Meet Matthew Rouch

We recently connected with Matthew Rouch and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Matthew, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.

I’ve never really been risk-averse. I have much stronger desire for adventure than I do complacency. I grew up around so many people living and working the same exact way, always taking the safer, more comfortable road. That sounded like the death of the human spirit to me. I would much rather take the risk and jump. True, you don’t know how it will turn out, you may fail miserably, you may end up broke and destitute, But I can live with that knowing that I took my shot. You only go around once in this life, you have to take chances. In fact, I would argue that risk itself is the spice of life. If you can easily predict how the next 10, 20, 30 years of your life will play out, why live them? Where’s the excitement in that? The circumstances are always impossible and there’s always a reason not to do something or try something, but do it anyway. All you need is the strong, inner-will to take that risk. Don’t listen to others. You know in your heart what you want to do in this life, do it.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

So I recently moved to Cincinnati a couple of years ago. I have a good career, but my passion is music. I started a band here, this is now the fourth city I’ve started one in, and we’re having a blast. We’re called Matt Rouch & The Noise Upstairs, and we play folk, americana, and country music. Our focus has been getting into the local arts and music scene, making new friends, and building new relationships. I’ve always loved writing and performing, I truly believe it’s what I was meant to do. We made a lot of progress this past year and we’re looking to improve upon that in 2025. If you’re around the Cincinnati area keep an eye out for us and we hope to catch you at our next show!

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?

1. Self-awareness. 2. Taking constructive criticism. 3. Never being satisfied. These three combined have taken me far. In my case, knowing my level of music ability and being able to look at it objectively was very important. Being able to listen to others when they were sincerely trying to help me is a vastly underrated skill in my opinion. And finally, no matter what your passion is, if you think you’ve ever reached the top, you should quit. Every time I write a song, I always want to do better on the next one. That doesn’t mean don’t ever stop to smell the roses, but keeping that ambition alive and always wanting to push forward is crucial to success. If you work hard you will improve, no matter what you’re doing. It’s not ever about reaching some pinnacle or milestone, because once you reach it, there’s another one on the horizon, it never ends, you never reach the top, you have to fall in love with the process and the journey, stay hungry.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

Any venues, sponsors, bars, restaurants, community event planners, etc. who are thinking about having live music. We are always looking to collaborate on different events and can recommend tons of bands as well. Anyone interested can contact us through our website.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mattrouchandthenoiseupstairs.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattrouchandthenoiseupstairs/?next=%2F
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553412144917
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@mattrouchmusic