Your Favorite Color's origin story is rooted in the laid-back yet relentless pursuit of waves. After moving to the legendary surf hub for Huntington Beach from Utah, surfing quickly became an anchor for Matthew. He discovered his tribe and a mutual love of music on the beach and with the high school surf squad. "Long story short, we just figured out that some of the friends also liked playing music, and I joined Cameron's band (our current bassist). That's when I figured out I liked being in a band." After that first project fell through, Matthew just "grabbed all my buddies around me who knew how to play instruments and thought it would be fun to do it." And just like that, Your Favorite Color began to mix its palette.

The band has grown from those early high school days in 2016, going from early EPs to an 11-track LP, and they are currently working on a first album. This journey has seen a remarkable evolution in their sound, a transformation Matthew largely attributes to his vocal development. "My voice was still, I think, going through puberty and, growing, and I used to have a much higher.sounding voice back then," he explains. "But now I've felt a lot of joy and growth singing lower and just kind of experimenting more with vocal tones." A key factor in this shift has been his deep dive into '80s music. "I've been listening to a lot of '80s music over the years... and I think it's greatly transformed the way I like to sing."

With Nicky's synthesiser and David's guitar creating an unmistakable '80s thread, the band's overall sound has also leaned towards these retro tones. Matthew, though, is eager to stress that they don't want to be a "timestamp band." He add that their "sixth band member," producer and engineer Stefan Macarewich, has the secret to striking a balance between homage and originality. "For a lot of the time, we were just recording songs in my room," Matthew acknowledges, "but as soon as I compared it to whatever was on the Top 100 on Spotify, I was getting thrown out; there was no comparison." Stefan's expertise has been transformative: "He was able to take these things that we wanted to do and really bring them to life and enhance their flavour very much."

Their recent single, Forever, is a prime example of this enhanced flavour, brimming with a sense of freedom and invincibility. According to Matthew, writing a song is more about a "finding" than it is about intentional intent. "Very rarely do we ever sit down and say, 'I'm going to write a song about this,'" he notes. Their unprecedented European and UK tour with The Driver Era served as the idea for Forever. "We had never played outside of the country, we've never played for thousands of people every night before, and we've never explored the world like that before." At a soundcheck for their last show in Norway, the instrumental for Forever came to them out of the blue. "Immediately it resonated, sparked some fire within me," Matthew recalls. The core of Forever was born when he started singing "gibberish melodies" into his phone. It was a "little child birthed in that time" of utter bliss. The lyrics, he believes, were woven from a desire for something to "last forever," tinged with the ironic understanding that "nothing is going to last forever."

The creation of Forever also marked a significant shift in the band's creative direction. Rap and EDM are two things that the band and their producer, Stefan, are passionate about. With Forever, they boldly tried adding "more of an electronic but also hip-hip element." This fusion was an exciting change, influenced by acts like Model/Actriz, who skilfully blended band music and electronic house. Matthew explains, "It was our very first attempt at doing something like that on any of our music," While it's not a direction they'll strictly adhere to for every track, Forever undeniably "pushed our artistic identity just a little further to show what we can do and what we like to do."

Visuals are an essential part of Your Favorite Color's artistry. Matthew notes that their approach to music videos is as natural as their songwriting. "You just close your eyes, listen to the song, and think, 'Alright, what to I see?'" The striking visualiser for Forever was inspired by bassist Cameron's brilliant idea to use their record label's LED screen, generating a "very weird mirror effect" by connecting a camera directly to the wall. It showed their willingness to explore and "roll with it and see if you can make something more fun, maybe even better than the original though."

Looking ahead, the band has now released Less In Love, a song co-written by Matthew and keyboardist Nicky. Matthew calls it a "breakup song" with a "sarcastic character." Nicky's description reveals the song's core message: "Less In Love talks about resisting to change into what another person wants you to be. The feeling for the song came from a night when the band was running around London on our first UK tour and how that felt. The opinions and voices of anybody in our past suddenly felt so small, like they never mattered. We were unapologetically ourselves." Matthew expands on the core concept of self-acceptance in the context of a relationship in which one person may be "holding on and clinging to the idea" of who they want their partner to be rather than loving them for who they genuinely are. The emotional shift in the lyrics from "Did you break up with me 'cause you were less in love with me? Would you like me better if I was like you?" to the defiant "I think I like me better because I'm not like you" perfectly convey this journey of self-discovery and resilience.

The recent 14-country European tour with The Driver Era was a pivotal experience in the band's career. Their first show was one of the highlights of the experience for them. "That was the biggest adrenaline rush anyone in the band has ever felt because we had never played for that many people ever." The excitement backstage was thrilling, culminating in a euphoric moment as Matthew took the stage. "I just went somewhere else," he explains. "It was that moment you've been waiting your whole life... and it was happening. And not only was it happening, but it was happening so much better than I could have imagined." The crowd's passionate involvement, including a spontaneous chant to the melody of Seven Nation Army, made the performance unforgettable.