#172 Morgan Matthews
#1 Billboard songwriter with Alicia Keys, Morgan Matthews is a Fort Worth, Texas based songwriter and music Producer. He sits down with Rae Leigh and discusses the journey of producing and now managing in the music industry. Currently working on AARON CARTER's new album and we are looking forward to seeing where this musical partnership journey leads.
He has collaborated with a diverse range of artists including Alicia Keys, Aaron Carter, Twista, Miguel, Tory Lanez, 21 Savage, Ashley All Day & Kiiara, Conor Maynard, Anth Melo and Keiynan Lonsdale.
He has written and produced music that has reached and stayed on the #1 spot of Billboard's charts multiple times. Morgan's production "Show Me Love" with Alicia Keys & Miguel was nominated for an NAACP award in 2020. Morgan has worked on 1 Grammy Nominated Album - A.L.I.C.I.A. by Alicia Keys Morgan has also collaborated with major brands such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Latin Grammys, Home Advisor, MTV, MTV2, CBS and PBS.
Featured in this track song by Alicia Keys - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt3ca3SP9ik Connect with Morgan:
iammorganmatthews.com and. addictivemusicgroup.com
IG: @morganlikesmusic IG: @addictivemusicgroup_
Transcript
Rae Leigh: Welcome to a song where to truce with Morgan
Matthews. Thanks for joining.
Morgan Matthews: Hey, how are you?
Rae Leigh: I'm good. I'm looking forward to hearing your journey. I like to start by getting you to share a little bit about who you are and where you come from.
Morgan Matthews: Yeah, my name's Morgan I'm from Texas. I kinda just fell into music. You know, all of my family, they play music too. I grew up in church and we have. They would take me to church and I would listen to everyone and play. I always just liked music and liked listening to it. And then I started playing the guitar early off and it just, one thing leads to another. And then I started, writing songs. And then I liked how everything came together. I started recording. At a younger age and then I wasn't really good, but you know, the more you try, the better you get and that's one thing led to another and you just tall in love with it and you get better at it.
Rae Leigh: That's awesome. I can relate to studying the church. My parents were pastors. And if you've got pastors as parents, like he kind of always enrolled to be a part of the worship
team in some way Or
Morgan Matthews: Or are you always around?
Rae Leigh: You're always around music because there's always worship as a part of the service. And so it's, it's a massive part of it.
Was that the major part of music or your, your siblings and family? was there other music influence in your life growing up?
Morgan Matthews: that was like the that's where I probably heard the most music was going to church. Cause they were in the band and I would go, they had to practice all the time. They still do play in.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Morgan Matthews: Yeah. That's and then I, we, I always listened to music and I always loved music. And then I always wanted to play, other kinds, but none of the projects I was in was ever successful, they never did anything,
Rae Leigh: So what you said you had started writing and recording young. How old were you when you wrote your first song?
Morgan Matthews: Probably middle school or something like that. Me and a friend, you know, with guitars, we would write in our notes. We'd play. And then I, I got like a cassette, a tape recorder and I would learn how to record us. And none of it sounded that good, but it was kind of cool to hear your own stuff back
Rae Leigh: yeah.
Morgan Matthews: and
Rae Leigh: To enjoy the recording process.
Morgan Matthews: oh yeah, that was fun.
Rae Leigh: Yeah, I think I remember having one of those, like toy cassette players with the little microphone on the side. Do you ever have see
Morgan Matthews: oh yeah. Yeah. I know.
Rae Leigh: I used to use those to record. It was obviously the audio is terrible, but Yeah, I think it was the process of recording oneself and then hearing it back was just magical as a kid,
Morgan Matthews: Yeah, those are
Rae Leigh: pretend pretending like you're on the radio. Something like.
Morgan Matthews: Yeah, you can only rewind and fast forward or stop a play.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. With the recording, you said you did recording at a young age, but that wasn't successful. Is that what you're talking about with your friend or
Morgan Matthews: Yeah. And maybe it was successful to us. Cause we were the only ones that had a song on a tape or something
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Okay.
Morgan Matthews: none of it did anything.
Rae Leigh: So what was your progression from there? Like when you left high school, you continue to do music. A lot of people stopped doing music after high school because you know, it's not considered a real job. I don't know if that's the same for you, but I know in my life I, was going to be a doctor. So music didn't have any space, you know, how did that change for you?
Morgan Matthews: I played in like a couple of garage bands and then I played for a church, but, and then I played with my grandfather's shirt. And, none of these are massive projects. This wasn't a huge, it wasn't a huge mega church. It wasn't a big bands or anything. I played for a couple of singer songwriters.
And then I always thought in my head, I, you know, driving in a car so I can make this music because if you're in a band, I was thinking. Everybody has to agree on the song. And in my head, I would think if we just do the song this way, it could be, you know, it could be more successful. So I was just thinking, why don't I just try to make all of this music myself?
So that's when I started trying to actually do that. And I, for some reason, some people must have just believed that they were good because people started to buy the tracks that I was making. The price started out small, then it went up and up and that was, that took a while to do that. But I was making, I started seeing progress in that more than anything else I'd ever done more than the bands, more than the churches.
So I stuck with that and I just kept going and I'm still doing that too.
Rae Leigh: yeah. Yep. So you're, you're producing all your own stuff. What, what, what was the first step in like, like going into that? So you said doing your own thing and then sharing it and people were buying it and it worked. Was there a moment where you were like, oh my gosh, this is it. This is me. This is what I want to
do.
Morgan Matthews: no, just like I ma I made stuff and even some, in my mind, I thought. This could be on a re on the radio, if just the right person saying on it. And I know I'm not dumb. I knew like if so-and-so just saying on this, who will be on the radio, other people are like, this is cheesy. This is never going to go anywhere.
This is like only three chords. You know, this is cheesy. I was thinking though, these people are dumb because this is going to be a radio. And I would know if anybody knows, because that's what a lot of them are. They're like that. And it's hard to make something like that. It's very hard. They don't realize how hard it is.
Those people in the rock bands or whatever kinds of bands we were in, they were trying to do all this intricate hard stuff that was detailed. And I was like, no, this is what we have to do, but I don't know where those guys are anymore.
Rae Leigh: yeah.
I really like your attitude because I'm a three because in the truth person and I do, I think it is really hard to make a song sound interesting with three chords or even just four chords. But, there's so many different possibilities of what you can do with it. I think that the amazing thing is to write a song with three chords, but make it sound like it's not.
Morgan Matthews: yeah.
Rae Leigh: Yeah, it's a challenge. I like a challenge. I think making things simple so that it's relatable to everyone and easy for people to maybe pick up and play if they don't know much guitar or something like that. I, think that's really rewarding because music is about connecting us and bringing us together.
And if you make it so complex that no one can understand it and no one can perform it or play it. It's kind of isolating. It will connect to a few different group of people, but obviously not, everyone's going to be able to do it. So
it makes it harder.
Morgan Matthews: and I, I feel like it's the lyric too.
Rae Leigh: Um,
Morgan Matthews: It's the lyric that the people are connecting to
Rae Leigh: yeah. that's what pat Patterson says. Isn't it? the, lyrics means something in music. Doesn't.
Morgan Matthews: yeah. More than the music. It's the, some people say it's the music that they like, but I feel like they're connecting to the.
Rae Leigh: The music feel what he says, the music feels and the lyrics means that it's the meaning connecting with the feeling and like that magical connection between the two. How do you go about that? What do you like to put into your lyrics and what do you think about when you're writing lyrics?
Morgan Matthews: I used to try to write lyrics a lot, but I there's other people that that's all that they do. And I realize, okay, this person. Writes lyrics and they're good at it. And I just let them do that.
Rae Leigh: okay. So you stick to the melody side of things?
Morgan Matthews: I just try to make music like the instruments. And then there's people that sit there and write the lyrics. I might give a suggestion and everybody shoots mine down, like probably a hundred percent. Cause they're not good.
Rae Leigh: But they can still inspire and then we can get better. That's what I'm doing. I noticed like I've been doing this for almost a year and a half, I guess. And I've definitely noticed looking at my old songs that I used to release and the songs that I'm releasing now, the difference in my songwriting is massive. I believe now that you can actually improve your song writing. Trying to have you noticed a difference in from, you know, I guess when you were riding when you were a kid versus now?
Morgan Matthews: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I I've learned lyrics or music. All of it. Yeah. Yeah. You there's, there's way more things that I've even learned as just as a person and all of the music that I'm trying to do now that I never thought I would be doing I never thought people would ask me to help manage them. So I, or I'm learning now that to help, I'm trying to move songs around and get them to the right artist.
I never thought I would be doing that. I always thought I would just be making tracks. And then that was just going to be what I did, but now other people send me songs and I'm trying to get those songs into the right hands. So I never thought that's what I. But maybe some people don't have a network to where they could get it to someone and they need somebody to help move it or, or connect it to the right person.
And I'm trying to do that more than make music. It seems like these days, but, but, I
Rae Leigh: that's an important part of the industry though.
Morgan Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. Because there's somebody out there just sitting there dedicating themselves to the music, what, which I did that for a long, long time. And then there was the person that helped connect me to the artist and got the music in there.
Rae Leigh: Yup. So what would you say is your being your, your best experience as a songwriter and a producer in, in this industry? What's the one moment that you go back to it at each moment and just go, I can't believe that happened and I'm just stoked and want to keep doing.
Morgan Matthews: That's a good question. I don't know. It's it's all fun. It's all always grown. Not knowing what's going to happen next that's
Rae Leigh: that's a big part of it. Isn't it?
Morgan Matthews: yeah. Cause you, you never expect to reach this one thing that just happens. And then you never expect after that happens, you're like, dang, what else can I do now? Because I, I never thought this would happen, but then something else does happen.
And then it's like, I've got to climb another mountain or do something else. That's that's really, what's cool that
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Morgan Matthews: that.
Rae Leigh: I, um, I enjoy getting out of my comfort zone as much as I don't. I do as well. Do you know? And someone said that a comfort zone is where dreams go to die. And I'm really glad they said that to me because I've been in some really awkward out of comfort zone situations recently. And it's like, do you know what I can do this?
This is a part of the, the life that I chose that.
we choose doing music is not knowing what's coming next and being uncomfortable, but we're constantly growing and, and challenging ourselves through
that.
Morgan Matthews: right.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Morgan Matthews: exactly.
Rae Leigh: How, how have you gone, with COVID and adjusting to the new, the new world of music in this, this day and
age, what's
Morgan Matthews: I never really, was in the room with anybody. And the only time I did was, was with Aaron Carter. I went to his house that was there, I guess that was just recently. I. I just became friends with him and went over to his house and that's during COVID I guess, cause now is COVID time still, you know,
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Morgan Matthews: all these other things have been through, email or phone or knowing somebody.
But with that one, because I, we developed a relationship, it was like, I'm just going to go over to his house and see what that's like. I had never really done that. That's a way different experience being in the room with somebody
Rae Leigh: It is I w with, with co-writing what's your standard thing? Cause like, I really like her writing in the, in the room with someone there's just a different energy I find. And obviously that's changed and I have adapted to co-writing online with people, but, and like top lining kind of more processed with online, going backwards and forwards, but what's, what's your ideal
co-writing scenario.
Morgan Matthews: Well,
Rae Leigh: Uh,
Morgan Matthews: Um, that when I did go over there, I didn't just go by myself. I had someone that was a lyricist and a singer to go with me. Cause if, if that weren't, if you weren't there, then I would just be sitting there. Cause I was there and I presented some tracks, just instruments. And then the other writer he's in another state and he wasn't there.
So if it was just going to be me. I would be just me playing tracks and then trying to record him. But I wouldn't be able to be the person to be like, seeing like this, do this, or why don't we try this word? I think you need to have more people around with you,
Rae Leigh: yeah. I think that's really good
advice
Morgan Matthews: yeah. Unless you're like best friends with the person and you guys just get along.
Perfect.
Rae Leigh: yeah, but I mean, everyone's got their own strengths, right? I don't know, more hands make light of
work. All that
Morgan Matthews: and then everybody needs to be able to get along well, because we all got along well, and there's been times where I've been in a room with somebody else and somebody wasn't always into the song and they might just be sitting on their phone and you could tell everyone else was that's that kind of brings it down.
I know.
Rae Leigh: it
does. Yeah. Yeah, And that happens sometimes
Morgan Matthews: Yeah, I don't want no one wants to be around.
Rae Leigh: No. Yeah. It's important to be kind. Tell me. With co-writing. What would you say the most important thing to do before a co-write?
Morgan Matthews: Like, do you know, are we talking about, do we know who this person is? Or you just get in there with them and you don't even know.
Rae Leigh: Well, that's probably a good question because they're two very different scenarios. Say you're preparing for collaboration. Maybe you've never actually written with that person before and you're rocking up. What, what do you think is important? The most important thing to, to rock out with.
Morgan Matthews: all right. Just go with it. I don't know. I like start to hear how they do what they do. You know, that's what I try to help them reach their goal. If I go in there and I want it to be all my way, it's not, it's not going to end. You want to build relationships with people, but if they have an idea that it's like, I want it to be like this, and if you start to see, this is not gonna be good for your life or your, your career, like step up and say, They're like, why don't we change this or that you, you there's nice ways to change things.
But importantly, get some sleep the night before, take care of yourself,
Rae Leigh: Yeah, don't look up hung over and tired. Yeah. Which, you know, I've heard horror stories of that happening and it is not, not respectful of someone else's time. What would you say the best advice that you've ever been given in this industry?
Morgan Matthews: Just keep on going or something like.
Rae Leigh: Yeah, just keep going.
Morgan Matthews: Yeah, there's always going to be, something.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. If you could co-write with anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be and why
Morgan Matthews: Everybody, I, I mean, I there's
Rae Leigh: Korea with me?
Morgan Matthews: I like all everybody. Everybody's good. Even it's the people that are not superstars that are really good.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Yeah. I've talked to some incredible songwriters that people do most songwriters don't, aren't always necessarily famous. You know, it's like, it's, it's the job for the song to be famous, not the songwriter.
Morgan Matthews: yeah, there are people that are, they're not, they don't have any kind of, placement or a cut. And I I've, I've known them for a long time and I'll be listening to the song and I'm like, dang, this is, this is,
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Yeah. We get some incredible, like unsigned, independent artists sending through their music to us for this, for this podcast. And yeah, sometimes I go, why is. this not on the radio? Like, you know, some of the songs are incredible and yet I've never heard them. And I don't think I know anyone that would have heard it before either. So I agree. I think there's a lot of untapped talent out There that. Unfortunately just doesn't get seen.
Morgan Matthews: Yeah. Yeah.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. What would you say your best advice would be to someone say you could go back in time and talk to yourself even as a kid? Like, what would you say to yourself?
Morgan Matthews: I would have learned more about, and if I was going to keep doing music like music,
I would have learned more about the music business side before I, you know, certain people came along, I would have learned more about that. And, and then I got smart at that quickly cause I kind of, I learned right after they came,
I kind of got rushed into learning, but that's how. People learn and that's the story. And then you have to bounce back quicker
Rae Leigh: Yeah, I think that. that same story burns a lot of people out. It doesn't It
Morgan Matthews: Yeah.
Yeah.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. It seems to be so common these days and yet it's still happening.
Morgan Matthews: if you have. W when you're like one of my good friends. If, if there's an amount of money that's in front of you, it says, you're going to get this. If we get this and you're 18 years old and you've never had that much money in your bank account, whether it's $10,000 or a hundred thousand dollars, most people haven't seen that in their bank account.
They're going to sign a piece of paper because they don't know.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Morgan Matthews: they just want to see that money in their bank account. And they don't know what's going to happen in the future. And those people will say whatever they want to say or whatever they have to say to get you to sign a piece of paper that's and you're not going to no, one's going to read those things.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. And I
Morgan Matthews: do read it.
Rae Leigh: you don't know. Yeah. I think it's well, it's important. Someone's told me to always have a lawyer, that to look over your paperwork before you ever sign anything. Because the contract, if written by The it'll always be in favor of the person who wrote.
Morgan Matthews: The lawyers are in on half of.
Rae Leigh: Yeah, they probably, yeah, it's a sad part, but you're right. I think by arming yourself and gaining music, business, understanding of. copyright and how your, what your rights are as an artist, is really important because if you don't know, you can't protect it, you can't protect your own rights. What are you hoping for in the next, you know, sort of 12 months with your music?
Morgan Matthews: right now. I'm working on Aaron Carter's new album, that's led to a lot of different things I didn't even expect to do well.
Rae Leigh: that's,
Morgan Matthews: That's, what I'm doing it right now. Like every day and I'm helping manage him and that's going in it it's going in a positive direction. I know a lot of people didn't think that that would, but it is. And he's, he's going to do good. That's
Rae Leigh: awesome.
Morgan Matthews: that's, that's the main thing that I'm focused on, right.
Rae Leigh: Sure. And how can, like people get in touch with you or follow sort of your, your musical journey and, and support what you're doing. Okay.
Morgan Matthews: They can email me.
Rae Leigh: Same alley.
Morgan Matthews: Yeah.
Rae Leigh: I'll put all your details in the description of the podcast. But is there anything else you would like to share or say, well, we've got.
Morgan Matthews: I just love doing music. I mean, what.
Rae Leigh: That's that's all there is, I guess.
Morgan Matthews: Yeah.
Rae Leigh: All right. Thank you so much, Morgan. I really appreciate you taking some time out to share with us your journey and what you're doing, and I wish you. all the best with Aaron's album. I'm sure it's going to be
fantastic.
I look forward to hearing it. All right. Thank you.
Take care.
