Ever wondered how creative, overachiever peeps landed their dream job? Cue Pez Profile – our brand spankin’ new content series, which gets us chatting to legends killin’ it in their industries. This week we got talking with Matt FX Feldman, the 24-year-old native New Yorker who went from workin’ your erryday mailbox store to making waves in the NYC music scene, being the musical mastermind behind ya fave show Broad City.
RIGHTY OR LEFTY SIDE OF BRAIN? Porque no las dos!? I’m a righty though realistically.
MOST EMBARRASSING WORK RELATED SITCH YOU’VE EXPERIENCED? In the first season of Broad City I *unknowingly* credited the idea of using Drake’s ‘started from the bottom’ to the editor of the show not knowing the girls had written it into the script and shot the scene to the song. It even got published in an interview (before getting changed of course!) – I was so gutted. It was an honest mistake but I felt absolutely terrible!
WHAT IS ONE PIECE OF ADVICE SOMEONE IN THE INDUSTRY HAS GIVEN YOU THAT YOU’LL NEVER FORGET? Does television count? When David Lynch’s character gives Louie CK one last bit of advice before Louie does a long-awaited test-screening to potentially take David Letterman’s job (in the show’s universe), Lynch’s character says three things to Louie:
– “look ‘em in the eye, and speak from the heart
– you have to go away to come back” <— (this is the big one for me)
– if someone asks you to keep a secret, the secret is a lie.
WHAT WOULD YOU YOUR 16 YEAR OLD SELF THINK RIGHT NOW? My 16 year old self would probably be hyper critical of all the things I’ve yet to get around to doing, aha. My current 24-year-old self is pretty critical of that too!
WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNEL ARE YOU RELIGIOUSLY ON AND WHY?
Facebook, and to a slightly lesser extent, Twitter. Facebook has been my bread and butter since day 1 and as angry as I can get at some of the pointless (and incredibly noticeable) algorithm changes, it’s still my main profile.
YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY KILLING IT IN YOUR INDUSTRY, BUT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE KILLING IT? This year has been the craziest year of my career so far. Not only have I gone into it with a real team (manager, agent, publicist) but it just seems like the work / opportunities have been somewhat nonstop. I’m grateful, but I still feel like I have so so so so so much to do.
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU’RE TORN BETWEEN PERSONAL BELIEFS AND PROFESSIONAL OBLIGATIONS? I think if I felt strongly enough about a personal belief, I would say something. If not, I would let the obligation take precedence. Case-by-case but luckily have yet to deal with the former and I’m yet to turn down a gig because it didn’t sit right with me.
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’D BE DOING IF YOU WEREN’T DOING THIS JOB? Maybe working the line at a restaurant? I would assume at this point I’d already put a couple years into culinary school if you were asking about the alternate universe non-music-supervisor Matt FX.
IF WE LOGGED INTO YOUR NETFLIX ACCOUNT WHAT WOULD WE SEE IN YOUR RECENTLY WATCHED LIST? Funnily enough, I don’t have my own account – I recently broke up from a long-term relationship and have yet to make my own yet as we shared hers. That said, it would 100% be the documentary Supermensch and the brilliant PBS cooking show Mind of a Chef.
WHAT IS YOUR GO TO SONG/FOOD/BEVERAGE FOR A PRODUCTIVITY PICK-ME-UP? A peaches and cream iced MATCHA from NYC’s MATCHABAR! As for getting out a music composing rut? Hahahahahahaha I’ll let you know when I figure that out!
HOW DO YOU KEEP CHILL AF OUTSIDE OF WORK? You know, the Greenery. Spending at least 8 hours of one day a week just in bed doing work from my laptop also helps.
MOST USED EMOJI? 
WHAT WOULD YOUR LAST MEAL BE? Phenomenal. If anything, I’d probably just cook up an order of my famous tacos!
CURRENT INSPO? The rapper Smino, the album TLOP, and Shep Gordon, forever,
CURRENT STATE OF MIND? Some combination of stressed and confident.
WHERE ARE YOU CURRENTLY BASED? New York City – I like that it is, even now, the best place in the universe to be a hustler.
HOW HAS YOUR APPROACH TO WORK CHANGED OVER TIME? Talk less, listen more. Only give your opinion when it’s either asked for or if you’re bursting at the seams.
DESCRIBE THE SPACE YOU CREATE YOUR WORK IN. I’m actually always working in different environments – I would maybe credit time of day or personal life emotion as being a bigger factor than lighting though it’s all definitely related.
CAREER HIGHLIGHT Hmm. My highlight is probably meeting & hanging out with Hans Zimmer (who watched my music video [for Scooter Island’s BREEZY] down from beginning to end and then gave me a huge hug).
CAREER LOWLIGHT? Probably finding out that a major film studio (who had gotten all the way to having me hang out for an afternoon with the director to watch footage) was using me just to drive the price down on the guy they REALLY wanted. I guess it’s cool that I’m a threat, though?
MOST CRINGE-WORTHY THING YOU’VE WRITTEN ON A CV, COVER LETTER OR LINKEDIN PROFILE? Damn, haven’t written one of those in years! Though I did recently write on an online dating profile (with potentially good reason!) about my theory that my / someone’s ‘glo-up’ is sexually transmittable….
