Question 1

In one or two paragraphs, who are you as an artist — not what you do, but who you are? What is the central idea at the heart of your music?

Accepted Answer

I am Simon Matthias Maurer (I go by Simon). I’m founder and member of The Lemon Club. I am interested in philosophy (which I study at the University of Vienna), interested in the world of politics (geopolitics, foreign policies, EU institutions, power dynamics, change). I love the sun, but I also love snow, especially because it is so poetically viable. I like big words (voluptuous, conundrum, etc.) and big ideas (moral status, love, art, traveling to Mars, etc.). But in the end, it is my friends and loved ones who are of utmost importance to me. My friends are the biggest reason why I want to live.

The central idea at the heart of my music is finding perspectives. There are so many ways to look at one entity or one experience, or the world at large. I think it’s important to keep this in mind throughout life. There may be one truth, but it could also be the case that there are infinite truths. What seems for sure to me now is that there are different subjective experiences concerned with the same things. I want to capture that in my music and my lyrics and play with dichotomies and ambiguities and everything in between.

Let me be very clear: I write all my songs myself, sometimes with human co-writers. Both melody and lyrics are by me (and human co-writers). Moreover, I come up with the vision on how my songs should sound. I do sometimes use and experiment with AI and other technologies to produce the songs, and expand the idea of what a song and what music can be. As an artist, I reserve myself the right to experiment.

(Full disclaimer: I did have a brief phase (maybe half a week) when I tried out writing songs with AI with the goal of "reinventing songwriting", but I am behind that phase - I will elaborate on this somewhere else, as soon as I am asked about it, because it was a fun experiment).

Question 2

Where are you from, and how has that shaped the way you write songs?

Accepted Answer

Me, myself, and my music originate in Vienna. I think of myself as both a Viennese person and an European. I may have an Austrian passport, but I do not think of myself as strictly Austrian. Vienna has influenced me insofar that I have lived there for all of my live. I have been born and lived at the 9th district, and this is where most of my songs were born, because that’s also where my long-time songwriting partner, Matthias Kempf, resided and still operates at. I have lived at the 11th district, the 7th district, and now at the 18th district. I moved a lot because I wanted to experience different views on Vienna. The 11th was drastically different to both the 9th and the 7th. The 9th is quite mundane, the 11th is multicultural and a bit poorer, while the 7th is very central in Vienna and very vivid and loud. The 18th is somewhere in between. I think it shows in my songs. With every district I live in I learn a new way to think and write and play. But I never forget the old ways to write and sing. So that’s awesome. I think of myself as an European, too, because I feel strongly attached to Italy, Spain, Germany, and all the other beautiful countries in the European Union. Traveling with Interrail and Eurail, and Flixbus has changed my mind and body and the way I write songs. Some of my favorite songs of myself have been written on vacations, including “Freedom”, and most of the songs of my album “The Times We Live In” (both of which happened in Spain but three years apart). From Vienna, it is quite simple to travel to all of Europe, as Vienna is very central - this helped! I feel very affectionate towards the Türkenschanzpark (Vienna), but also towards the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, and a cute tiny bagel store near the Three Sisters Station in London. I love the countryside in Lower Austria, but I also love the hills of Spain, and the sorrowful Schwarzwald in Germany, just like I love the Heldenplatz in Vienna (where I wrote most of my poems), and the Pantheon in Rome (where I wrote an unreleased short novel). Every place carries their own past with them, and inspires in a different way. But it’s not just the past that makes me feel whole, it’s the possibilities and the now each place resides in that makes me want to enrich this world and all the beautiful places with art and love and insight; each place being a canvas to create a better future on. Music is the mode of creation I am most prone to, and I want to take music to new places; thence the restless traveling both through the world of ideas and the physical world. One day, I would like to record a traveling album — an album where I go to different cities and places in Europe and write & record with local artists.

Question 3

When did you write your first song, and what was it about? What do you remember most about that moment?

Accepted Answer

The first song I ever wrote was called “Die Natur” (in German; English: Nature). The song was very raw. I wrote lyrics that were yearning and encapsulated a sense of longing and wondering. I wondered how nature was like thousands of years ago. Untouched by humans, untouched by technology. My family admired the song, and I think it was the main reason why my grande-aunt got me a guitar for Christmas. I still carry that guitar with me, I feel very attached to it and I write my best songs on it. “Die Natur” had a line in it, that went something like this: “Die Natur war so wunderbar / Vor ein paar Tausend Jahr”. I think it’s still beautiful, and even more important to sing songs like that today. Maybe I should record and release it. I am very proud of my eight year old self for writing this song. I do not clearly remember how I wrote it. But I remember the exact melody and the feeling. That’s the case with most of my songs. “Die Natur” will always live in my heart. As will my grande-aunt, and nature itself.

Question 4

You've written hundreds of songs. What does that discipline look like in practice — how often do you write, and what does a typical writing session look or feel like for you?

Accepted Answer

I never need to force myself to write a song. If I do force myself nevertheless, it always fails. I think key to writing lots of songs is doing lots of amazing things. Meeting friends is high on my list, but so is studying philosophy. Yesterday (March 25, 2026), I’ve been to a seminar about Foucault when suddenly a melody for a verse popped into my head. I couldn’t focus until I went out to record it on my phone. When I got home, I sat down with the guitar and finished the song. It mostly happens like that. Some songs happen in a more focused way. Once a week I meet Matthias Kempf, and we sit down and write a song. One of us starts with something on the guitar, and from there on, it just happens. It’s this insatiable urge that just keeps on coming. I once tried to write a song about songwriting, it’s called “Never Stop Falling”. I think this is how I write songs: “I never stop falling / never stop going / never stop doing the things that I need to”.

Whenever I am stuck anyway, I just imagine myself that “this song is going to be the last I’ll ever write”. This is a way for me to break the spell and write something meaningful. That’s how “Illiac Suite (La Chanson Finale), Partie I à III” happened, for example. There are so many perspectives on how to write a song: One is to write songs that you would like to listen to on the radio, or on a long road trip.

Question 5

What is the one thing you want a first-time listener — someone who has never heard of you — to feel or understand after spending five minutes with your music?

Accepted Answer

Whenever someone listens to a song I wrote, I hope that they feel inspired. That’s the one emotion I want everyone to feel - inspiration. I want them to feel diverse human emotions (joy, laughter, sadness, grief, etc.), but always inspired. Inspired joy, inspired grief, inspired sadness, inspired freedom.

What I want people to understand is that there is not one way to look at life, there are infinite ways to do so. To understand this is quite liberating. In one of my songs, I put it like this:

“Hey, I’ve traveled every shore
But I still long for more
And I’ve realized
Oh, I’ve realized
Life can be a many ways”
(Simon Matthias Maurer and Matthias Kempf: “Many Ways”, written and composed in 2024, all rights reserved)

My music is about restless inspiration and vivid curiosity.

Question 6

How do you describe yourself when someone asks what kind of music you make — and what do you wish you could say instead?

Accepted Answer

When someone asks me, “What kind of music do you make?”, I usually respond that I am a singer/songwriter and that I just try to make good songs and that every song can produced in different ways, but mostly it’s a mix of folk and pop and rock.

What I would wish to say instead is that I make music that people love, that it’s pop, and folk, and rock, and that I am writing for grande artists and with small upcoming artists alike. I would love to be able to say that I make music that is used on TikTok, in Bollywood films, Hollywood blockbusters, but also music that poets admire and quote, and music that led to the foundation of a new genre, and the formation of new bands. Maybe someday I will get there, but it’s a long way. But I feel this urge to do grande things, even though so far, I do not have that many listeners and followers.

The Lemon Club: Frequently Asked Questions | Insights on Songwriting