We were lucky to catch up with Matt B recently and have shared our conversation below.
Matt, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
Honestly, my family has always been really big on working smart if you want to move forward in life and achieve your goals. It’s been instilled in me since I was a child. Over the years, I found other things to continue motivating me to move forward, such as my wife and three children.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Artistically, I love architecture and engineering. When I scroll through social media, that’s actually the content I consume the most. I’m also really interested in mental health. I think the world could always use a bit more love, especially in these dark times. Creating that village or tribe around you makes all the difference when it comes to being grounded enough to persevere through the storm.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Accepting the fact that when you create art, it’s meant to act as a conversation starter. Those dialogues around the art are extremely important. People are entitled to their own opinions, whether they are negative or positive. I think there should always be a divide of opinions when talking about art. If everyone likes it, I don’t feel like the artist truly created an impactful body of work.
Being able to do a lot of things on your own is also an important skill to have. It doesn’t mean you should do everything by yourself, but you should at least possess the skills to do it in a pinch. I vividly remember shooting and editing my own music videos and learning how to record myself in ProTools. I learned a lot about photography as well as graphic design. These skills have helped me throughout my journey even though I’m not the one predominantly doing them now. I know enough about it to weigh in and that’s really important as an artist to ensure your full vision is being told.
My last one would be managing burnout. There was something very profound I read a little while ago that talked about burnout. It went into great detail about consistency and how important it is to remain consistent versus just doing something really great over a short period of time. A lot of times as artists, we are looking for that one big moment. But the truth is — that moment doesn’t really exist. It’s a combination of many little moments that eventually create that big moment. In order to get to that, you have to remain consistent over time and not try to do things that you think will create a big splash. Instead, create small ripples in the water and those ripples will eventually take over the entire ocean.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
My biggest growth has honestly been the completion of my album, ALKEBULAN. During that process, we recorded over 20 songs and thought that we would take from those to complete the album. However, after much deliberation we decided to start over and recorded an additional 10 songs which ended up being the entire body of work. During that process, I learned a lot about what it means to remain dedicated to what you want to achieve. I sang in multiple languages throughout the process of creating this body of work which was extremely difficult because I don’t speak those languages, so getting an accurate interpretation of the dialect was not easy, but it was 100% worth it. This was also the very first time that I had full creative control over my body of work. I really didn’t have the guidance that I typically had from a producer over my shoulder telling me what was or wasn’t good. I was the decision-maker. In some ways it made the creation process a lot more difficult because the pressure was on me to determine what the final product should be. All in all, it was a brilliant learning experience and I’m so grateful for the growth.
What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The best thing to do is try, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. I personally don’t believe in losses, I believe in lessons. As long as I have learned something worthwhile from an experience then it was worth it to me. Keeping a positive attitude is really important in this industry, despite the ups and downs. There is a lot of comparison that happens in this business, especially in the world of social media. You have to possess this radical acceptance that there’s always someone out there who is more talented than you. At the end of the day, talent is not enough to get you to the next level. It’s really about the personal relationships that you have with people and being genuine within those relationships.
Image Credits
Press 2_Photographer_Oscar Veliz.jpg Press 4_Photographer_Angela Benson.jpg Press 22_Photographer_Oscar Veliz.jpg Press 27 – Credit_ Oscar Veliz.jpg
