Mat Kearney Interview – Making Pop Music Matter

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Things we talked about:

• His early life as a skater, soccer player and making up songs to rap tracks
• Experimenting with a friend’s guitar, college with a major in literature
• How that early life informed what would become his unique musical style
• His first vocal lessons with me
• The difference focusing on lyric-to-heart made in Mat’s singing
• The green sticker (that I couldn’t find!)
• How his style morphed from free style rap to folk/pop in a great pocket
• The core job of an artist
• A story of creating hit song ‘Closer To Love’
• The pressure of a hit career numbing out joy; rediscovering that joy in reconnecting to vocal
• Streaming as a financial boon for the recordings he owns
• His kids discovering his music lessons
• Writing ‘THE’ song for Oregon; playing his hometown

Here’s his video for”Closer To Love” 

More About Mat

Mat Kearny was born in Eugene, Oregon. He went to California State University (Chico) on an athletic scholarship, but majored in literature. He traveled with his friend al debut album Bullet in 2004.. When Mat showed up at our first vocal lesson, he was a brilliant free-style rapper, writing hip-hop lyrics with healing messages informed by his journey and experiences along the way. But along with words and grooves, there were melodies in his mind, so he wanted to grow his ability to sing instead of just rap. And he was serious!

After a couple of years of vocal training, Mat was signed to a very rare dual deal… on both pop and Christian labels (InPop and Aware?). His first major label release was the album Nothing Left To Lose, which contained some re-worked songs from his debut album (still on repeat for me) ‘Bullet’. A single titled ‘Undeniable’… was at the time the fastest added single in the history of Christian Hit Radio.