Top 45 Mat Kearney Quotes

My songs have a layer of melancholy.

I’m actually named Matthew William Kearney: my middle name is named after my grandfather.

The criticism people could have of my music maybe is that it’s somewhat schizophrenic at times. And if you don’t like that, it could bother you.

I think I have always made really beat-driven pop-rock records.

I love Bruce Springsteen’s writing, but I grew up on ’90s hip hop, like Tribe Called Quest.

I didn’t start writing music until I was a sophomore in college. I would steal my roommate’s guitar and sit on the front porch and kind of blend this weird spoken word and these little melodies over simple chords; that really started my whole journey as a musician.

New Yorkers are historically tough crowds.

Generally, the songs that are the scariest ones are the ones that people connect to.

Money definitely does not equal success in recording.

There’s this song called ‘Brad Chester,’ which is like the depths of my family. It comes from a very personal place.

Paul Simon is the king!

I am a micromanager, and I love being involved in every detail of my life, but in the big picture, you realize how little control you have. ‘Air I Breathe’ is about those moments of surrender where you get to something that is bigger than you, and you don’t have answers for it.

I’ve never shaped or crafted my music for any specific group of people. Whoever connects with it is fine with me. I don’t care where they come from.

I think, in a lot of ways, hip-hop is interesting to me because it’s like the modern-day folk music.

I’ve never been one to learn scales and do exercises. Maybe I’m lazy, but I just don’t take to that kind of thing. Learning other people’s songs is enjoyable, and my fingers tend to go to new places because I’m not playing my music, the stuff that comes naturally to me.

More than any other instrument, the relationship between an acoustic guitar and a microphone is super-important. The kind of mics that you use and your placement of the mics to the guitar can radically alter your sound.

Growing up in Eugene, Oregon, there was everything from The Notorious B.I.G. to Weezer playing in my car.

When I was in college, I wanted to study film. My first passion was to be a cinematographer. So maybe there’s something innate in my music where it partners well with images.

When my first record came out, it was in the middle of the real Muse, Keane, British thing, and that beat-driven thing wasn’t really that cool at the moment.

I was an English major, and I always wrote poems.

I do know great books help shape who I am and how I look at life.

With ‘City of Black & White,’ I wanted a record that would make you feel good, that would sort of take you up in its hand and sweep you along.

When ‘Young Love’ came out, I was really excited, and it has been really special.

There are people I love in Nashville and would not want to go a day without talking to, but I want to see the world.

I love to play the songs that got me to where I am. I like to take a little bit from all of my records and mix it up.

I don’t know how much I’m connected to the hip-hop scene, but I definitely lend from that urgency.

When I set out to write, I want to write something that will rip your heart out and connect with you. Great songs connect beyond genre and style.

I was an English major in college, so I really liked spoken word and poetry; it was what I did before I wrote music.

My first album was hip-hop influenced, and my second was more of a singer-songwriter album.

All of my acoustic playing came from my songwriting. All of the chords I’ve learned and all of the voicings I play them in are a direct result of composing.

I didn’t know music would end up being my job, but I loved it so much I wanted to do it every day.

I don’t think, to be a traveler, you have to reject setting roots up.

The problem in this country is people gravitate toward one genre, and that’s what they embrace. I don’t understand that. If you hit me with Bell Biv Devoe meets country, well, I like the sound of that concept.

I started as a writer. I didn’t play music until late in life.

I grew up in Oregon, so there was always a lot of that folksy, Bob Marley stuff. There was a mural of Bob Marley on a wall at my high school.

Songs like ‘Learn To Love Again’ and ‘Rochester’ and some of the more gut-wrenching ones deal with the pain of the younger times of your life… trying to make sense of some the stuff we probably all went through.

I’ve always been a writer. I’ve always done writing or spoken-word, hip-hop stuff with my friends.

When we tour, there’s always this unique quality to every town you visit… Touring, you get a sense of a collective identity for different cities. That’s one of the things I love about my job.

I think coming from the Northwest is something that’s born in your blood. On my mom’s side, I’m, like, a sixth-generation Oregonian. My family came over in the covered wagons, ‘Oregon Trail’-video-game style. Maybe the pioneer mentality runs in my blood because they were all pioneers.

It’s silly to throw things out or label things. You know, is U2 a Christian band, or was Johnny Cash a Christian country singer? I don’t know, but they’re pretty open about their faith.

I enjoy changing; I think it’s more fun to try something different than to just do what you did last time. As an artist, you just want to keep creating, keep finding a place that really inspires you that feels fresh and new, and keep it exciting.

I think the way I love talking about my faith is through my story because I think that’s all we have to work with sometimes. I think it’s the most moving way to share your story, too – is what you know, what you’ve seen and heard and tasted and felt.

God found me when I was at my lowest point. That was the first time in my life when I really felt like I understood who Jesus was – it was more than just knowing about Him: I felt like He met me in that time and place.

Being from Oregon, it’s part of who I am.

As an artist, you tend to gravitate to the opposite. I know, when I finish a song or an album, I’m interested in doing something completely new. It doesn’t always happen, but that’s the idea. My poor fans – I don’t know if they love that or hate that.