MAT KEARNEY

I love Michigan.

I was an English major in college, so I really liked spoken word and poetry; it was what I did before I wrote music.

Generally, the songs that are the scariest ones are the ones that people connect to.

There's this song called 'Brad Chester,' which is like the depths of my family. It comes from a very personal place.

Minneapolis has always been a very special place for me.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I don't know how much I'm connected to the hip-hop scene, but I definitely lend from that urgency.

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.

Growing up in Eugene, Oregon, there was everything from The Notorious B.I.G. to Weezer playing in my car.

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.

I never got too specialized but did like the Southern Gothic writers like William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor.

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.

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.

I'm actually named Matthew William Kearney: my middle name is named after my grandfather.

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.

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.

I can't help but do things my own way.

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.

I love what I do. I love playing music.

When 'Young Love' came out, I was really excited, and it has been really special.

I think I have always made really beat-driven pop-rock records.