Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I love Michigan.
Paul Simon is the king!
Songs really tend to connect.
My songs have a layer of melancholy.
Life's too short to stay where we are.
Being from Oregon, it's part of who I am.
New Yorkers are historically tough crowds.
Trying to find a heart that's not walking away.
I guess we're all one phone call from our knees
I was an English major, and I always wrote poems.
Money definitely does not equal success in recording.
I never wanted to be on an exclusively Christian label.
Minneapolis has always been a very special place for me.
I think you can hear all my hip hop influences in 'Just Kids.'
I started as a writer. I didn't play music until late in life.
I think I have always made really beat-driven pop-rock records.
I do know great books help shape who I am and how I look at life.
I don't think, to be a traveler, you have to reject setting roots up.
I love creating moments that feel bigger than just like an artist on stage.
When I set out to write, I want to write something that will rip your heart out.
Generally, the songs that are the scariest ones are the ones that people connect to.
The stories that are too personally vulnerable to write are the ones that must be told.
I'm actually named Matthew William Kearney: my middle name is named after my grandfather.
My first album was hip-hop influenced, and my second was more of a singer-songwriter album.
I love Bruce Springsteen's writing, but I grew up on '90s hip hop, like Tribe Called Quest.
'City Of Black And White' was me trying to do something more mature, more adult contemporary.
My dad was a scratch golfer growing up. When I'm on the road, I always bring my clubs with me.
Don't apologize for all the tears you've cried, you've been way too strong now for all your life.
When I barely got into college, the one thing I could do was write, so I became an English major.
I don't know how much I'm connected to the hip-hop scene, but I definitely lend from that urgency.
I think, in a lot of ways, hip-hop is interesting to me because it's like the modern-day folk music.
I'm really influenced by '90s hip hop. A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul were my heroes growing up.
The songs that you start to write that you are a little scared of can be the ones that you have to tell.
Growing up in Eugene, Oregon, there was everything from The Notorious B.I.G. to Weezer playing in my car.
I enjoy changing; I think it's more fun to try something different than to just do what you did last time.
Hopefully, reading and being around great literature inspires me to write songs, but I'm not sure about that.
I never got too specialized but did like the Southern Gothic writers like William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor.
I don't spend afternoons practicing my guitar to get better. I do read, though, to get inspiration for my lyrics.
'Nothing Left to Lose' was an album that I wrote in my bedroom, and you don't know who is listening or who cares.
There's this song called 'Brad Chester,' which is like the depths of my family. It comes from a very personal place.
I was an English major in college, so I really liked spoken word and poetry; it was what I did before I wrote music.
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 was always into poetry and writing. So the urgency of spoken word is something that really has always appealed to me.
'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.
I love being vulnerable. It's scary. I feel like the best stuff that I have ever written can come from real vulnerable places.
It's not the circumstances that determine who you're gonna be but how you deal with these problems and pains that come your way.
Getting married and really digging in with another human being can point out your greatest strengths and your greatest weaknesses.
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.
As my uncle always says, 'If your vibe outweighs your substance, you're destined to be a novelty.' I think that is true in all art.