Come out and hear Mat Kearney live. This will be something awesome!

Mat was born and raised in Eugene, Oregon with his two brothers. Through his mother he is a sixth generation Oregonian and his father's family emigrated from Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine[3]. In high school, Mat devoted much of his time to painting, graffiti, soccer, poetry, and music, though he was not playing... show more

Come out and hear Mat Kearney live. This will be something awesome!

Mat was born and raised in Eugene, Oregon with his two brothers. Through his mother he is a sixth generation Oregonian and his father's family emigrated from Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine[3]. In high school, Mat devoted much of his time to painting, graffiti, soccer, poetry, and music, though he was not playing music at the time. His favorite artists growing up ranged from A Tribe Called Quest to Bob Dylan.

He attended California State University, Chico in Chico, California where he majored in literature and played soccer until his junior year. It was also at this time when Mat picked up a guitar for the first time. Using a roommate's guitar, he tried covering other songs. Realizing he was not too good at it, he began writing his own. Though things were going well for Kearney at school, Chico caught up to him. At a school known for its partying, Mat fit right in. In an interview, Mat said, "I guess I lived it up and did what everyone said you should do in college. I discovered the depth of depravity, the bleakness of that lifestyle. It just wasn’t working. I finally started understanding there must be more to life." Mat continued, "God found me when I was at my lowest point. That was the first time in my life when I really felt like I understood who Jesus was- it was more than knowing about Him, I felt like He met me in that time and place."

Mat began focusing on music fusing his simple guitar playing with spoken word, or rap, he started to play at coffee shops and soon began to make small amounts of money. At this time, Mat had met friend and future producer, Robert Marvin. The two began to make music together, but Marvin had plans to move to Nashville, Tennessee. Marvin asked Kearney to help the move and Mat accepted the journey. Kearney says, "I helped him pack up his trailer and we put a mattress on the back of his truck. We basically drove cross-country and slept in the back. When we pulled into Nashville we slept in a school parking lot for three days until we finally rented this apartment where the roof was caving in and mice were crawling all over." Mat decided to stay in Nashville to record a few demos with Marvin and after a few months, Mat had no plans on returning. "By the end of the summer, we had three or four songs and I realized this is what I wanted to do. It just clicked. So I called home to Oregon and said, ‘I’m not coming back’ and I never left Nashville."
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