KENOSHA, Wis. — Eight years ago, before Kenosha County Eye existed, before I was running a news organization reaching nearly a million people each month, and shortly after my time as a Kenosha alderman had ended, my family accidentally stumbled upon someone who would become one of the most fascinating musicians we've ever discovered.
Like a lot of dads, I was joking around with my kids one day. On a whim, I asked Amazon's Alexa to play a song about poop.
Instead of silence—or confusion—Alexa immediately started playing a song by Matt Farley.
Then another.
Then another.
Before long, our family had fallen down the rabbit hole of Farley's seemingly endless catalog of songs from bands with names like The Toilet Bowl Cleaners. What started as a silly joke became something we found ourselves coming back to again and again.
I was so impressed by the creativity behind it all that I sent Farley an email in 2018 with the subject line, "You, sir are a genius."
I told him his music had brought my family countless laughs and that he deserved to become rich one day.
To my surprise, he responded.
At the time, Farley told me Alexa had become one of his biggest promoters, introducing children around the world to his music. He wasn't rich yet, he said, but he had achieved something many musicians only dream about.
"It's my full-time job," he wrote. "So life is good."
Fast forward eight years.
Farley has now released an astonishing 26,259 songs under more than 80 different artist names across more than 400 albums. His work has been featured by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR's World Cafe, The Guardian, and Wired, while his music has generated millions upon millions of streams across digital music platforms.
Perhaps the biggest surprise isn't the staggering numbers—it's how humble he remains.
Despite national recognition and an almost unimaginable catalog of music, Farley speaks less about fame than about simply enjoying the opportunity to make a living creating things. Throughout our interview, he came across exactly the same way he did in 2018 when he took the time to answer an email from a complete stranger in Wisconsin.
Somewhere along the way, he even wrote a song about Kenosha.
After watching his remarkable career continue to grow, I wondered whether he'd remember that email exchange from years ago. Now that Kenosha County Eye has become one of Wisconsin's largest independent news outlets, I reached out again to ask whether he'd be willing to participate in an exclusive interview.
Once again, Matt Farley couldn't have been more gracious.
What followed was an insightful conversation with the man behind one of the internet's most unusual success stories—a songwriter who has turned relentless creativity, an incredible work ethic and an unmistakable sense of humor into a full-time career.
Farley told Kenosha County Eye he has now released exactly 26,259 songs, though he prefers the word "released" because some recordings use the same music with different lyrics.
He estimates he's released music under more than 80 pseudonyms and across more than 400 albums, numbers so large that even he admits he no longer keeps complete track.
As for that Kenosha song, there wasn't any deep personal connection or hidden story behind it. Farley explained that he created an album for every U.S. state, writing songs about at least 50 cities and towns in each one while improvising lyrics after reading each community's Wikipedia page. But despite that unusual approach, his song, "Let's Hear It for Kenosha, OK?" includes a surprising number of local references. He sings about Lake Michigan, calls Kenosha "a wonderful place to raise a family," mentions cruising down Sixth Avenue downtown, grabbing a bite at Big Star Drive-In, riding the city's historic electric railway, admiring the lighthouse overlooking Simmons Island, borrowing a book from the public library, and closes by encouraging listeners to "check out St. Mary's Catholic Church and say a prayer."
Many people assume his poop songs were simply a happy accident.
Not according to Farley.
When asked whether he ever imagined those songs would become some of his biggest hits, his answer was refreshingly direct.
"I honestly believed the concept had a lot of potential."
That confidence eventually turned into a business model.
Farley said he and his band, Moes Haven, noticed years ago that their novelty songs were earning more money than expected. That's when he had an unusual realization.
He simply needed to create more of them.
A lot more.
"I quickly realized that I simply had to produce 20,000-plus silly songs, and it could become my job," he said.
That prediction turned out to be remarkably accurate.
Yet behind the absurd song titles is someone who takes his craft seriously.
Farley said he sees humor in every situation but approaches making art with discipline, deadlines and focus. Even after releasing more than 26,000 songs, he still battles procrastination and creative resistance like any other artist.
"I see humor in every situation," he said. "I'm very serious about the way I produce art."
Today, his life revolves around far more than writing songs. He and his wife homeschool their two children, and he spends much of his free time taking extraordinarily long walks—sometimes more than 30 miles in a day—along with making feature-length movies, riding bicycles and continuing to write music.
One of the funniest moments of our interview came when Farley admitted one of his biggest streaming successes is a song he doesn't even particularly like anymore.
A novelty song about actor Jeremy Renner has surpassed half a million Spotify streams, despite Farley saying it makes him "cringe."
"So it's clear that I don't always know what people are going to like," he said. "I should release all my songs, even if they make me cringe."
He also shared one of the more unexpected stories from his career: Olympic skiing legend Bode Miller once called him after hearing a song Farley had written about him.
"Of course, it could have been anyone pretending to be him," Farley joked, "but it seemed legit."
While millions know him for novelty songs with outrageous titles, Farley hopes listeners will also discover what he calls his "No-Jokes Songs"—more than 50 albums of sincere music that he believes deserve far more attention.
He insists he isn't just a comedian or novelty songwriter.
"I just love being involved in a creative project," he said. "I've figured out a few ways to make money off some of my creations."
Eight years after a joke with Alexa introduced my family to Matt Farley's music, one thing became even clearer after spending time talking with him: behind the poop songs is a remarkably disciplined, thoughtful and genuinely kind artist who somehow turned one of the internet's strangest ideas into a career.
Kenosha County Eye Plus+ subscribers can continue reading below for Matt Farley's complete, unedited Q&A, including every question and answer from our exclusive interview.
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