Life & Work with Matt Bowen

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Bowen.

Hi Matt, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
It all started with a weekly trip to the flea market with my Mom when I was a 2-year-old. The same street musician was playing violin every time we went, and I always asked to stop and listen…and ultimately I asked for my own violin. We weren’t a family of musicians by any means, so this request was a bit out of left field, but my parents finally obliged as a Christmas present when I was 3 (probably thinking that would be the end of that)…and I never stopped playing.

When I was in high school, I joined the San Diego Youth Symphony, and we toured the country, even went on a tour through Spain, playing in various famous halls. It was exhilarating, but most importantly as a creator, it was a front-row seat to seeing and experiencing the building blocks of a full-scale orchestral piece of music.

Come college, my musical interests and involvements veered more to the rock-band side of things, which was equally fascinating to me…how can you create a compelling arrangement with four band members as opposed to an 80-piece orchestra?

Those experiences with bands led to my interest (obsession?) in the recording process. Performing is a thrill, but I was particularly drawn to the behind-the-scenes nature of the recording. I also loved the collaborative process of making an album, and the team-like camaraderie that evolves when everyone is pouring their creative energy into the same project.

So I ultimately decided being a record producer was what I wanted to do, and that’s what officially brought me to LA (without any real leads, mind you). I managed to hook up with an established record producer named Matt Wallace (cold-emailed him!), and I found myself working on major label albums as a recording engineer for a few years. It was illuminating getting to work on so many different albums…a couple of which produced RIAA Certified Platinum singles. (look Ma, I got a platinum plaque!)

Somewhere along the way, a friend of a friend (that’s how it always goes!) needed help with their workload scoring a tv show, and since the music direction was “it should sound like an album,” my name was passed along. That was my first real foray into composing, and it was absolutely love at first sight. It stimulated every part of my brain and my heart and was equal parts challenging and exhilarating. And little did I know those years working as an engineer on albums served as fantastic Jedi training for a composer-to-be, from song structure, to collaborating with a team, to learning the technical side of recording inside and out.

A majority of my composing work has been as a member of other composers’ writing teams, which has been incredibly formative. It’s a classic apprenticeship situation, being mentored by masters of their craft…all while working on real productions (and paying the bills along the way!). I didn’t go to school for music composition, so I was very much learning on the fly, reinventing a few wheels along the way. One of those mentors was Chris Lennertz – the first time I worked on one of his music teams was for a film back in 2009. I’ve worked as a team member on a number of Chris’s projects, and our creative relationship turned more or more collaborative over time…and as of late, we’ve started working together on projects, having co-scored a few TV shows.

17 years after moving to LA (for no good reason), I’m happily scoring film and TV-shows in my personal studio, still evolving as an artist, and savoring the creative challenges each new project brings.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think anytime you’re working in a creative field AND as a freelancer, you’re going to take your lumps. Just getting your footing as a composer is the hardest part, because the learning curve is so steep technically, and you’re simultaneously finding your voice artistically…all while working on low-budget (or, no budget?) projects. There’s really no way to do it other than diving in feet first!

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a composer and music producer for film and TV. I think any composer takes a lot of pride in their versatility because our job is to help bring the director’s vision to life with our musical contributions. As opposed to (for example) a recording artist, whose music needs to strictly serve them as an artist, the most important aspect of a composer’s music is that it serves the project they’re working on. And what that music needs to be, and what it needs to say, varies wildly from project to project.

So I take a lot of pride in my versatility as a composer, and I think a lot of that comes from my varied personal music experiences, from orchestras to bands to recording studios.

Looking at my current and most recent projects, I do take some satisfaction in how different they all are, and how different the music is. I’m currently working on an R-rated comedy that is holiday-based and will call for some classic twinkly and earnest Christmas-y film score…the movie also has an outrageous musical number, which I’m co-writing. On the flip side, I just wrapped up working on a TV show (with composer Chris Lennertz) called ‘The Boys,’ which involved a lot of dark, gritty, textural and twisted music. And before that I worked on two episodes of an animated anthology of shorts (also co-scored with Chris Lennertz) called ‘Diabolical,’ and the score for that was equal parts superhero+punk+anime.

So if variety is the spice of life, then I like my work-life over-seasoned. (sorry I’m also a dad, and therefore have full authority to dad jokes)

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
As someone who’s made a career of writing music, it feels funny to say…music wasn’t my “dream job” growing up, baseball was. I was equally passionate about both music and baseball, but for some reason, baseball seemed like the more viable option as a career (I guess I’ve always been a dreamer). As a kid, I really didn’t know composing existed in the form it does (or else I may have felt differently about my priorities), so baseball always came first…though, I was constantly bouncing between the two, often showing up to violin lessons in my baseball uniform.

I was good enough to play Division I baseball for a few years in college, but it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t remotely an option professionally. But I also thought “professional musician” was an unreasonable *backup-plan* to “professional baseball player”…so, I majored in mechanical engineering, rather than music.

I did have a brief career as a mechanical engineer, and then a slightly longer career as a high school teacher…and all the while music kept being something I couldn’t get away from (nor did I want to).

While every composer’s journey is incredibly unique, most of them don’t START in their late-20s as a third career. But I can confidently say I’ve found my dream job after all.

Contact Info:

• Email: matt@mattbowenmusic.com
• Website: mattbowenmusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattbowenmusic/
• Other: https://linktr.ee/mattbowenmusic

Image Credits:
Serena Creative Chris Violette