Check Out Matthew Lindblad’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Lindblad.

Hi Matthew, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Matthew Lindblad did not look like a model student growing up. In classrooms, his attention drifted. His grades suffered. While lessons unfolded at the front of the room, his mind was somewhere else entirely, chasing melodies, lyrics, and rhythms that felt far more urgent than anything written on the board. When he skipped class, it was rarely out of rebellion. He was usually sitting in a park, writing songs, trying to make sense of the noise in his head by turning it into music.

That instinct was there almost from the beginning. Lindblad grew up around sound. His father, a musician and songwriter turned educator, filled the house with guitars and draft ideas. As a toddler, Lindblad would crawl across the floor and pluck at the strings while his dad played. When he was a little older, his father handed him wooden spoons and set up paint cans as if they were a drum set so they could jam together. Music was not something he discovered later. It was something he inherited, and infused his own passion towards.

By his early teens, that obsession had sharpened into something serious. He taught himself every instrument he could get his hands on, chasing competence through curiosity rather than instruction. At 14 years old, he found himself standing on stage playing drums with Shania Twain in front of more than 20,000 people at a sold-out show in Toronto, Canada where he lived for 3 years. He was terrified. Just before soundcheck, Shania pulled him aside and offered a piece of advice that would quietly guide much of his life afterward: “Perform your BEST for the first two rows, and the rest of the room will feel it’.
It was a lesson about focus, authenticity, and scale, long before he had language for any of it.

Despite the early creative success, school never got easier. Lindblad struggled to stay present, battling diagnosed ADHD while trying to navigate an education system that rewarded conformity. One of his parents was a university dean, which only amplified the pressure. He barely made it through high school. The moment he graduated, he walked away convinced he was done with school for good. All he wanted was music. All he wanted was the road.
And for a while, he got it.

He toured in bands, living out of vans part-time, playing shows, chasing momentum. On one summer run during the Vans Warped Tour, a near-death experience permanently altered his trajectory. It was four in the morning in the mountains of Washington State. He was driving a fifteen-passenger van, towing a trailer loaded with gear and merchandise, six friends asleep behind him. The road was dark and quiet, the kind of drive that usually felt meditative after a show. While winding through a downhill mountain pass, the van began to pick up speed, being pushed by the trailer, and quickly burning through the van’s brake pads. He began to approach a 30mph turn sign going 70mph, and knew he only had two choices: risk the turn, or blow through the very last exit before it. With no breaks. He laid on the van’s horn to warn anyone ahead of them, blew through multiple stop signs on the final exit, and found a steep uphill slope to naturally slow the van down. Smoke billowed from the wheel wells, and the band finished the rest of the tour in the back of a U-Haul in the summer heat.

When tour ended, Lindblad stepped away from the road, exhausted and directionless but still hungry for performance. He took a job at The Walt Disney Company, and as a scare actor at Knott’s Scary Farm, becoming one of the monsters that defined the park’s cult-favorite Halloween event. What began as a temporary reset turned into a creative awakening. Scary Farm was different. Performers built their own characters, crafted costumes, designed personas. It was less a job than a community. Over time, it became home.

After a few seasons, Lindblad noticed a posting for entertainment technicians. At the same time, he had quietly decided to give education another chance, enrolling at Citrus College to study recording engineering and music production. The job and the coursework aligned perfectly. Soon, he was running lights and sound for live shows, including the iconic Can Can performance in Knott’s Calico Saloon.

Between shows, he bonded with coworkers who were quietly doing something radical. On their own time, without permission, they had started filming promotional content for Scary Farm. There was no video department back then. They simply saw a need and filled it with the creation of miniature horror short-films. One of the earliest promo films, “Toothfairy”, was made with little more than borrowed tools from around the office and an old bedpan repurposed as a prop. It worked. Fans loved it. Management noticed. What started as improvisation grew into an entire department.

Lindblad watched closely. He asked questions. He offered help. He ran errands, carried gear, stood quietly on set absorbing everything. Eventually, he was invited to hold the camera. Over time, he became a filmmaker That pattern would define his career. Ask how you can help, and fill the need; adding value through creativity and innovation.
As his technical skills grew, so did his understanding of storytelling at scale. Lindblad spent more than 13 years working inside themed entertainment, eventually earning a master’s degree in Marketing and Communications from University of Denver, the very thing he once swore off entirely. This time, education had context. It had purpose. It gave language to instincts he had been developing for years.

Today, Lindblad serves as Senior Creative Producer for OC Sports and Entertainment, where he helps shape content for the Anaheim Ducks, Honda Center, and OCVIBE, a four-billion-dollar entertainment district transforming the heart of Anaheim. His days move fast and rarely look the same. One morning might involve directing a shoot with professional athletes. Another could mean producing a multi-platform campaign for Katy Perry or a collaboration with Southern California brands such as Vans. His work has reached more than seven billion views worldwide and earned multiple CLIO Sports and Music Awards.
Still, the corporate scale never replaced the passion for music. At night, Lindblad returns to his home studio to work on Rebel Revive, his long-running project born from a need for creative autonomy.

For Lindblad, success is no longer about arrival. It lives in the process. In failing fast. In learning constantly. In downshifting when necessary. Some of the moments he treasures most now involve sharing finished work with his father, the first person who ever handed him an instrument.
Looking ahead, Matthew hopes to write and direct a feature film inspired by his adoption story, or even write a novel. For someone who once struggled to stay focused long enough to finish homework, the idea of long-form storytelling feels quietly triumphant.

At eleven years old, Lindblad once asked a musician he admired to sign a pair of drumsticks. The artist knelt down and agreed on one condition: that Matthew would grow up and make music for the next generation. It is a promise he never forgot, and still keeps to this day. Creative communication, he believes, is not just about content or campaigns. It is about passing something forward. Curiosity. Courage. Inspiration. From the kid skipping class to write songs, to the creative shaping experiences for millions, the thread has never changed:

Pass on the passion, and be good to each other.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?

A few quick tidbits: I play every instrument, write, and sing everything on my own records.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.MatthewLindblad.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/hideyourmilk
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/matthewlindblad
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4FipkATr1dwUCvg1wTkDES?si=BkNT3yklRlOf1u9K3rMzyg

Image Credits
Matthew Lindblad