Words for Guns

Matt DeBenedictis is a freelance music journalist and blogger. Generally Matt wraps and coils words around the more abrasive sides of music—the ones where missed beats are deemed permissible and the frowned upon mistake is to sound like the record live. Matt's first ever concert was in the bottom of a church, a carpeted basement decorated with punch stains and pictures of a lord in different saving poses. A hardcore band and a speed metal band played. It was a shaved hair vs. permed long hair kind of night. Currently Matt is a freelance writer for Noisecreep.

Matt's fiction and literary work has been featured in journals like Lamination Colony, decomP, The Ampersand Review, and Thrist for Fire. A review once called his now out of print Chapbook A Perfect Disgrace “A Drunkin' mix of Bukowski and Palahniuk”. At the time Matt had never read a single line of Charles Bukowski aside from the occasional references glued in bridges of songs. "That story was the result of me leaving the church and finally coming to a place of celebration over not being a pastor anymore,” Matt said. “Though I’m not sure how a story that began from the idea of not being able to feel yourself masturbate connects to that part of my life, but it does."

The love of stories and words for Matt came not from a big library of books but from bars, the pulpit, and stand up comedy. Not being the most social child Matt spent lots of hours just watching TV, and what fascinated him the most in the solitude of his early years were stand up comedians. "Stand up comedians put days, months, and years into what can be a one minute joke and that simple joke can speak two books full of philosophy and years of discontent with the world," Matt explained quite excited by the topic. When Matt used to be on the road, within the realms of music and as a touring pastor—which did include being a "character" on the reality show One Punk Under God that aired on The Sundance Channel—he created stories to tell people in order to break odd silences between people who barely knew each other. He would practice these stories in voice and by pen making sure the rhythm was strong and the words forming were cut clean, dark, and unforgiving. He wanted the stories to be retold. While on these tours and trips Matt was introduced to books and works that inspired him to begin writing more.

Matt Debenedictis lives in Atlanta, GA with his partner, three small dogs, and a painting of a monster eating a mountain.