Getting to Know… Alanna Matty | Interview 🎤

For the 201^st interview in our Getting to Know… series, we get the inside scoop on Toronto singer/songwriter Alanna Matty. 

“M

y music builds a soundscape that attempts to connect my raw feelings to yours to make you feel how I felt when I wrote the song.” Ooh wee – I heart that 🎙️ Alanna Matty! The Toronto, Canada musician is the interviewee on our 201^st Q&A on The Musical Hype – onward to 300, right? Anyways, Matty, prompted with the question ‘what makes you distinct/how do you rock the audience’s socks off’ goes on to say, “Everything in my music is about exploring the space, and how it’s shared between people.” Now that’s some artistic insight right there! As is always the case in our Getting to Know interviews, we get awesome and intriguing answers to our burning questions.  Rather than drop anymore spoilers, how about we jump right into 🎤 Getting to Know… Alanna Matty: Interview No. 201!

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Starting things off, for those who may not be familiar with you, what would you say makes you distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

🎤 My performance is energy. Not in the traditional hyper electric sense but in the sense of a shared warmth. My music builds a soundscape that attempts to connect my raw feelings to yours to make you feel how I felt when I wrote the song. When I play live, or even when I stream on Twitch you see that in the way I’ve set up my stage. Everything in my music is about exploring the space, and how it’s shared between people.

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Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did your band form and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a band early on?

🎤 I met my first bandmates at a college party actually. There were a bunch of people from the jazz music program at my college there, and it got out that I was hoping to find some musicians to play with and all of a sudden, I had people popping up going, “Alanna Matty needs a band?!?! I am IN” and thus, the band was formed. We got really lucky in that we all got along and had similar tastes, considering how randomly we all met each other.

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Let’s talk more about goals. Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

🎤 I think getting older always changes your perspective, and that’s especially true in music. You’re often brought up on the idea that someday you’ll just “be discovered” and everything will happen for you, but the truth is that it’s incredibly rare for that to happen, and you need to be putting in the work to achieve your goals. As far as aspirations, I want to tour and collaborate with other musicians and songwriters, but now I’m so much more focused on growing my online audience since they’ve been so supportive over the last couple of years.

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Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

🎤 My biggest inspiration has to be the Canadian artist, Feist. She’s just such a badass in my eyes, and everything she does just has this calm confident energy to it. I love that the music she writes doesn’t feel like she’s trying to push herself into a particular genre, rather playing what makes sense for the emotions and the subject matter. It sucks trying to fit yourself into boxes, so watching women like her or Fiona Apple or Regina Spektor pave their own paths and still be successful is huge in my eyes.

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Ah, the fun stuff. What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance? Feel free to be creative.

🎤 Technically it happened after a show, but I was walking around like a moron with my acoustic guitar hung off of my back when the strap gave out and the entire thing smashed to the ground. I was in that high adrenaline post-show mode and laughed about it before I realized the full weight of what I’d done. As it turns out, I had to get everything re-attached inside the guitar as I’d managed to rip out the electronics in the process, not to mention gluing back on the huge chunk of the front that had come off.  At least my guitar has some cool scars to show for it!

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Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

🎤 🎵 “A Song for My Love” is by far my favourite to perform live, especially with the band. I write a lot of softer acoustic tracks, but that one is loud and angry and has such an incredible feel to it. On the other side of the coin, I do love to play my more intimate tracks and feel that connection to the audience. A lot of people relate to my most recent release, 🎵 “Little Dreamer”, because they can feel the nostalgia that runs through it, so performing it with people in the room feels a little extra special.

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Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

🎤 People are often surprised to hear how competitive I am, which stems from most of my life playing sports. I tend to give off this really nice welcoming and calm vibe but put me in front of a video game or board game and you’ve got some serious competition on your hands! And yes, I am a bit of a nerd when it comes to video games or board games, I play a lot of them and own a pretty sizeable collection!

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Closing things out, what are you currently working on or promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure.

🎤 I’ve got a new single out right now, 🎵 “Little Dreamer” with another single in the works to come out in early September! With COVID regulations the way they are, I’m not playing in person gigs at the moment, but I do play music live on Twitch 3-4 times a week which feels almost the same.

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Follow Alanna Matty: Site • FB • IG • Twitter • Twitch

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Getting to Know… Alanna Matty: Interview No. 201 🎤 [📷: Alanna Matty, Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype]

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