Matt Maeson’s first show was at a Chick-fil-A open mic night. It was also a competition, and the singer with the best performance would win free Chick-fil-A for a year. (In total honestly, it was actually 52 coupons for one free meal, Maeson clarifies. Still a significant amount of chicken.) “I was seventeen and so scared,” Maeson tells American Songwriter about the contest. “But yeah, I won. And then I was like, ‘You know what, I think I can do this.’ Then [I] just went from there, playing bar gigs and then eventually playing in prisons with my parents at a prison ministry. [I] kind of cut my teeth playing live before I found any kind of success. And then once I did, I felt like I was like ready for it.”
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From a Chick-fil-A lobby and bar gigs to headlining his own show, Maeson’s path to success was a winding one. Even before his debut as a performer, Maeson was surrounded by music. His father was a guitar player for some metal bands and his mother would occasionally sing in those bands. On top of that, his uncle was a drummer and Maeson remembers his sister singing in church. But for Maeson, he says that he never really found his identity until he was around 15 or 16 years old and picked up the guitar.
Fast forward to 2016, and Maeson drops his first single titled “Cringe.” The song hits No. 1 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, and his second single “Hallucinogenics” did the same. Maeson was set on a promising path through the music industry.
But as any artist will tell you, success doesn’t come for free. “It’s really hard to not be affected by success because you kind of have this fear, I guess, of losing it that develops,” Maeson says.
“And it’s really hard not to let that affect how you write, because then as soon as you let that in when you’re writing, that’s when… you’re just trying to write like everybody else.”
Weary of his success, but thankful for it at the same time, Maeson spent the past three years working through his feelings about the music industry, his faith, and both his past and his future. It was an emotionally-charged rollercoaster, one that was also ridden through the COVID-19 pandemic, but Maeson arrived at the end of the experience feeling recentered. “I learned a lot about myself,” he says of this period. “I tried to remind myself in those years to just wait for the inspiration to come rather than trying to force anything.”
The result of this introspection? Maeson’s latest album, Never Had to Leave.
Never Had to Leave is a 12-track album that Maeson declares to be his “most eclectic project.” It rocks hard, slows down, picks up again with a catchy pop hook, and then addresses Maeson’s folk leanings—all in one record. And it works, because it’s telling the story of Matt Maeson at this moment in time.
One song on the album, “Cut Deep,” was completed after Maeson took a hard look behind the curtain of the music industry. “I had originally written that song for a very big pop artist that will go unnamed,” Maeson says. “And they flew me out to L.A. and I got put into a session. Then I realized, ‘Oh shit, this person is at the top-top, has all the resources in the world, and they’re literally just paying 300 people to get in rooms together and write their entire record for them.’ That’s super disappointing.”
And after Maeson took “Cut Deep” back for himself, he wrote the bridge about that very disappointment. I’m behind the wall, Maeson wrote, Harnessed my reprieve to try and see it all/ I’m not scared to talk.
In addition, “Sanctified” follows Maeson as he questions his beliefs and features personal revelations from the singer. The high-energy opening track, “Blood Runs Red,” is another standout track, as well as the delightfully anecdotal “Nelsonwood Lane.”
All in all, Maeson is proud of the journey he took to create Never Had to Leave. And if we’re being honest, it sounds a little like our own journeys, too.
Listen to Never Had to Leave HERE.
Photo Credit: Jimmy Fontaine/Atlantic Records
