Mat Kearney Quotes
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I never wanted to be on an exclusively Christian label.
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When I started forming my own taste, there was a period in high school when I listened to only rap and hip-hop, like A Tribe Called Quest.
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I'm a '90s music kid.
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My songs have a layer of melancholy.
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I was always into poetry and writing. So the urgency of spoken word is something that really has always appealed to me.
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I do know great books help shape who I am and how I look at life.
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Paul Simon is the king!
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'Young Love' is about falling in love and dealing with your past so you can move forward. I wanted it to be a clear record.
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I think you can hear all my hip hop influences in 'Just Kids.'
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I played soccer. I was really known as an athlete. It was a shock to people that I was doing music. They thought it was really odd.
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I'm painfully a realist but ruthlessly an optimist. I think maybe it's because of my faith - I've always got the hope that there is something out there to make it all worthwhile.
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The first record blew up and sold really well. 'City of Black & White' didn't sell as well, and that's when you wonder, 'Did I peak already?'
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Being from Oregon, it's part of who I am.
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Ultimately, when you write from a vantage point of faith, humility, and openness to the world around you, people have to respond because those same truths are instilled in them.
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Choosing an acoustic guitar for a live setting can be different from picking out one for recording. One doesn't always work for the other. The sonic properties can be vastly different.
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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.
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My dad was a scratch golfer growing up. When I'm on the road, I always bring my clubs with me.
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I was an English major, and I always wrote poems.
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Even on tour, where I perform songs from 'City Of Black And White,' I still do songs from 'Nothing Left To Lose.' I never turned my back on that material. On some albums, you change - that's all. The trick is to follow your heart and do what feels right.
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Generally, the songs that are the scariest ones are the ones that people connect to.
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I would sit in my dorm room and write songs. I loved it. I was learning to sing and play guitar. I was becoming a musician. I was the beginner who somehow could write a song.
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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.
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There's this song called 'Brad Chester,' which is like the depths of my family. It comes from a very personal place.
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The first album was literally the first 12 songs I've ever written.