Hey Guys,
Well, the day has arrived! The new CD officially hits stores today. This week is very important in getting some sales happening at stores so I appreciate any help you all can give by going out and buying a copy this week. It’s a gift to have the opportunity to share music, so today is a real celebration for me, thanks for your support!
-Matt
Stories Behind The Songs…
All The Way
None of us can make it through life on our own. We are all prone to addictions and darkness that threaten to destroy us. Our culture has a way of either masking these symptoms or discarding people caught in addiction’s grasp. I believe the only hope we have is through Jesus and what He did for us through His death and resurrection. He gives us the power to live victorious. I have experienced that salvation and I wanted to express that journey in this song, “Come and save me, I can’t make it on my own.”
I Shall Believe
The idea that there is someone who waits with open arms and welcomes us home after we have strayed and wandered is so powerful to me. Though it’s the only song on the CD that I did not write (Sheryl Crow and Bill Bottrell wrote it), it feels so personal for me to sing these words, which for me are sung from the perspective of a son to a Father. I grew up without a Dad (my Father was killed in a car accident) and my Mom used to tell me that God was my Father in the absence of my Dad. That’s the perspective I have when I sing this song. The lyric was always vulnerable but for some reason to sing it as a son, gave it a new meaning for me and that has been really special.
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Good Morning! Well, tomorrow is the day that “Where’s Our Revolution” hits the stores! Today we are updating all the web info that’s out there and getting everything ready. Here are two more stories behind the songs for today. Thanks everyone for your support!
-Matt
Sometimes
I wrote this song during a trip home to Canada in January of last year. In the North, most homes have basements and when I was in high school I had a little writing room in our basement where I used to play music all the time as I learned to play instruments and make home recordings. It was awesome to be back in that room all these years later and remember the hours I spent down there dreaming of being a musician. This song was written pretty fast and the sentiment is hope. This is a song of encouragement to hold on to faith during times of struggle and fear. It’s a reminder that we all feel hopeless about relationships and circumstances in our lives sometimes, but if we regroup and find a way to see things from a new perspective there is always hope for change.
Please Say
This is a simple song about not settling for mediocrity in our lives, in our relationship with God and others. Even when time steals the spark and joy from life, this song is a commitment to seeing the adventure and beauty that lies just below the surface.
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Hey Everyone,
Well, this is officially street week! “Where’s Our Revolution” (delux edition) releases Tuesday Aug. 25th. It is a huge help, if you’re going to pick up the CD, if you purchase a copy this week. Here are a list of stores that are for sure carrying the project. If you can’t find it on the shelves, make sure to check with a clerk and order it. that is also a big help to drum up some demand. Thanks in advance everyone for your help with this, here are also 2 more moments behind the songs as well, till tomorrow,
-Matt
Purchase CD at:
-Best Buy
-Hastings
-Family
-Amazon
-itunes
-musichristian.com
***as I write this, my hometown in Nova Scotia is getting rocked by hurricane Bill, they are not getting the full wrath as it was not a direct hit and the early word is that the damage is minimal. Here is a song that I wrote for my homeland…
Writing To Remember
I grew up in Canada. Most of my family still lives there, but I moved to the US to pursue a music career after college. When you live far away from where you started out it can be easy to forget where you came from. One day as I was recording in Nashville I had some time to write a few more songs for this album. It was a cold and rainy day and I was reminded of my home in Nova Scotia. So I wrote this song as a love song to my hometown. All the miles of travel and experiences both good and bad over the past few years came flooding to mind. I realized that in remembering my roots it connected me to a deep sense of belonging and security. As I started singing the song more I came to realize how a sense of belonging is never really satisfied in us until we come to terms with our lives in relation to God. This world is not our home. We were created for much more and the longing in each of us to belong, to have a home will never be complete until we are one in the love and presence of our creator.
All I Really Want
Love can be complicated. This song is about the conflicting feelings of over-thinking love. There is a sense of wanting to be honest and in an honest relationship but being afraid when it gets too intense. I think in some ways this song is an attempt to explain a guy’s perspective to a girl about how he wants to be sure about things and is therefore afraid to make the jump so he withdraws even though he doesn’t want to lose her.
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Happy Saturday!
Today is officially the last day for the $7.00 pre-sale of the new CD. Make sure to take advantage of that now and help me out with our first week of sales~here are some more thoughts and musings from behind the songs…talk to you tomorrow,
-Matt
Where’s Our Revolution
“Where’s Our Revolution” is the title track and the heart and soul of the album. It’s the first song I wrote for this project and it’s autobiographical in terms of where I was at literally and mentally at the moment I wrote it. The question the song asks is: though everyone is always talking about Spiritual revolution, where is it? It’s easy to get stuck in a rut that we can’t seem to get out of, and it feels like materialism and a sense of entitlement has got us, as a culture, stuck on worrying about ourselves instead of seeing the world as God sees it with every person’s soul being precious and important. Will history remember us as one of the most selfish generations ever or will we wake up and find our purpose and destiny in the sharing and giving of the love of God. It’s a question I think we have yet to answer, and we can’t make it on our own. This song is a call to live lives of revolutionary change and it started as a challenge to myself and then became more corporate as I realized that I can’t make it alone, none of us can.
Running To Begin
This is a story of a girl in trouble. She has found herself dealing with the consequences of some bad decisions, but instead of finding grace and understanding, she is rejected by the people who are supposed to love her most. What she needs is to know that she’s not alone. The song is sung by the man in her life who shares the responsibility of her situation, but is not able or not willing to share the burden. He sings the song like a long distance letter basically telling her that he believes in her and even though their relationship is broken, he still loves her and knows she has the strength and character to do the right thing, even if he can’t. This is not my story, but it is a common tale. There is a temptation in writing a story like this to want to wrap things up all nice and neat with everything working out perfectly in the end. But I want to honor the reality of people’s struggles in real life and show how just a little love and understanding and not condemnation can go a long way not to solve all our problems but to help us keep moving forward.
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Hey Guys,
Last night I had the privilege to be a part of the GAP’s “Born To Play” campaign where 700 band and musicians simultaneously performed an acoustic concert in GAP stores across the nation. It was the first time ever an event like this took place. Pretty cool…here are 2 more of the “behind the songs” as well…have a great weekend, talk to you tomorrow…don’t forget the new CD pre-order ends Sunday so pick up your $7.00 copies before then!
-Matt
All The Way
None of us can make it through life on our own. We are all prone to addictions and darkness that threaten to destroy us. Our culture has a way of either masking these symptoms or discarding people caught in addiction’s grasp. I believe the only hope we have is through Jesus and what He did for us through His death and resurrection. He gives us the power to live victorious. I have experienced that salvation and I wanted to express that journey in this song, “Come and save me, I can’t make it on my own.”
A Love That Saves Me
With the attention span of the media and the music industry being shorter and shorter these days, it is very difficult to see something through to completion as an artist in terms of growth or creating a body of work that says something of value. I’ve always loved music artists who grow with their audience through the different phases of life, but more and more artists come and go and you never get a chance to really know them. By the time you figure out who you are and have something really valuable to say, the crowd is gone and moving on to find the next big thing. The invitation of this song to an audience is to stick around and together we just might see where this thing can go, to see the potential of what God has planted in our hearts and keep working together to share God’s love and impact our culture. That is a commitment that I am making in this song and one I take very seriously.
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Hey everyone,
Just one week till the new album comes out! Every day I’ll be posting a few “stories behind the songs” to share a bit about what went into the writing and recording of these songs and some of my feelings on what went into it. Let me know your thoughts and pick up a copy–only 7 dollars till Monday!
-Matt
Come Back Around
“This song was born out of a feeling that as a generation we have a hard time believing in anything. We have all been let down by big promises from religious leaders, politicians, talk show personalities, and celebrity icons that have fallen short. The pervasive feeling is cynicism-disillusionment. The lyrics are an invitation to let go of those feelings by admitting we have all been broken hearted so there is a sense where we share that pain. Whether it’s being sung from the perspective of a friend, lover, parent, or God the message is simple: “Come to me dear, with your broken heart.”
Beautiful Now
“I wrote this song with a friend of mine name Jeffrey Armstreet. He and his wife had just been through an ordeal with a difficult pregnancy and the very premature birth of their daughter Jadyn. My family had also been through an intense couple of years and so in conversation we reflected on the past few months and began to write these lyrics with a new understanding of a higher call, to give your life away. The tension is always there, but in the moments when we surrender to the will and ultimate control and care of God’s love, even the most difficult to understand situation can turn into something beautiful.”
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Hey guys,
Been working like crazy on the new CD release of a delux edition of “Where’s Our Revolution” we have new artwork which I’ve posted here, and the release will feature the “I Shall Believe” music video, live footage from last fall’s tour, and more extras as well. It goes on sale for pre-release July 14th and will be in stores August 25th.
We will be doing a lot of promo to prepare for this release and to kick things off here is an interview I did recently with my new friend Dave Trout…check it out below!
In peace and love,
-Matt
NEWS/ BLOG SAMPLE:
The radio broadcast and podcast “Under The Radar” (heard on over 80 stations) is airing a special interview with Matt Brouwer, beginning June 5. The program highlights the best under-appreciated music around, and Matt’s thoughts and music are sprinkled in the whole hour. You can listen online at http://radarradio.net.
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Hey guys,
I’m really going to try and stay up to date with my blog while I’m on the road this year. The band and I are in the mid-west this trip, TN, KY, KS, and Nabraska…our first show was at Belmont University at the Curb Cafe last night. It was a really cool venue and it was good to get to see some good friends and new music colleagues out at the show.
After the show we drove to Wilmore, KY and got in this morning at 5am…normally we would just sleep for half of the day before the evening concert, but this school has a 10am chapel and they asked me to play a few songs. Getting the resolve to walk out the hotel room door took everything I had, but I’m so glad I did it. It was such a wonderful room, packed with probably 1,000 students. Even at that hour in the morning they were really engaged and warm. Then tonight the band and I played along with 6 local bands for a benefit concert to aid the Invisible Children. It was outside, which I’m not usually a fan of as it’s hard to feel any intimacy with the crowd in such wide open spaces, but tonight was fun and went off without any major incident.
Tomorrow we drive and can just take our time. This band on the road have been fun to get to know. Charlie Harper (whose been my consistent drummer for almost a year) is back, as is our opening act Quimi. I had to steal the bass player and Electric Guitar player from another band in Houston for this run as Patty and Micah were previously committed. Will Colbert (bass) and JJ Cole (guitar) have just fit in really well and have been a really solid addition to this trip.
This is the first little lull in an insane schedule this week so it’s nice to be able to connect. Hope things are well with all you who are reading. Drop me a line or comment here and let me know what’s new-till next time,
Matt 
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This past weekend the band and I had the opportunity to play in Austin, Texas at SXSW (South by Southwest). This is a music, film, art festival where people come from all over the would to perform, network, connect, and enjoy the creative process.
What an amazing environment! 6th street in Austin was literally brimming with energy, good vibes, and the joy and celebration of the craft in it’s many levels of raw to refined.
If you ever get the chance to be a part of SXSW I highly recommend the experince. It was an honor to be there and to share my music along with so many. It gave me hope that the enjoyment of music is alive and well and reminded me that there is always room for new and creative expressions even as the business of the music world falls apart all around us. There is an opportunity right now to get back to something raw and real, and that is a hopeful thought 
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Hey guys,
I had a meeting last week with a non-profit that I sit on the board of called, “New Beginning Resources Inc.” I was reminded again what great work they are doing. We have been in the process of building a school in Guatemala for several years now and with the completion of the building we are now looking forward to classes starting January 2010. Before then my goal is to get 100 children sponsored on a monthly basis ($30 per month) for that first year of classes. I’ll have more info soon as we get all the pieces together and organized.
It’s an understatement to say that my life has been changed by the trips I have made to Guatemala, and I can’t explain the love and acceptance I’ve felt by the wonderful people there. The kids are awesome and full of life and energy…please check out the website http://www.nbri.net to see all that’s going on. I’d love to hear from you about a cross-cultural trip that changed your life…where have you been, what do you see/do??
In Guatemala
Matt
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