Matt Francis shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Good morning Matt, it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
Outside of work and making/promoting my music. I’m really obsessed with sewing. But I don’t actually own a sewing machine…yet. But I’m really excited about learning it! I took a free tutorial course at the library a few weeks ago, and made a tote bag. First, shout out to your local public library. What a treasure trove of stuff more than just books. Second, the creation of that bag was so rewarding and I gave it to my 2 year old niece and she loved it. I watch sewing tutorials, I’ve been doing countless research on the right starter sewing machine & kit for me, I’ve been researching fabrics and shops in the city to get materials, researching patterns to download online. It’s something I really want to dive deeper into this last half of 2025.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hello! I’m Matt Francis, I’m a singer-songwriter and creative based in Los Angeles. I make what I like to call “Tough Guy Love Songs” with a country, americana, heartland rock feel. I think what makes me and my art interesting is that I’m getting the start later in my life. Recently turned 40 and thought no better time than now to get a music career off the ground! I’m wrapping up the release of my first EP “Forever, Guaranteed” (available now wherever you listen to music online) back in the winter and just did an amazing release show for it in July at Club Tee Gee in Atwater Village. Currently I’m focused on continued promotion of the album, breaking into new audiences, finding my core audience and working on the next batch of songs to be released or held in a safe space to pitch to publishing agencies. Writing and trying to stay as creative in as many different endeavors as I can!
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
This is a loaded question and me being the Triple Scorpio that I am, breaking bonds or seeing these patterns in others is my specialty. Mostly for me, it’s when the trust is broken, when you are the reliable one and other’s don’t step up to that level for you. When you’re on top, they want to be around you as much as possible, but when you’re broken on the bottom, they can’t be bothered. I’m from Jersey, and I grew up subscribing to the mentality of “word is bond”, you’re only as good as your word. And if you break that, I don’t trust you to do anything else for me in any other capacity.
What restores them? Time, empathy, compassion and second chances. It’s easy in theory to cut people off and hold grudges, but I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt, maybe more times than I should have. I think it’s also important when doing this to be cautiously optimistic with those you’re giving a second chance to, in case they’re repeat offenders.
What fear has held you back the most in your life?
I think the fear of being cringe. And I think I am not alone in this. Given the current landscape of social media and everyone who has something to promote that they created, the fear of being cringe is real and paralyzing and can actually prevent you from breaking through to reach places you may not have before. Posting on social media is the basis of this, I know that’s where I can reach an audience, but the ways in which I want to get there hold me back. What if i’m corny? What if that girl I crush on sees it? What if they all laugh at me and run me out of town because I posted a bad video of me playing guitar? I’m working on being so cringe that I’m actually based, but that’s a long journey!
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
That streaming numbers and monthly listeners are a direct correlation to popularity and fandom. We’re all salmon swimming upstream to get people to listen on DSPs but really those streams go to the top 1% of artists. And I’ve seen contemporaries with tens of thousands of streams that play shows around town to barely anyone. If 1% of your 10,000 streams were people, that would be a guaranteed 100 people at your show, so where are they? Pusha T on the new Clipse album says “You stream kings, but you never fit a crowd in there” and that really resonated with me. My streaming numbers and monthly listeners are embarrassingly low, but I can still pull a crowd and I will never take that for granted and I am forever grateful for those who attend and believe in me and I know that growth is a forever journey.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
What I’ve been told to do. Get a job, have a career, dreams are for the weekends. I’ve tried to flip that, creative mindset first and then see how a career fits into that life. I look at my creative endeavors as fun projects and to be able to share with the world. I don’t expect to become rich and famous off of it, and maybe if I did it would become a job to me and then I wouldn’t love it anymore. Obviously I would love to support myself financially through my art, but for now I enjoy the safety net of a consistent paycheck and health insurance and having that provide me the time to really dive deep into my art. I had to flip the script of the working mindset that was “okay, you have a free hour, here’s your guitar, write a hit!” to “you’ve got 60 minutes, let’s see where our mind goes one minute at a time and there are no bad ideas here!”
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfrancismusic/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewoleskiewicz/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@mattfrancismusic1
- Other: https://mattfrancis.bandcamp.com/
Image Credits
Ali Vesey Media
