Mat Kearney Returns to Columbus in September

Nashville-based, Oregon-born singer-songwriter Mat Kearney will return to Columbus for a Tuesday, September 17, date at the Southern Theatre (21 E. Main St.). 

Kearney is touring in support of January Flower, written between an isolated retreat in Joshua Tree and his home studio, offering a glimpse of Kearney in his rawest form, distilling the songwriting process and rediscovering the joy of making music.

Tickets start at $39 and may be purchased beginning at 10 am Friday, March 8, at the CBUSArts Ticket Center at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State St.), online at www.capa.com or www.CBUSArts.com, and by phone at (614) 469-0939.

Unexpected, unplanned moments often yield the most beautiful results. That’s how Mat Kearney arrived at his sixth album, January Flower. In January of 2019, Mat packed up his recording gear and decamped to an isolated house in Joshua Tree with his childhood friend Marshall Roeman, a painter, and songwriter Eli Teplin. The plan was to use their two weeks in the desert to create a full recording studio, but a massive storm hit, deluging the area in record rainfall and shutting down their power. With the light of the wood burning stove to guide the way, Mat took the opportunity to explore music from a new angle, armed with only his voice and an acoustic guitar.

“You couldn’t see anything from the house but desert and it was so beautiful,” the musician remembers. “This storm came in and we were just in this house, so we started writing songs. We wrote four or five of the songs that are on the record. Stripping it back to me and a guitar and some friends reminded me of how I started and that was the genesis of this record.”

January Flower recalls Kearney’s early work on his gold-selling album Nothing Left To Lose, veering in a different direction from his 2018 album Crazy Talk. The album was also inspired by his acoustic tour in the fall of 2019 to promote the 10th anniversary of The City of Black and White, which was the last time Mat was on the road before everything shut down in the pandemic.

Over his career, Kearney has released five studio LPs, claimed the #1 spot on iTunes, topped multiple Billboard charts, made four entries into the Hot 100, and amassed over 2.5 billion global streams. Kearney, a Multi-Platinum songwriter and producer, has performed live on TODAYShow, Ellen, The Tonight Show, Letterman, and Jimmy Kimmel Live! and has garnered raves from USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, People, Billboard, PARADE, and Marie Claire. He also has an incredible touring history, sharing the road with everyone from John Mayer to NEEDTOBREATHE.

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