A Quote by Mat Kearney
I love to play the songs that got me to where I am. I like to take a little bit from all of my records and mix it up.
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A lot of love records or breakup records, a lot of the songs can tend to be on the blame side and the bitter side. And this was good for me, writing, because it made me feel like I was forcing myself to be more mature and grow up a little bit. It's not putting the blame on anybody, it's accepting responsibility just as much as the other person.
Each night, we try something new, play different songs, see what works, what goes down well, mix it up a bit until we find the right mix.
I just take rock songs and mix it with hip-hop and a little bit of R&B.
I like to mix and match things so I'm infusing a little bit of jazz, a little bit of classical, a little bit of soul, into the whole blues idiom and I'm coming up with something that I'm really interested in.
I feel like I kind of got my own lane, but I think if you mix T.I., Andre3000, Hov and Kanye you kinda get who I am. And I'm a huge fan of all of those artists, I grew up on a little bit of all them.
The public has heard the stereotypical love songs a million times, and they've heard the stereotypical life-or-death songs millions of times. It's good to mix it up a little bit.
So I realized when I was successful in a piece, it was because I didn't abandon a notion early on what it ought to be, and I let it take me along. So I've had songs that started out as being about the environment and ended up being love songs and love songs that ended up being about the environment. I've had things that I thought would be a poem and realized that it was just too big for that. I've got to do something larger and it became a play. I wrote one poem that started a whole play.
I care about the records I make and I love writing songs and some songs are really dear to me and they mean something. But the memory of making the records and the activities surrounding the records, the people involved in them is actually a bigger thing to me.
I think a handful of the roles that I've gotten to play are characters whom I've lived that are like younger versions of me but who are maybe more naive and a little bit wilder than when I was. And I've gotten to play 16 and 17 when I was a little bit older, so I got to pull from experience.
Now my dad is with me, traveling with me and a big part of this whole thing is I like to mix it up a little bit, you know. Who gets to take their father on a private jet across the country and stay in first class hotels? So we're enjoying it, but I'd stop if it's not possible.
When you mix a record that someone else is on, you've got to send it to them. They've got to like the mix, you got to like the mix, the producer's got to like the mix. Too many people are involved!
In September 2012, I got the blues pretty bad, so I stopped playing for a little while. I started to renew my playing by the time February of 2013 came around. I would go up and rehearse to different songs, play stuff like Count Basie records, jazz or rap.
Maybe you are homophobic a little bit, but then you see me, and you've always loved me, and you love the way I play, and your kids love me. And then you're like, 'Oh, that's OK. It's fine.' Once it gets a little bit more personal, it helps break down those barriers.
I liked Western country, like cowboy songs, when I was a little kid. Then I developed a taste for Hank Williams and those sort of songs as I got a little bit older.
I've never been an artist that really got into fluff songs. I like songs that have substance to them. I think sometimes that may hurt me commercially a little bit. But I like to cut things that have the power to speak to people on an emotional level. That's the power of country music to me.
I would say that I definitely play a different role with my style; I like to mix it up a bit according to wherever I am. I dress differently in New York, L.A., Paris and London.
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