MATTHEW THORNTON – HIS CAREER & ROOTS
The first song I ever sang was “Anywhere’s Better Than Here’ by The Replacements. My older brother Patrick started playing guitar when I was about 12, he was about 17. He had me sing harmonies for the song he just learned. When that sound came from our voices blending and his rough guitar chords, I knew it was something I loved. I wasn’t very good. And I had no idea what was happening, but I loved it.
Patrick moved to college and I didn’t know why but I had to keep singing somehow. My Dad had an old acoustic guitar in the basement. It was so old that it didn’t have a brand name. He had played it for a bit in his early twenties or something. Of course, it was right handed so I re-strung it (probably very poorly) and I slowly learned three chords. I learned U2’s “Running To Stand Still.” It took me five months. If you’ve never played an instrument, that is way too long to learn a song. With the right teacher, it would have taken two weeks. The problem is this: if a teacher had tried to tell me what to do, I would have rebelled and you would not be reading this.
Once I could play songs, I didn’t do homework again. I would go to school, go to work, get home, eat, play songs, sleep, repeat. I found that my favorite place on earth was in in the song. My limited college experience was no different. I didn’t even buy the books for my first semester. They were expensive and I had already read some of them anyway. My first semester of college I got a 2.6 GPA. The next semester I got a 1.6 GPA. Then a .6 GPA. The college noticed a bit of a pattern developing, and they took away my scholarships, which were the only way I could afford to attend. I have no clue why they gave me them in the first place. My high school grades were mostly D’s by senior year because guitar.
I was never told music was an option. I didn’t think it was possible. So I went from job to job, not miserable but unfulfilled. I undertook the decade long chore of replacing my thought systems. The best way I’ve heard thought patterns described is that they are like sledding paths down a hill. Once they are formed, it’s hard to get off of them and go through the untouched snow. Usually you give yourself a push and your sled locks into a previously formed path and you end up at one of the same spots you always do. I knew I had to change my thinking and it took FOREVER. (I’m still working on it actually, and I’m not sure if I have even moved the needle.) It took my mentor/boss Paul Johnson and my then future wife Kristi to finally jar me out of my worn out paths. I left my job willingly after Paul said it was time to go play music. I like to think of it as a mutual firing because he was that smooth. Everyone needs a Paul. My wish for you is this: to have someone who knows you well and will gently push you off the plane because he knows you will figure out how to knit a parachute or some other fun metaphor. It worked and he changed my life. I hope he doesn’t mind me mentioning his name here, but too bad. If you spend your days running around pushing people out of metaphorical airplanes or into deep ends of figurative pools, you deal with the blame/credit.
I’m not sure how long or detailed this is supposed to be, but this is kind of fun, so here’s more.
Newly unemployed, I found some gigs. I played with many musicians, all of whom were more talented and more skilled than I. Some lasted a while. Some didn’t. In 2012 we did 393 gigs. We didn’t want to do that again. I’d elaborate about each person and their contributions but it would take too long. Just know that I love them all and was lucky to know them.
Working closely with people made me learn an awful lot about them and myself. I am not easy. I am not proud of that. But I am also aware of a bunch of helpful quotes from actual leaders and visionaries that I tell myself to justify myself to myself. For example: “If you want to make everybody happy, don’t be a leader. Sell ice cream.” -Steve Jobs. Don’t you love it when middle aged half failed musicians use Steve Jobs quotes to justify being difficult or stubborn? “I’m just like him! No one understands how genius I am. THAT’S why people keep quitting.”
Learning about myself is no longer interesting to me. Who I am is super boring and irrelevant, so back to the timeline.
About 7 years into playing music as a profession, we got a manager. He got us on a big tour. We opened for Rob Thomas on his 67 city The Great Unknown Tour. We went around the country twice in a baby blue Honda Odyssey that we rented from my wife’s cousin’s mom. It was awesome. Touring with Rob was a crash course master class. He is a master writer and showman. He also became a really good friend. He and his entire crew were welcoming and generous. They helped us so much it is hard to describe. His fans were so welcoming it made me feel all my feelings. We keep in touch with many of them still.
There is an excitement that sets in when those big moments happen. It feels like things might actually happen. Things we worked so hard for. We did some bucket list stuff on that tour. We got a standing ovation at the Ryman in Nashville. We played the Beacon Theater in New York. They were mostly music related bucket list items, we didn’t swim with dolphins, or zip line into a volcano, or anything like that. But the excitement was there. We were talking to labels, meeting an occasional celebrity, and having the time of our lives. And also crying. Well, I was crying here and there because of the difficulties of being away from my family. But overall it was amazing.
Then, we were back to playing our smaller gigs. It took some getting used to. But I love to play. And even when it’s hard, or it seems like no one is listening, I remind myself that I’m lucky to be working. And I remind myself over and over “This is when someone else would have quit.” During voice issues that took 22 months to improve and are ongoing, family hardships mostly from lack of money, personnel changes, label issues, setbacks from gear to bookings to God knows what... The plan has been simple. I am not going to stop. It’s probably a really stupid plan, but I’m kind of “pot committed” at this point (that’s a gambling term, not a weed addiction), so I’m just going to stay in until I can’t do it anymore.
And I’m not going to stop because I can still get in the song. I hope I’ll be able to do that for a long while. I have already played more songs than most will get to in a lifetime. I just love that big oval elevator I can get into and invite anyone else who wants to join. One person or ten thousand, it doesn’t matter. Then the doors close us in together and the rest of the world is gone for around 4 minutes.