I CREATED BACKROOM SAINTS BECAUSE SOME THINGS ARE BETTER SAID IN A SONG.
Football. Fathers. Bills. Pubs. War. Machines. Men going quiet. Towns being forgotten. Rich people making decisions ordinary people pay for.
Old songs. New scars.
BACKROOM SAINTS ISN’T A NORMAL BAND PROJECT
I have spent most of my life building things.
Businesses.
Brands.
Football projects.
Products.
Ideas.
But eventually you accumulate things that do not belong in a business plan.
Things you have seen.
Things people tell you.
Things that make you angry.
Things that make you laugh.
Places you miss.
People you miss.
The feeling of watching ordinary people work harder while somehow owning less.
You can write articles about those things.
You can argue about them.
Or you can put them into songs.
That became Backroom Saints.
The official Backroom Saints site describes it as raw working-class protest music fronted by Scott “Matchmaker” Michaels, made for people who feel priced out, tracked, replaced or forgotten.
That is as good a description as any.
OLD SONGS. NEW SCARS.
That became the line.
OLD SONGS. NEW SCARS.
Because the problems are rarely as new as people pretend.
Power.
Money.
War.
Loneliness.
Work.
Family.
Fear.
Pride.
Class.
Technology.
Belonging.
People have been writing songs about those things forever.
The scenery changes.
The scars don’t.
Backroom Saints takes that old protest-song tradition and points it at life now.
Phones.
Algorithms.
AI.
Rent.
Closing pubs.
Football becoming expensive.
Billionaires becoming politicians.
Wars being sold through screens.
Men who stop talking.
Northern towns people laugh at.
Families trying to make the numbers work.
That is the world the songs live in.
MUSIC FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T GET WRITTEN ABOUT ENOUGH
There is plenty of music about being young, beautiful and successful.
Good luck to it.
Backroom Saints lives somewhere else.
The man sitting in his car for ten minutes before going inside.
The father stretching his wages.
The woman wondering whether her son is alright.
The pub with another FOR SALE sign.
The football supporter who can no longer afford football.
The town everybody makes jokes about.
The worker being told AI will make everything better while quietly wondering whether AI means his job disappears.
The soldier whose family pays for decisions taken in another room.
The person who knows something is wrong but does not speak like a politician or columnist.
Those people deserve songs too.
MEN DISAPPEAR
One of the clearest examples is Men Disappear.
It is about men who do not necessarily collapse dramatically.
They simply become quieter.
Messages go unanswered.
Friendships disappear.
Confidence goes.
Life gets smaller.
The Backroom Saints article around the song describes men becoming almost invisible under work, money, family and social pressure.
That is not a song about presenting myself as an expert on men’s mental health.
I am not.
It is about noticing something.
Sometimes people disappear while they are still standing in front of you.
A song cannot solve that.
But it can name it.
Sometimes that is where a conversation begins.
BLACKPOOL
Then there is Blackpool.
I know the easy version.
The Tower.
Illuminations.
Candy floss.
Hen nights.
Stag nights.
Cheap hotels.
But there is another Blackpool.
Rain.
Sea air.
Family holidays.
A pint behind steamed-up glass.
Parents making memories on wages that did not stretch very far.
Children who grew up.
People who are not here anymore.
The Backroom Saints story around Blackpool describes the town as somewhere joy and sadness can sit at the same table.
That is exactly why it belongs in the songs.
People laugh at places like Blackpool.
I think that often means they do not understand what those places represented.
Not everybody grew up flying to villas.
For millions of families, seaside towns were freedom.
For a week.
Sometimes a weekend.
Sometimes only a day.
That matters.
SEND THE GUNS TO SPACE
Backroom Saints also gets political.
Not party-political by default.
Political in the oldest sense.
Who has power?
Who pays?
Who profits?
Who gets hurt?
Send The Guns To Space is an anti-war song.
Its argument is deliberately simple.
Politicians talk tough.
Weapons companies make money.
Ordinary families bury people.
The song distinguishes soldiers from the people who profit from war and directs its anger upwards rather than at the people sent to fight.
That distinction matters.
The point is not:
soldiers are the problem.
The point is:
IF WAR IS SO GLORIOUS, WHY ARE ORDINARY PEOPLE ALWAYS PAYING THE BILL?
SARAH SAYS RUN
Then there is technology.
I use AI.
I am fascinated by it.
I also think people would be mad not to ask where it ends.
Sarah Says Run came from that tension.
Machines used to arrive in films looking like machines.
Metal.
Weapons.
Red eyes.
The machine now arrives as convenience.
An app.
A feed.
A recommendation.
A productivity tool.
A system monitoring workers.
A model copying voices.
A screen raising children.
The Backroom Saints article describes the song not as anti-technology but anti-surrender.
That is the point.
USE THE MACHINE.
DON’T WORSHIP IT.
Technology should serve people.
People should not gradually become the raw material technology feeds on.
AMERICA HAS BEEN TRUMPED
Some songs take aim at named political figures.
America Has Been Trumped is one.
It is written as criticism of political spectacle, billionaire power, personality cults and the way legitimate working-class anger can be redirected.
The accompanying Backroom Saints article makes an important distinction: the song is not presented as an attack on ordinary Americans. It argues that economic abandonment can create an audience for political showmanship.
People can agree with that song.
People can disagree with it.
That is fine.
Protest music that everybody finds comfortable probably isn’t doing very much protesting.
FOOTBALL BELONGS HERE TOO
Football runs through Backroom Saints because football runs through working-class life.
Not the television rights package.
Not the hospitality lounge.
Football.
Dad taking you to a match.
Your first shirt.
The walk to the ground.
Away days.
Bad pies.
Great players.
Terrible referees.
Arguments.
Friendships.
A pub before kick-off.
A town recognising itself in eleven people wearing the same colours.
Football gave people somewhere to belong.
That matters because belonging is becoming expensive.
Tickets rise.
Shirts rise.
Subscriptions multiply.
Stadiums get cleaner.
The experience becomes more efficient.
And sometimes, somewhere along the way, part of the soul disappears.
Backroom Saints belongs in that argument.
BLACK & WHITE
That is why an England song also makes sense.
Black & White came from football rather than politics.
A national-team song can easily become ridiculous.
Forced optimism.
Corporate slogans.
Somebody deciding what supporters are supposed to feel.
I’d rather start with football.
Eleven players.
A tournament.
Nerves.
Hope.
The stupid annual belief that this might finally be the one.
My own public posts identify Black & White as a Backroom Saints England anthem released on Spotify and other streaming services.
Backroom Saints can be angry.
It can also enjoy football.
Both things are allowed.
THE PUB MATTERS
There is a reason the name is Backroom Saints.
Think about the places where people used to talk.
Pubs.
Working men’s clubs.
Football grounds.
Barbershops.
Cafes.
Smoking areas.
Break rooms.
The back room after closing time.
Not everything meaningful happened in a conference room.
A lot of life happened in places with bad carpets.
People argued.
Told stories.
Lied.
Laughed.
Sang.
Mourned.
Planned.
Made up.
Fell out again.
Those rooms were social infrastructure.
A song belongs there.
So does Backroom Saints.
WHY “SAINTS”?
Because the people in the songs are not perfect.
Neither am I.
That is partly the point.
The saints are not stained-glass saints.
They are people trying to get through another week.
The bloke who gets something wrong and comes back tomorrow.
The mother holding things together.
The father who does not know what to say.
The worker who keeps clocking in.
The supporter who keeps turning up.
The town that keeps its lights on even after everybody has written it off.
BACKROOM SAINTS.
Not perfect people.
Ordinary people still standing.
THIS IS NOT POLISHED POP
Backroom Saints should never become too clean.
The official site currently says:
“No polish. No permission. No surrender.”
I like that.
Because if somebody eventually turns it into music designed by committee, the whole thing dies.
It should have rough edges.
It should occasionally irritate people.
Sometimes it should make somebody laugh.
Sometimes it should make somebody send a song to their dad.
Sometimes it should make somebody angry.
Sometimes it should simply sound good with a pint.
That is enough.
BACKROOMSAINTS.CO.UK
THE MUSIC
BackroomSaints.co.uk should be the official home of Backroom Saints.
The songs.
The stories behind them.
Videos.
Lyrics and commentary.
Music releases.
Backroom Saints clothing and merchandise.
Live developments if and when they happen.
It should answer one question:
WHAT IS BACKROOM SAINTS MAKING?
The site already carries extensive editorial material explaining songs including Men Disappear, Blackpool, Sarah Says Run, Send The Guns To Space and America Has Been Trumped.
ENTER BACKROOM SAINTS → BACKROOMSAINTS.CO.UK
SCOTTMATCHMAKER.CO.UK
THE PERSON BEHIND IT
This site has a different job.
ScottMatchmaker.co.uk is where I explain why I created Backroom Saints and how it sits alongside everything else I do.
Hairbond.
Stylo Matchmakers.
Football.
Los Angeles Aztecs.
Writing.
Business.
And now music.
They may look unrelated.
To me, they are not.
They repeatedly come back to the same things.
Identity.
Independence.
History.
Ordinary people.
Brands with character.
Football culture.
Resistance to everything becoming bland, controlled and corporate.
Backroom Saints is simply the version that comes with songs.
ScottMatchmaker.co.uk answers:
WHO CREATED BACKROOM SAINTS — AND WHY?
TWO DESTINATIONS. ONE BACKROOM
The architecture should stay very simple.
BACKROOMSAINTS.CO.UK
MUSIC + CULTURE
Songs.
Stories.
Videos.
Merchandise.
Backroom Saints.
SCOTTMATCHMAKER.CO.UK
CREATOR + CONTEXT
Scott “Matchmaker” Michaels.
Why the songs exist.
Where the ideas come from.
How Backroom Saints fits into the wider story.