Out-and-proud musician Matt Palmer believes in being himself
Matt Palmer’s obsession with music began early in life. He remembers at age 8 first hearing Michael and Janet Jackson’s pop duet “Scream.” The infatuated grade-schooler quickly bought all their releases. Later that year, Palmer heard Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” and added the diva’s musical catalog to his blossoming collection. Those albums became the sparks that ignited Palmer’s enduring passion for singing.
“I sang in choirs growing up,” Palmer says. “I was in the Atlanta Boy Choir. I was singing around the house all the time. I sang in church. My first solo was in church growing up. I sang all throughout junior high and high school, and I went to school for recorded music, so I’ve been singing for a while now.”
Pop icons continue to influence the singer/songwriter even today. Palmer recently dropped his second EP, Get Lost, and — á la Beyoncé’s Lemonade — created accompanying videos for each of its seven tracks. Thematically, Get Lost is a collection of songs and online videos that tell the story a gay relationship. Palmer viewed this project as an opportunity to return to his musical roots.
“When I started writing the songs, I wanted to do something a little more uptempo — more dance inspired,” Palmer says. “I feel like that is music I grew up loving, and I rarely touched on it in my older music. I wanted to see what it was like to mix all the genres that I grew up with. I thought this would be a cool time to make something that would be fun and listenable but also really personal.”
For some, however, Palmer’s artistry may prove to be a little too personal. He is frank and unapologetic about his sexuality, both lyrically and in his videos. Ultimately, Palmer believes this candor has helped rather than hindered his professional career, especially when it comes to the quality of his songwriting.
“I feel like the music just connects more because it’s not vague platitudes about love,” Palmer says. “I [don’t] feel like I have to write around something. It comes more directly from me. I think it’s definitely improved my music … the fact that I don’t have to hide. I don’t have to tell someone else’s story, I can tell my own. It’s my favorite kind of art from anyone.”
Not surprisingly, Palmer finds that members of the LGBT community are a large part of his listening audience. He is, of course, grateful for the support. Yet Palmer also feels that the subject matter of his songs transcends sexuality and hopes that his fan base isn’t limited only to gay listeners.
“I feel anybody can listen to it and feel like that they can relate to it,” Palmer says of his music. “I don’t think that falling in love or out of love and dealing with heartbreak is specifically a gay experience. Hopefully a lot of people from any walk of life can find something they feel like they relate to on it.”
When it comes to songwriting, Palmer says he never knows when his muse will strike. With one track, for example, Palmer says part of a melody found him as he sat in a traffic jam. For this reason, he makes sure always to have his smartphone nearby — “the Voice Notes feature always comes in handy” — to capture unanticipated flashes of inspiration.
“I’m inspired by my personal life and the lives of friends and what we are dealing with [such as] stages of relationships [and] life in general,” Palmer explains. “I feel like you get inspiration from the strangest places: listening to podcasts, how people interact with each other, how people fall in and out of love. There’s inspiration everywhere.”
Palmer’s musical portfolio also includes songs he has written for other artists. He has written for boy band Big Time Rush and for actor and recording artist Leon Thomas. While Palmer has concentrated on his own music recently, he says that one day he would like to resume writing for others.
“That’s something I definitely would like to do more of,” he says. “I’ve been focusing more on my own stuff lately. There is definitely a time limit on when you can be an artist and how long you are going to have the energy to try to put yourself out there, [but] that’s something I want to get back to as time goes on.”
Palmer feels one of the secrets to his professional success has been sheer determination. In fact, his advice to anyone with a creative dream is simply to pursue it relentlessly.
“If you are going to do something creative, the way to do it and become successful is just to keep doing it,” he says. “Just being persistent and focusing on making good things instead of focusing on what happens with those things; that mindset has brought me a lot of peace. If this is something that I love, then this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”
— Scott Huffman
For more information, visit mattpalmermusic.com.