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" I never wanted to be on an exclusively Christian label. "
Mat Kearney
Never
Wanted
Christian
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" I thought my second record was good, but it didn't have that smash hit we did on the first one that somehow found its way onto tons of formats of radio stations. "
Mat Kearney
Way
First
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" Paul Simon is the king! "
Mat Kearney
Paul
Simon
Paul Simon
" I was an English major in college, so I really liked spoken word and poetry; it was what I did before I wrote music. "
Mat Kearney
Before
Word
Poetry
" I don't spend afternoons practicing my guitar to get better. I do read, though, to get inspiration for my lyrics. "
Mat Kearney
Better
Inspiration
Guitar
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Guitar
You
Sound
" My goal is to try to avoid a genre. "
Mat Kearney
Try
Genre
Goal
" There are a lot of great recording artists, like Jack White and Jack Johnson, who stay confined inside a very small box, but I'm more like Bon Iver, who recorded an album with programmed drums, and the next record was totally organic. I get that. "
Mat Kearney
Small
White
More
" I was an English major, and I always wrote poems. "
Mat Kearney
Always
English
Wrote
" I think I have always made really beat-driven pop-rock records. "
Mat Kearney
Made
Records
Always
" I do know great books help shape who I am and how I look at life. "
Mat Kearney
Know
Great
Help
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
High School
Hip-Hop
School
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Music
People
Soccer
" I had the lyric 'Chip Don't Go' and a few words, and my wife came in and said that it sounded like a good song. I thought I'd finish writing it up and posting it to YouTube. I didn't realize it was going to take off like it did. "
Mat Kearney
Good
Words
Writing
" When 'Young Love' came out, I was really excited, and it has been really special. "
Mat Kearney
Been
Out
Special
" I think, in a lot of ways, hip-hop is interesting to me because it's like the modern-day folk music. "
Mat Kearney
Music
Interesting
Me
" The first year I moved to Nashville, I started playing these songwriter nights with people like Nickel Creek, Duncan Sheik, and even Ryan Adams... That was the first place I really started playing music, and I had to really step up my game. Really quick. Or get kicked off the stage. "
Mat Kearney
People
Place
Step
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
World
Day
Love
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Style
You
Will
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Real
Muse
Middle
" I love what I do. I love playing music. "
Mat Kearney
Playing
I Love
Love
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
You
Time
Place
" I've always sought to get after something that's foundational in people. That comes through my faith, through my belief in life, through trying to hit something that's true every time. I think that's really where you move people, when you touch on something that's true, that's not based on fluff or based on a moment or a movement. "
Mat Kearney
Life
Moment
People
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
More
Love
Life
" I was always into poetry and writing. So the urgency of spoken word is something that really has always appealed to me. "
Mat Kearney
Poetry
Urgency
Writing
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Passion
Study
College
" I'm actually named Matthew William Kearney: my middle name is named after my grandfather. "
Mat Kearney
Grandfather
Actually
Name
" Hopefully, reading and being around great literature inspires me to write songs, but I'm not sure about that. "
Mat Kearney
Write
Me
Literature
" It's been awesome going indie. I don't need to be on a major label. I love not having to walk into a specific radio person's office to try to convince someone to play my songs. At the end of the day, it's more work, but I've discovered that I like to get my hands dirty. "
Mat Kearney
Day
Love
Hands
" I never got too specialized but did like the Southern Gothic writers like William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. "
Mat Kearney
Got
Gothic
Southern
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Moving
Love
Work