CheekyChicago

Okay- full disclosure here: Mat Kearney is kind of my dream man.  I mean, I’m in a happy relationship and I know he’s married and all,  but when it comes down to it, you really don’t get much cooler, much smarter, more talented and, most of all, any kinder than him. And one of the most refreshing things about being a journalist is coming across celebrities/famous artists/people you admire in general only to find them to be incredibly gracious and real. Sigh…

Ingrid Michaelson was no doubt a tough act to follow, but after listening incessantly to Kearney’s latest album City of Black and White for the last four months straight,  he was the artist I had come to see.  During his performance, he paid much homage to his first album- Nothing Left to Lose- and played all the songs you’d want to hear from his latest album, like “Closer to Love” and “All I Have.” But he also jumped through the crowd, covered Bruce Springsteen and free-styled about the taco stand across the street at Lawrence and Broadway.  His show was moving, elevating, but above all, it was fun.

However, like my experience with Ingrid, I found the man I met backstage more intriguing than the man everyone else got to revel at.  Read on and maybe you will revel too…

Cheeky: Where else in Chicago have you played?

Mat Kearney: I’ve played every place I think you can play in Chicago. I’ve played Schubas like four or five times, the Park West,  House Of Blues, Metro, The Chicago Theatre, The Aragon with Keane, and the Riveria. My management and label are out of Chicago, so I’ve spent a lot of time here.  Even coming up through the industry and as my career has grown, I would always be in Chicago doing shows. So it’s been a real testament to the notches on my career.

Cheeky: What do you like most about playing here?

Mat Kearney: I think it’s probably the best market for me in the country, as far as sales. It’s my favorite, actually. I mean, I don’t tell anyone that when I’m in all the other cities. (Laughs.) I love it. There’s something about the mix of all kinds of people that come out to my Chicago shows. There will be businessmen, some blue collar kids, the hip kids, it’s a good smorgasbord of all kinds of people.  Which is what I love. I am really a Springsteen at heart. I love writing just as much for the common man as I do trying to impress a critic.

Cheeky: Who are your musical inspirations?

MK: This record, I was really into Tom Petty.  I was into a lot of soul. I don’t know if you hear it as much, but I kind of focused on a more polished, adult sound. Like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding. And obviously, Springsteen is a big hero.  And then there’s a little bit of earlier U2 .

Cheeky: Since you didn’t really become a musician until you were in college, which is somewhat uncommon, tell us how you came into music?

MK: I was always a writer. I was in high school during the 90s, so all these bands like A Tribe Called Quest and those hip hop bands were a huge part of my influence. So I would write all this prose, but I wouldn’t write anything urban, because I was just this kid from Eugene, Oregon.  I would write these journal-like, diary-type songs, but in that rhyme form.  I would just write tons and I would write poems and I would try to impress girls with them.  I was kind of this struggling high school student – I barely graduated  with a 2.0 GPA. And I remember I wrote this one poem and I gave it to my teacher and she read it, and slid it across my desk and said, “You need to do this. You have a gift.”  And I was like, “Really?”

The thing is, music was always such a huge part of my life. I used to sit and just listen to music all day, every day.  But I had no way to create.

Cheeky: Did you even know you were a singer?

MK: No. I did not grow up singing. I think one grade I was in a choir class and the teacher called on me to sing a solo and I wouldn’t do it.  But in college, my roommate had a guitar, so I picked it up one day and taught myself a few chords. And I started with a few songs I could learn how to play, and then I started writing my own songs.  I didn’t know many keys or chords, so when I would learn one key, I would write like five songs in that some chord or progression.

I found it so much easier to write songs than to figure out how to play other people’s songs.  My skill was very much my own thing. I wasn’t the guy that could play anything I wanted, I wasn’t technically amazing.  And it bothered me at first, but then I started to love it.  I was reading Richard Ashcroft recently and he said something like: “My limitations are the things that I really love.” And that’s the thing that’s distinctly you and you stick to it and it’s yours.

Cheeky: The song “Annie” on your new record is my personal favorite song and I have to ask who it is about?

MK: It’s about a real girl named Annie who I met in Indianapolis.  She’s still really special to me.  She would put up posters for my show and she’s a really cool character.  A lover of music. And one day we were sitting backstage and she was telling me her story.  She grew up in Salt Lake City and had family stuff and had to leave.  For her, it was this moment of leaving, and about how people you love the most can sometimes hurt you the most.  It’s about telling them you need to go and how difficult that can be and the song came from that story.  It was one of the first songs I wrote for this record. I was in a van and trailer and we were driving home from this really crappy venue and I wrote the whole song in the back of the car.  It has one of my favorite lines that I’ve ever written that goes: “Sometimes the hardest things are the dreams that we’ve been given.”

Cheeky: You’re a tweeter… So tell me, as a famous musician, what are your thoughts on Twitter?

MK: I think Twitter is killing the mystery of life and of rock ‘n’ roll. I don’t know – it depends on what day you wake me up. I don’t like it today.  I didn’t like it yesterday either. The day before that, I loved it.  There are some fun things that have happened to me because of it. You get to connect and meet people and artists through it.  And you have to subtly find a way to promote yourself. Before it was the label’s job or your publicist’s, and now it’s part of your thing as the artist.  You have to be like, “Aw, geez, I sold out the Riv tonight – I’m so excited!” And that just feels weird to me and I don’t like doing that. I get it, as far as marketing is concerned and as a brand.  It’s cool on that front. I don’t know how I feel about it… let’s just say this… Bob Dylan probably doesn’t tweet.

Cheeky: So your latest album In the City of Black And White is really about this vagabond traveler finally connecting to the many people he encounters along the journey of his life, after coming from a place of loneliness and pain.  I guess my question is (and it’s a big one), but do you think people need to have that kind of experience to become who they are ultimately supposed to be?

MK: I don’t think pain is something that anyone can avoid in life. Someone said that loneliness is the greatest school of leadership.  And I think that’s true. This record is definitely about a journey into community.  I’ve been that vagabond, and I think I’m finding those people. Like even finding my band – those guys on stage with me are a part of that, so are the people I’ve met in my neighborhood in Nashville that I take with me when I go on tour, and some of that is the people I meet out on the road, and that’s all a part of my story. That’s a deep question. I think I’m still figuring all of that out.