probably my most memorable in the last couple of years.
Matt: Also, last time I was here for Sick New World last year, which this same company does, I saw Danny Elfman and that was unreal. They had like 30 people on stage, it was crazy. A whole orchestra. It was nuts.
Logan: Do you guys have any dream gigs that you want to play that you’re like, you know what, I want to do something with these artists. I want to do it with a live orchestra.
Matt: So many. I wouldn’t even know where to start.
Jordan: I’d really love to play with All Time Low again. It would be great to reconnect with them. They’ve been one of the first bands outside of the hardcore scene that really appreciated us and would take us out. We did our first tour of Australia together. They dropped a new album today. I’ve been listening to it all morning.
Matt: I just got my haircut in the barbershop tent next to Zach. He was getting his haircut at the same time.
Jordan: Just talking about Danny Elfman, a couple of the tracks on their new album sound a bit like Oingo Boingo to me. I can hear that 80s horn influence. No horns on the song, but you can just feel the deep roots. Turmoil would be great. We were talking about playing with some friends of ours. Turmoil, Terror, maybe trying to do some throwback type tours that we did in the early years.
Logan: Anything else you want to talk about as I let you go here?
Jordan: I just want to thank everyone who’s come out and supported the shows. We booked those February shows and didn’t know. We didn’t have any plans and these offers came. We played Area 15 yesterday, and people were so supportive of us opening that show.
Matt: We just really appreciate the love after 20 years of doing this. So it’s really cool.
Logan: Thank you so much for taking the time. I’m looking forward to your set tonight!
Set Your Goals played an electric set at the Allianz Stage that was an absolute joy to watch. With enough energy to power the whole festival, Jordan and Matt picked up right where they left off. They have wrapped up their shows for 2025 but recently announced that they will be playing Slam Dunk Festival in May of 2026. You can find tickets here. I’m eagerly awaiting what Jordan and Matt have in store for the future of Set Your Goals. Tune in Monday nights 9-11pm for Downey’s Hour for your latest festival news and more coverage of When We Were Young Festival!
Cover photo by Sophia Juliette, courtesy of When We Were Young Festival.
