After more than five years in the music business, singer-songwriter Mat Kearney can look at himself and know he has legitimately established an audience and a presence on the music scene.
o What: Mat Kearney, in concert.
o When: 8 p.m. Aug. 27.
o Where: Aladdin Theater, 3017 S.E. Milwaukie Ave., Portland.
o Cost: $20 through Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000 or http://ticketmaster.com.
o Info: 503-234-9694 or http://aladdin-theater.com.
With that comes a hard-earned sense of pride and accomplishment. But there’s another emotion that Kearney has started to feel now that the public is getting the chance to hear his second major-label album, “City of Black & White.”
“I probably feel more insecure now than ever,” Kearney said during a recent phone interview. “Before, no one cared, and now people care. There’s always someone to compare yourself to and there’s always someone further along. … I’m creatively very proud of what we’ve done, but I still feel like there’s so much more for me to go. It’s like, the day I was done recording I wanted to start recording a new record to go further.”
Kearney made notable artistic and stylistic strides on “City of Black & White,” but considering his relatively short career path it makes sense that he sees plenty of musical possibilities ahead of him.
He got a late start in music compared to most songwriters. He didn’t start learning guitar and writing songs until he was a sophomore in college. But music took hold quickly once he got started.
After visiting Nashville to help a friend move, Kearney decided he liked the city so much that he had to stay. Soon he had started working with a friend, Robert Marvin, recording the demos that would surface on Kearney’s independently released 2004 CD, “Bullet.”
That release helped earn Kearney a deal with Columbia-affiliated Aware Records (which also released early albums by John Mayer and Five For Fighting).
His first nationally released album, “Nothing Left To Lose,” arrived in 2006. It included some material that he had released independently.
For “Nothing Left to Lose,” Kearney worked in a singer-songwriter vein, judiciously fleshing out a few songs (“Undeniable” and “Crashing America”) with drums and electric guitar, while featuring an acoustic-based sound and a combination of sung and rapped vocals on other songs (“In The Middle” and “Girl America.”)
Audiences gradually embraced Kearney, who played some 400 shows in support of the CD, including stints opening for John Mayer, Sheryl Crow and the Fray.
“I played a city once and saw 10 people,” he said. “I came the next time and there were 60 people there. I came back and it had doubled, and it kept working. We kept growing and people were interested in what I was doing.”
Kearney didn’t play things totally safe with “City of Black & White.” Working once again with Marvin, his producer and occasional songwriting collaborator, Kearney has built up and varied his sound on the new CD, which was released in May.
This time, Kearney brings a notably fuller approach to his music, often layering electric guitar and piano more prominently into the mix. He’s still working in the pop-rock vein that characterized his earlier material, and mid-tempo songs like “All I Have,” “Closer To Love” and “Lifeline” remain anchored by strong vocal melodies. But he also rocks considerably harder on occasion, particularly on “Runaway Car” and “Fire And Rain.”
One reason for the wider-ranging sound is that Kearney wanted to have songs that would add new dynamics to his live show. And in addition to writing with his acoustic guitar, he also wanted to try some different approaches to songwriting.
“On this record, I kind of stretched,” he said. “So I wrote with, like, drum machines and electric guitar, and one song I wrote on an organ with a drummer. So sometimes it’s just what you stretch yourself toward.”
The rap vocals that had been featured on several songs on “Nothing Left To Lose” are conspicuously missing from the new album. Kearney said he didn’t intentionally plan to set aside rap.
“I just sat down to write and you find yourself in songs, and on this record I just wasn’t finding myself in songs like that,” Kearney said. “I was having a hard time writing that way (with a rap element) so I just stuck with what I really wanted to do and kind of landed with these songs. It wasn’t even a planned thing.”
