Matt Stell was around 12 when his mother gave him his first guitar - which he promptly stowed in a closet and forgot about for eight years or so. Instead, he threw himself into basketball, getting good enough to earn an athletic scholarship and pave the way toward earning his bachelor’s degree at Drury University earning his masters in communication at the University of Arkansas.
It was there he began hanging out with fellow students from Texas, who opened his eyes to their state’s unique legacy of great country music artists. Soon enough, Stell was performing his originals at a local bar (under a pseudonym—Paul Wayne Walker—so that his coach wouldn’t find out no less) and ultimately realized that music was the path he was destined to follow. He made the move to Music City around 2014 and eventually signed with Wide Open Music. On March 16th, Stell released his debut EP, Last of the Best, and here he kindly answers his Essential 8 where he talks about songwriting, passing those hours in the van, Stevie Wonder, and more. Do you write about personal experience, the experience of others, observations, made-up stories, something else or a combination? All of the above. When I started writing songs I drew a lot from personal experience. It was the easiest and most genuine place to start and I still write this way. After a while though, I started running out of interesting things that happened to me to write about. That’s when I started to branch out and write about things I heard about from other peoples’ perspectives. Some of my favorite songs are fictitious characters in situations I’ve only read about (Travis Tritt’s Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde, most of Marty Robbins’ stuff, Steve Earle, etc.) Nowadays I keep my antenna up pretty much all the time for any kind of story or perspective that’s interesting and could be the bones of a song. What’s your favorite/”go-to” food on the road? I’m always down for whatever the local flavor is. Honestly though, I’m always happy to see a Subway in the truck stop where I’m buying fuel. It’s not really my favorite, but at least my body doesn’t forget what a vegetable is before I get home. How do you kill the long hours in the van? Podcasts, books and iTunes U lectures. There’s nothing better than getting on iTunes and downloading the audio of a semester’s worth of lectures on an interesting topic. The lectures usually come from leaders in a particular field from the finest Universities in the country for free. I’ve learned about American and world history, philosophy of mind, law and justice, astronomy, behavioral economics, and a bunch more.
What’s the most frustrating thing about being on the road?
Traffic. Everybody says the traffic where they’re from is terrible and they’re all right. What do you love most about being on the road? My favorite part about being on the road is when the crowd connects to the music. There’s no better feeling to me than seeing my music be a part of folks’ good times. I doubt I’m the first to say this but I get paid to travel, unload and then reload the trailer. The music part is the reward. Favorite (or first) concert you have ever attended? I saw Stevie Wonder on the Songs in the Key of Life Tour. It was unreal; I almost quit music it was so good. I also saw Justin Timberlake with Chris Stapleton this summer and that was pretty crazy too. Do you have a favorite gift from a fan? There’s a girl named Shannon that makes these digital lyric collages that are really cool. She puts a lot of time and effort into them and that means a lot to me. Is there a recent release you cannot stop listening to? In no particular order: Tyler Childers’ Purgatory, David Ramirez’ We’re Not Going Anywhere and Jameson Rodgers’ EP. Website/Facebook/Twitter
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