Mat Kearney Quotes

My faith plays a big part in who I am: a Christian guy playing pop-rock music. I'm in a pop-rock band, not a Christian band.

We were always just a hardcore band that came out and said what we believed in, but we also talked about the streets and the stuff that we were into and the struggles and everything we were going through. Once people found out we were Christian, it was always, 'Is that Christian music?'

U2 have a lot of religion, also people like Johnny Cash and Elvis. Those people weren't shy about it - it's nice there are people who've come before that were open about it.

I can relate to soul, R&B... whatever people want to call me is fine. I just hope it makes them feel something.

We've never been a religious band, but the media wants us to be.

I'm a country singer. I love all kinds of music, but country is where my loyalty lies. That's just me and what I do, and I'm not going to change it.

I am not a pop musician; I don't want to play bubble-gummy pop stuff.

Some people think I'm a rock 'n' roll musician and some think I'm a jazz musician but, for me, there is no difference.

I dropped the 'Bundy' with my country music because I wanted it to be two separate things: There's me as a songwriter and a country singer, and there's me as a Broadway performer.

I don't even call myself a Christian.

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

I don't make Christian rap, but I am a Christian rapper.

When we first started, I didn't know there was Christian rock or Christian music. I just thought we were a rock band that stuck to our convictions... Like every other hardcore band out there sang or screamed what they thought, we did the same thing.

My music is not Christian - Lecrae is. And you hear evidence of my faith in my music.

When I sing a pop song, I'm a pop singer. When I sing a country song, I'm a country singer. I've been very lucky to cross over, because by doing that, you can't be pigeonholed.

Pop is everything from Kanye West to Taylor Swift, it's all pop to me.

I actually fell in love with hip-hop before I fell in love with Jesus. I'm a fan of hip-hop, I love hip-hop. I don't even necessarily want to call myself 'Christian rapper.' You know, I don't want to put myself in that little box.

People grapple with labeling me as hip-hop, R&B, or pop, and it's interesting to me. I'm just making music.

I wouldn't call myself a jazz player or a blues player.

There is nothing wrong in performing rituals according to one's beliefs and culture.

"Country" has become a marketing term. I see myself as a songwriter.

I look upon [writing about religion] as a nice way to get by in this precarious world, though I've never been able to do it myself.

Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged"? In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time - calling upon God.

Religion is organized, and spirituality is what the individual feels in his relationship with truth and with God. And although spirituality may be expressed in a religion, many people are spiritual and never go to church. They aren't religious in the sense that they practice a certain type of discipline.

If kids say I'm just a gospel rapper, I won't be able to get in their cars.