Mat Kearney

Mat Kearney is a Nashville-based singer and songwriter whose arching, mellow compositions often find him blending pop, CCM, hip-hop, and folk traditions. It was a genre-crossing vibe he first debuted with 2004′s Bullet, and he gained wider attention with 2006′s Nothing Left to Lose, the latter of which hit number four on the Christian Albums chart. He has continued to hone and deepen his sound, digging more into introspective folk and melodic pop on 2009′s City of Black & White, 2011′s Young Love, and 2015′s Just Kids, all of which reached the Top 20 of the Billboard 200. In 2021, he brought all of his varied influences together on the rootsy January Flower and returned in 2024 with his first self-titled album, Mat Kearney. Born in Eugene, Oregon, singer/songwriter Mat Kearney began his musical career 400 miles south at the Chico branch of California State University, where he studied literature and played on the soccer team. After completing his junior year, Kearney went to Nashville with friend/producer Robert Marvin with the intention of only staying the summer to lay down a few songs. However, after offers for recording deals started coming in, Kearney decided to remain in Tennessee to seriously pursue his songwriting career. Kearney’s interesting blend of hip-hop and folk intrigued Inpop Records, which offered him the deal he’d been looking for and released his debut album, Bullet, in 2004. Kearney dialed back on the rhymes for his follow-up effort, Nothing Left to Lose. Released by Aware/Columbia Records in 2006, the album proved to be fairly popular, with three songs appearing in various episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and two songs enjoying successful runs as singles. Kearney returned three years later with City of Black & White, supporting the album’s release with a tour alongside Keane and the Helio Sequence. In July 2011, he released Young Love on the Universal label, coinciding with a tour with Owl City. Three years later, Kearney delivered his follow-up, Just Kids. The album saw him working once again with Josh Crosby — as well as MDL (Justin Bieber, Maroon 5) — while drawing influence for the album from his time growing up in Eugene. He then joined Needtobreathe on tour and returned with the singles “Face to Face” and “Better Than I Used to Be” from his 2018 full-length, the chart-topping Crazytalk. 2021 saw the release of his sixth full-length, January Flower, parts of which he wrote while in isolation in Joshua Tree and finished in Nashville with longtime producer Robert Marvin. He returned in 2024 with the eponymously titled Mat Kearney, which he co-produced alongside Micah Tawlks and Marc Scibilia. The album featured collaborations with Nashville’s the Brook and the Bluff and showcased the singles “Headlights Home,” “Palisades,” and “Good Thing Going.” ~ Matt Collar & Marisa Brown