A biography for Mat Kearneyhasn’t been written yet.
“My goal is to try to avoid a genre.”
“The first record blew up and sold really well. 'City of Black & White' didn't sell as well, and that's when you wonder, 'Did I peak already?'”
“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.”
“It's a job, and it's challenging. But I love music and creating. That's why I got into music.”
“I think, in a lot of ways, hip-hop is interesting to me because it's like the modern-day folk music.”
“I was always into poetry and writing. So the urgency of spoken word is something that really has always appealed to me.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I do know great books help shape who I am and how I look at life.”
“When I barely got into college, the one thing I could do was write, so I became an English major.”
“Owl City is exactly as you'd imagine him. It's hard to have much on him. He's like a frightened bunny. I feel like if you yelled at him, he'd just dart to a corner of the room.”
“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.”