Matt started out in Weezer with some gear that he later called "awful and embarrassing". His amp (actually a perfectly good amp) was a Gallien-Kruger 800RB (same as Mikeys first amp, by the way). He had it since he was a teenager and it served him well right up through the mid 90's Rentals era. Where it is today is unknown. His first cabinet was a P.A.S. 2 piece cabinet, with the 18" speaker in one unit and the 2x10" in a separate part. This was a bad cabinet. It sounded crappy.

Matt's first bass in Weezer was a holdover from earlier times, a 5 string Hamer "Chapparel", with the paint stripped off and the whammy bar removed. He soon dumped this unceremoniously and returned to his old teenage bass which was slightly more ready to rock: a Hamer "Explorer" style bass, whose model name is unknown. He painted it crazy swirly green and glued cut out "w-e-e" letters all over it, which were clipped from extra weezer show flyers. Later this bass was traded away for an amazing bass neck made by Warmouth. Later still one of the 'explorer horns' was chopped clean off. (see photo). Before the trade, Matt went through a number of borrowed basses, trying to get closer to what he wanted. He used a cheap black Squire Jazz bass copy (Rivers's), an early 60's sunburst Fender P-Bass (Justin's of Nerf Herder), and a Gibson Ripper (Brian's, of Black Market Flowers).

Matt then bought a new Jerry Jones hollow body 'longhorn' bass, in celeste green. Unfortunately he soon found out that it wasnt useful in live performance, as it wasnt possible to intonate it to "E Flat" tuning, and thus had to be tuned to E Flat 'against its will'. So it went out of tune fast. This is when Matt made the trade for the Warmouth neck. This is a Telecaster Bass style neck, but a little different. A similar but not identical model is still made, but this particular one was an early model and made from a very interesting swirly kind of darker wood, that newer ones just dont have. Though the trade recipient got the whole explorer Hamer for the neck, he was still quoted as saying "youre ripping me off!". The neck was that nice! This neck was grafted onto a vintage black Fender Jazz Bass body he got as a gift from Johnny of El Magnifico. Matt got some Scheckter pickups and the "Frankenstein" bass was complete.