You can find the interview here:

Northern Spirit Radio – Matt Wahl Interview

Enjoy the day!
Matt

Almost a year ago, John Finney introduced himself to me and told me of Joshua’s Camp. Joshua’s Camp is a camp for families who have a child being treated for cancer. You can read all about it here:

Joshua’s Camp Website

John asked me if I would play at the next Joshua’s Camp scheduled for 5/31/12 – 6/3/12 and I’m thrilled to be a part of it! John also asked me if I would take a look at some lyrics he had written and see if I could put them in to a “Joshua’s Camp song.” I told him that I would certainly look at the lyrics but that I couldn’t promise anything songwriting-wise but I would do my best.

John’s lyrics were great and I got lucky and came up with a chorus and adapted his words as the verses and the bridge and played the song for the first time at the Festival In The Pines in Eau Claire in August where John and other volunteers were doing a fund raiser for Joshua’s Camp.

I asked John if he could share with me (so I could share with you) his inspiration for the lyrics:

“When I watched the children, that were attending our Cancer Camp, one thing always seemed to be the same. No matter how sick they were from all the treatment side effects and the disease they were fighting, they would try so hard to join in with the other healthy children. They desperately wanted to sing, dance, play the game or just sit on the floor and play with the toys. More than anything else…they just wanted to be a kid again.”

You can hear our song called, “I Just Want To Be A Kid Again” on the music player:

Thanks for listening. Enjoy the day!
Matt

We’ll, it’s tomorrow and there’s another story!

After I wrote that essay I got to thinking. That thinking lead to more thinking and some serious soul searching. The idea of an accounting major at first glance seems good. It’s safe and secure and would be considered by many to be a smart thing to do. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that in the end, after I finished school, I would still want to be writing, recording, singing, playing and performing. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do and that isn’t going to change. So does it make any sense to spend hundreds of hours and borrow tens of thousands of dollars all the pursuit of something that doesn’t point in the direction of where I want to be? To me, that’s not smart at all!

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was pursuing the accounting degree for the wrong reasons. By making the decision to go to school, I felt like I was telling myself, the universe, other people, etc. etc. that I was not going to be able to make a living doing what I love so I had better activate some kind of backup plan. I have some problems with that!

1) Deep down, I don’t believe it. I’ve always believed that I could make not just a living, but a life doing something that I love to do. Sometimes it’s scary, there can be a lot of unknowns but that is part of life!

2) At first I thought the accounting degree would be the best thing I could do for my family but then I thought, “what if it worked?” What if I got that degree and got a job and kept working that job and slowly music fell by the wayside. What would I say if one day, Eric said to me, “Daddy, why don’t you play music anymore?”

How would I explain that. How would I explain that I didn’t have enough faith and enough belief in myself to have the courage to do something different, to take a chance? How would I explain that once I had a dream to do something and I let that dream die in favor of “safety” and “security?”

Now maybe that’s being a bit over dramatic but in the end, what I really want to be for my child (soon to be children) is an example. And the example I want to set is that it is possible to follow your heart, do something that you love, have a family, a home and a wonderful life. Now I know there are as many paths to a wonderful life as there people on earth. I also know that if I’m true to myself and true to my heart, I know that my path doesn’t lead back to school to pursue a degree. My path, at least for now is probably best summed up in these words from Kris Kristofferson in “To Beat The Devil”

“And you still can hear me singin’ to the people who don’t listen,
To the things that I am sayin’, prayin’ someone’s gonna hear.
And I guess I’ll die explaining how the things that they complain about,
Are things they could be changin’, hopin’ someone’s gonna care.

I was born a lonely singer, and I’m bound to die the same,
But I’ve got to feed the hunger in my soul.
And if I never have a nickle, I won’t ever die ashamed.
‘Cos I don’t believe that no-one wants to know.”

Enjoy Youself!
Matt

Here is my essay:

My story is that I am here at UMD because I saw a man watering his flowers. Odd, I know but that’s how it happened.

It’s easy for me to second guess my presence at UMD. I do that every day. I’m what you call a “non-traditional” student. As a 37 year old husband and father, I don’t exactly blend in, especially in a General Psychology course that is made up predominantly of freshman.

15 years ago I was handed a diploma from the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities with a bachelors of Theatre Arts and a minor in Spanish. At that point I would have bet any amount of money that my college days were done. I had other plans! Big dreams and big ideas! Here I am typing this, so I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t make that bet!

During my sophomore year of college at the U of M Twin Cities, I decided on an unusual course for my life. I changed my major from a BS in Econ with the goal of law school to Theatre with an emphasis on acting. That same year I decided I was going to be a professional musician. Once that decision was made, that was it for me. All of my spare energy, time and resources went toward pursuing my dream of being a full time, touring, performing singer/songwriter.

I raced through the last couple of years of my degree, landed an office job to pay the bills and spent my nights and weekends booking gigs, traveling and playing my music. In May of 1999 I walked out of that office for the last time and have been traveling around the country playing music ever since. I’ve released 6 CDs of original songs on my own record label and have had the absolute pleasure of doing something I love for a living. There’s almost nothing better than that.

The key to that last statement is the “almost.” This coming November our son Eric will turn 4. I can tell you that for me, there IS nothing better than being a dad! The time flies by so quickly and he seems to change daily. This past Tuesday, my first day of classes in 15 years, I dropped him off at preschool. Before I know it, he’ll be sitting in a class just like this, maybe typing a similar paper and I’ll be almost 50!

The late, great Harry Chapin (singer/songwriter) said in his song, “Story Of A Life,” “All your dreams of open spaces, you’ll find in your children’s faces one by one.”

We have another baby coming in March and I don’t want to be on the road anymore. It tears me up to leave town! It hurts almost as much to think of “giving up” something I’ve dreamt about since I was 18 years old but I have faith that things will work out. For now, I’m going to be a dad.

This decision didn’t come easily. I’ve been struggling with it for some time now, but I have a belief that we are guided and if we keep our eyes open, we’ll see the signs showing us the way. Late in July I dropped our son off at the daycare he was attending before he started preschool. I took a different way home that went past an accounting office. A small, single person office. On this beautiful, sunny, summer morning, the accountant (at least I assume it was this fellow’s office) was standing outside with a hose watering his flowers. Something about that clicked. Despite my passion for music and performance and my creativity in songwriting and storytelling, the dominant part of my personality is very meticulous and analytical (read: I’m pretty much a nerd) and I thought, “I could do that.”

The next day I was standing in the office of the Transfer Admissions Counselor at the University of Minnesota Duluth and on Tuesday, September 6th I walked into my first class, General Psychology as an Accounting major!

It’s a strange story, I know, but one thing my history has taught me is that you just never know! Regardless of how much you plan and prepare, things change on a dime. People come into your life unexpectedly and some go just as quickly. The things you were so certain about one day you’ll wake another day and it will be hard to believe you ever felt the way you did!

We all have exactly one moment in which everything happens. The Now. And in that one moment, we take all our knowledge and all our experience and do the best we can in that single moment. And in the next moment, we have more or different knowledge and more/different experiences with which to live that next present moment. So one could argue that it is impossible for the same person to live more than one moment in a row. Each consecutive moment should be viewed through the lens of new knowledge, new experiences, new beliefs and values.

There have been a lot of “nows” in the 15 years since the 22 year old I used to be received that first diploma. I know that 22 year old would have a hard time understanding the life I’m living and the decisions I’m making but that 22 year old doesn’t know my story. To me, one of the dangers of a single story would be to evaluate your present only through the lens of your past. I’m often guilty of using my “old” story to rail against my current conditions.

Just as different nations, countries, continents, cultures, etc. have different stories, each of our lives are made up of different stories. I’ve learned that if I don’t look at where I am and who I am through the thoughts, beliefs, values, knowledge and experience of my current story, I won’t be seeing the real me. It is very hard to make peace with the present looking only through the lens of the past.

As of today, my story is that I’m a husband and a father, studying accounting at the University of Minnesota Duluth because I saw an accountant watering his flowers. Tomorrow…….that’s a different story!

When a ship passes underneath the aerial lift bridge in Duluth, they do something called a Captains Salute. The captain of the ship blows the ship’s horn and then the tender of the bridge answers back with a long blast and two short blasts. It’s really neat and we can hear it from our house.

I wanted to find a way to include the bridge’s horn in the song. So this morning I checked the harbor schedule and saw that there was a ship coming in at 1pm. At about 20 minutes to one, I looked out the window and saw the ship steaming in. I grabbed my camera and my trusty digital recorder and headed out the door. About 5 minutes later I was parked down in Canal Park and I headed for the bridge just as the ship was entering the canal. I turned on the recorder and recorded the ship’s horn and the bridge’s response.

If you listen to the updated version of “Just Look At The Lake,” on either .mp3 player you can hear the bridge at the end of the second verse where it talks about the bridge and the long horn blowing! Pretty fun!

I’m working on getting enough lake photos together for a slide show too.

Enjoy the day!
Matt

You can hear it on the little music player that is on the right side of the page underneath my photo.

You can also hear it on the music player on the Ukulele Sunshine page. The last thing I added to the recording late last night was the ukulele and I love what it does for the song! I’m not sure how many other Lake Superior songs there are featuring an ukulele but if it works for the ocean, why not for the Big Lake?

Enjoy the day!
Matt

From the Positive Music Association’s website:

“The Positive Music Association (PMA) is a professional trade organization dedicated to expanding and promoting all styles of music expressing universal, life-affirming messages.”

Since the theme of my music is, “The Fun Side of Life” and to me, that theme means enjoying yourself and living life to the fullest, I thought it was a good fit with the values of the Positive Music Association. Luckily for me, they thought so too! I feel very fortunate to be included and to be a part of such a great group of people and musicians!

So if you are looking for a fantastic place to find musicians from all sorts of genres creating, writing and performing music with wonderful messages, the Positive Music Association-(click) is that place!

Enjoy the day!
Matt

It’s a 1967 Gibson C1 Classical guitar. There is a wonderful story behind this guitar. Many years ago I was at my parents’ house and my dad had a friend over. They asked me to play a few songs so I did. My dad’s friend got quite emotional and said that his brother used to play. His brother had passed away several years earlier and he said listening to me reminded him of hearing his brother play.

He told me that he had an old guitar of his brother’s and he wanted me to have it. I was quite moved by his story and touched by the generous offer. I told him that if that’s really what he wanted, I would give it a good home.

That was a Saturday night. The following Monday he met me back up and my parents’ house and gave me his brother’s guitar. This super cool old Gibson! It was in pretty tough shape. The strings were of course shot, the finish was all checked, some of the tuners were (still are) bent and the bridge was coming off of the guitar.

I took it in and had it fixed up, got a new bridge and a new nut, had the neck reset and put some strings on it. It’s come with me as I’ve moved around over the last couple of years and every once in a while, I’ll get it out and strum a few songs.

Yesterday I pulled a pickup out of one of my guitars. I was going to try and sell the pickup when I came up with a plan. What if I put the pickup in the old Gibson? Could I play that on stage? That would be so great!

So today I got out my tools, poured some coffee and got to work. The install was a success and this old Gibson sounds fantastic! I spent quite a while with this guitar today, just thrilled to finally have him stage-ready! I feel like I’m finally doing this guitar justice and I’m honored to have it and I can’t wait to play it live! What a treat!

So there you have it! Just thought I’d share the story behind this great old guitar.

Enjoy the day!
Matt