The name Steve Matthes has become one of the most well-known within the motocross media world over the past few years, with his unique style, sense of humour and extensive knowledge of the sport, it looks to be the perfect combination.

Being a racer himself from a young age, then moving into the role of mechanic for some of the sport’s elite, before diving into the world of media, the Canadian native has a diverse background which helps him stand out from the crowd and do something that is certainly out of the ordinary within our industry.

MotoOnline.com.au recently caught up with Matthes to talk about his road to the media world, how his company ‘PulpMX’ came to be, and what inspired him to dedicate so much time and effort to all of the entertaining and impressive content he delivers worldwide.

Steve Matthes’ PulpMX Show has been a worldwide hit.

You basically go to all of the American motocross and supercross rounds as a journalist now, but prior to that you’re a former mechanic in the sport, and worked at Yamaha from what we know. First and foremost, tell us a little bit about your background?

My background was growing up in Canada first, racing pro, getting to a pro level in Canada, getting hurt a lot and realising that I sucked, so the next best thing for me was being a mechanic down in the US.

I had a couple of buddies, Shane Drew is one of them, he’s still in the sport today as the Honda suspension guy. He told me to tag along with him for a couple weeks in 1996, and I did just that. I took my last $300 and got a job on the PJ1 team at that time, and then started being a mechanic from there.

I worked with riders such as Kelly Smith, Nick Wey and Tim Ferry, amongst others. I did 11 years of being a mechanic, two different factory teams and then I decided to get out of being a mechanic. It was getting a little old, getting a little boring, kind of repetitive and a lot of work.

So I decided to be a media guy. I’d always been a fan of the sport, I had always read magazines and followed the sport, so I figured the next natural thing was to jump into media.

It’s one thing to say that you want to be a media guy, but it’s a different thing to actually achieve it and be really good at it, like you are. Do you think that you have been able to make the transition because you are unique in the way that you do it? You’re pretty funny and you obviously have a lot of relationships around the pits already, so does that help?

Yeah, it definitely helps. I was in the trenches, I know what goes on, a lot of my friends are racing or working on teams now. My writing itself is not that good, I just have my high school, I didn’t go to school to do it. But I learned how to do it.

I think I’m a hard worker too, not tooting my own horn, but I write a lot, so I think you get good at anything you do over and over. So I think that hard work and having the connections is what has helped me a lot.

PulpMX is your company, and you also work for Racer X, what sort of roles are you doing week in week out?

Basically I’m a freelance journalist, so I’m on the book for all my expenses, all my travel, hotels, I pay all of that. I’m on a retainer with Racer X, they’re my biggest client, MotoOnline.com.au obviously, Australian Dirt Bike Magazine, a Canadian website and of course I started my own company.

I really started my own website because I had all of this stuff that I wanted to write, but nobody wanted to put it on the web. Funny stuff, talking about my childhood hero Ross Pederson, or telling stories about Tim Ferry.

I wrote a few things and nobody wanted to run it anywhere, and I’m like “this is funny, I thought his was funny?”. So I started my own blog site and now it’s evolved into something like a machine, it’s just kept on going.

Matthes is constantly making the rounds and chatting with riders be up to date on all of the inside information. Image: Adam Spence.

The radio show and the podcasts, that sort of thing, it seems like that is going really strong and it’s now popular around the world.

Yeah, the podcast is something that I listen to. I’m a big hockey guy being Canadian, so I listened to some podcasts and I was like man, this is awesome! Why can’t I listen to a podcast on Mark Barnett, David Bailey or Ricky Johnson? And I was like, well I can do that, and literally I started my first podcast with $50 in equipment.

I started doing them and there was an audience there, a big audience, and it’s just grown over the years. The show, that started out okay, but once I got Kenny Watson from the Hart and Huntington team, it really took off. Him and I were a good dynamic, we didn’t always get along, he had strong opinions and I had strong opinions.

Once Kenny got on the show it really started taking off and it’s now built to the point where it’s bigger than the podcasts and it’s bigger than the Pulp site. It’s the number one thing I do.

What’s your favourite part about what you do? Travelling obviously sucks, you don’t like the Daytona press box [laughs], but what’s your favourite?

[Laughs] well you know this, you’re covering it in Australia or covering it here, it’s just hard work, this isn’t easy. There is lots of running around, talking to riders and producing content, so you’ve got to be a hard worker.

It’s tough to take the time and really think about your favourite stuff, but for me I think the podcasts I do that wrap up the race with [Jason] Weigant, David Pingree or Jason Thomas, I really enjoy those because we’re pretty light-hearted and we make a lot of jokes.

I also like talking to the old guys, the guys that I read about growing up, they were my heroes and I really enjoy talking to those guys.

You’re the type of guy that makes some jokes, like you said, and you’re not scared to say what you think either. Do riders or industry people ever get mad?

Oh yeah, for sure. Josh Hansen and Ricky Carmichael won’t talk to me, just from things I have written or said. There are a lot of good guys in there, but I think when I started doing it, nobody was writing like I was. I was writing stories like I would read about football or hockey, but nobody did it in motocross.

So I was sort of the guy that had to deal with the criticism, but now I think it’s gotten pretty good over the years. I think people understand where I’m coming from, they know they can talk to me if they have a problem, I’ll apologise if I’m wrong and I’m not always right. It’s often just an opinion, just that, not right or wrong, it’s just an opinion.

I think I’m alright with guys these days, it’s just tough that there are some people that just don’t get it. What are you going to do, you can’t change their mind you know?

Thanks for that, we definitely appreciate all the work you do for MotoOnline and a lot of Aussies tune into your show too.

Yeah, did you see Sydney was my number one city? Aussies man, Aussies and PulpMX, love em!