Success in Spain!

The first album was recorded with the means at hand. "In the bedroom of a friend, Denis Capus," explains Mathis. "It was a bit like the beginnings of home recording, so tinkered with guitar takes, added drums...". The album was pressed in a thousand copies. Mathis who Now lives in Barcelona, sends them to record companies but  "it's refused by everyone. Except for a small label, Pueblo records, who said to me 'It's great what you're doing, we're going to release it'." 

"5", Mathis & the Mathematiks' album, was released in spring 2005 Spain, caught the eye of Diego Alfredo Manrique - the "Spanish Philippe Manœuvre" - and was a hit. "We made it into the Spanish Top 40, and then it was very successful in France". He settled in  Paris, and multiplied the opening acts of renown (Higelin, Chris Whitley, Poppa Chubby...). A songwriter, Mathis Haug is also sought after as a pure guitarist. In 2008, he toured with Emily Loizeau, recorded for Manoukian...

Noticed by blues label Dixie Frog, he recorded his first solo album Playing my dues (2011). He worked with harmonica player Jean-Jacques Milteau, who produced the superb Distance (2013), before releasing Wild country, a country-world music album already on the roads of the American continent. The Concerts followed one another in France and abroad. Everyone praises a classy songwriter who likes to mix folk, rock, blues and country. And always "that incredible voice. As soon as you hear it, it's Mathis! There's no other like him," enthuses the great violinist Aurore Voilqué. "But that's not That he's also a cool guy, with a good spirit, beautiful to look at."

In 2018, Mathis Haug is putting aside the music to devote himself to another, old passion: cooking. And above all, to cultivate a new one with Amy Lillard, an American from Colorado. He is based at the Grange de Vers, a stone's throw from the Pont du Gard. A magical place for gourmets, music lovers and musicians. Mathis puts flavors into melodies ... "His cuisine is very personal. He invents, adapts... It's like his music," says Bernadette.

Memphis, the pilgrimage... and the miracle recording

The experiment will last until 2021. Without erasing, In the meantime, the call of the sea. In 2018, Mathis is on the road again, in Memphis, the birthplace of the blues. He opens the door to one of the countless studios in the Tennessee capital of, surroundes himself with experienced session musicians and produces the sublime Memphis sessions "in just two days". In the Wake of this, he played in the mythtical Clayborn Temple, made famous by the social movements of the 60s and a certain Martin Luther King. Two years later, he took a road trip to the U.S. where he recorded the E.P Kiss my grits. America, always America. But why exactly? For its "multicultural heritage", "a musical and even food that is quite astonishing", a Capacity, to ingest sounds, to mix them and make them stand out them out in new and unique genres. 

Today, Mathis combines his family life (he has three children, Elsie, Arlo and Mila), with his work as a musician and as an artistic consultant, sought after throughout the world. There were the Amerindian Pura Fé, the Moorish Oum. Or, once again, the violinist Aurore Voilqué, whom he met again at the last Nîmes jazz festival. "Mathis is extremely relevant. He has the ideas of an artistic director and knows how to manage things intelligence." In April 2022, Mathis Haug released album, a tribute to Doc Watson album, a wonderful servant of traditional American music. Melting pot, American wheels, sharing of sounds. This project like is the summary of the path that Mathis Haug is tirelessly tracing. From the Black Forest to tthe great American, without forgetting the Gorges du Gardon. Always in search of sound.

Adrien Boudet - Midi libre