New Yorkers are historically tough crowds.
— Mat Kearney
I've had moments in my career when I've made more money and had more success than at other times, but I've realized being happy has very little to do with any of that.
I love what I do. I love playing music.
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.
My goal is to try to avoid a genre.
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.
I'm really influenced by '90s hip hop. A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul were my heroes growing up.
There's something incredibly vulnerable about middle school for me. We're really impressionable during that period. The cement's still wet, so to speak, and a lot of things later in life are born during that season.
There's this song called 'Brad Chester,' which is like the depths of my family. It comes from a very personal place.
Generally, the songs that are the scariest ones are the ones that people connect to.
I think, in a lot of ways, hip-hop is interesting to me because it's like the modern-day folk music.
I've always been a writer. I've always done writing or spoken-word, hip-hop stuff with my friends.
The criticism people could have of my music maybe is that it's somewhat schizophrenic at times. And if you don't like that, it could bother you.
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 can't help but do things my own way.
I didn't know music would end up being my job, but I loved it so much I wanted to do it every day.
Growing up in Eugene, Oregon, there was everything from The Notorious B.I.G. to Weezer playing in my car.
When I first started writing music, it was to express that. I was trying to find God and trying to find meaning in my life. That's what my music was about. It wasn't to entertain.
I never wanted to be on an exclusively Christian label.
I don't know how much I'm connected to the hip-hop scene, but I definitely lend from that urgency.
I love Michigan.
I do know great books help shape who I am and how I look at life.
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.
Minneapolis has always been a very special place for me.
It's a job, and it's challenging. But I love music and creating. That's why I got into music.
I grew up in Oregon, so there was always a lot of that folksy, Bob Marley stuff. There was a mural of Bob Marley on a wall at my high school.
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 never got too specialized but did like the Southern Gothic writers like William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor.
The problem in this country is people gravitate toward one genre, and that's what they embrace. I don't understand that. If you hit me with Bell Biv Devoe meets country, well, I like the sound of that concept.
I would sit in my dorm room and write songs. I loved it. I was learning to sing and play guitar. I was becoming a musician. I was the beginner who somehow could write a song.
I'm a '90s music kid.
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.'
I was an English major in college, so I really liked spoken word and poetry; it was what I did before I wrote music.
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.
Hopefully, reading and being around great literature inspires me to write songs, but I'm not sure about that.
Being from Oregon, it's part of who I am.
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.
The first album was literally the first 12 songs I've ever written.
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.
You go to a Springsteen show, and half of the people are there to party and forget about their cares, and they're being drawn to this visceral experience. And then the other half, you know, has lived and died with his 'Nebraska' album and considers him one of the greatest poets.
I don't spend afternoons practicing my guitar to get better. I do read, though, to get inspiration for my lyrics.
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.
