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" I was an English major, and I always wrote poems. "
Mat Kearney
Always
English
Wrote
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" I read about two reviews early on when my first record came out, and it just freaked me out, good and bad, so I've never really kept up with that side of it. "
Mat Kearney
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Early
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
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Playing
Them
" 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'm actually named Matthew William Kearney: my middle name is named after my grandfather. "
Mat Kearney
Grandfather
Actually
Name
" I'm a '90s music kid. "
Mat Kearney
Kid
Music
" I think you can hear all my hip hop influences in 'Just Kids.' "
Mat Kearney
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I Think
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" 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
" I don't know how much I'm connected to the hip-hop scene, but I definitely lend from that urgency. "
Mat Kearney
Connected
Urgency
Much
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Silly
You
Know
" Paul Simon is the king! "
Mat Kearney
Paul
Simon
Paul Simon
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Music
People
Lazy
" I love Michigan. "
Mat Kearney
Michigan
I Love
Love
" Money definitely does not equal success in recording. "
Mat Kearney
Recording
Does
Equal
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Optimist
Hope
Think
" I didn't know music would end up being my job, but I loved it so much I wanted to do it every day. "
Mat Kearney
Loved
Know
Music
" 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 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
" 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
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Love
You
Song
" 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
Good
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Style
Family
Born
" I love what I do. I love playing music. "
Mat Kearney
Playing
I Love
Love
" I can't help but do things my own way. "
Mat Kearney
Things
My Own
Way
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Love
Unique
Quality
" For my father, he didn't know what 'Grey's Anatomy' was. He didn't know who John Mayer was. But when I showed up on the 'Law & Order' TNT promo spot, he thought, 'Wow, my son has made it.' "
Mat Kearney
Thought
Grey
Know
" 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
" 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. "
Mat Kearney
Simple
College
Journey
" My goal is to try to avoid a genre. "
Mat Kearney
Try
Genre
Goal
" Growing up in Eugene, Oregon, there was everything from The Notorious B.I.G. to Weezer playing in my car. "
Mat Kearney
Up
Car
Growing