MATT WALTERS is a passionate believer in songs, the power they wield and the life experience that makes them tick.
The young Australian’s musical awakening was early and profound: a young teenager quietly galvanised by a master craftsman casting his spell at some long-ago folk festival. Matt’s innate musicality and storyteller’s instinct were inflamed and his future career as a singer-songwriter sealed.

By his early twenties he had amassed a collection of songs that demanded to be heard beyond his small town home in the rural south east of the southern continent. Like his hero Bob Dylan and so many others, that meant a long road to the nearest musical metropolis: Melbourne.

Then as now, the constantly renewing vistas of the road were indispensable to his inspiration and education as an artist. His first, hauntingly unadorned EP, ECHO ON, was the culmination of a long voyage of discovery from Melbourne to Sydney to London and back to his hometown.

Some critics heard the gentle lilt of Nick Drake, others the oblique visions of Dylan and Neil Young, others the earthy swell of a country troubadour. Matt knew he had nothing until he’d left them behind and found his own voice. That leg of the journey ended with FAREWELL YOUTH, a debut album released by Universal Music in March 2011. Its wry title summed up years of glory and hardship, disillusionment and reaffirmation. His intrigue with America, the source of much of his inspiration, had intensified when he collaborated with visiting Nashville singer-songwriter Kim Richey in Melbourne.

Matt continued touring his homeland, encouraged by critical notice but immeasurably more by the simple act of communion with an audience, which had now grown from tiny clubs to crowds of more than 1,000 opening for acts such as British guitar legend Jeff Beck.
Mostly though, his touring partners and collaborators continued to come from the USA. Californian dynamo Jenny Lewis, piano man Ben Folds, and esteemed Nashville songwriter John Hadley all encouraged Matt to drink deeper from the well of his inspiration.

In late 2012 Matt returned to his independent roots and self released Farewell Youth online through CD Baby. The album continues to connect with new fans all over the world. The song, I Would Die For You, from his debut album has been viewed on Youtube more than 2 million times, helping him sell thousands of albums online as an independent artist.