Matt Stillwell grew up in North Carolina. During college, Stillwell played baseball at Western Carolina University where he was an All-Conference player on the Catamount’s Southern Conference Championship Baseball teams. Baseball turned into music and Stillwell has since been traveling across the country in his custom wrapped Budweiser bus headlining his own shows, as well as opening for most of today’s country superstars. He lives with his wife, Lindsey, and their two daughters Carolina and Ruby in Knoxville, TN.
Matt released his debut single Shine in the fall of 2008. It debuted at #25 on iTunes Country Chart, reached the TOP #50 on Billboard’s Country Charts, and the accompanying music video reached #5 on CMT Pure while breaking into the Top 10 on GAC’s Top 20 Country Countdown. The album went on to produce another Top 50 Billboard single in Sweet Sun Angel and two more top videos on CMT Pure with Dirt Road Dancing and Sweet Sun Angel. The first single Ignition from his album Right On Time reached TOP #50 on the Billboard Hot Country Chart in 2014.
Stillwell recently released a new single called Hey Dad, written about the loss of his father. The video for Hey Dad has over 18 million views online. GAC and CMT have both started to air the video, and the single will be released to country radio February 15. He is finalizing details for several shows this spring and summer in support of Folds Of Honor and The Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation.
I was able to chat with Matt about his music, his career and fatherhood.
Art Eddy: Let’s talk about your latest single Hey Dad that is available on iTunes and other places where music is sold. It is a powerful song. I can relate to it because I lost my mother a few years back. Was writing this song therapeutic for you to help with the pain of losing your father?
Matt Stillwell: It was very therapeutic. I wrote the song with one of my friends who was very close to my dad. It was less than thirty days since my dad passed away. His name is Lynn Hutton. He is an incredible songwriter. He and I have very similar relationships with our dads. Lynn was on a songwriter retreat in the Dominican Republic when it happened.
He and I talked on the phone when it happened. He was there in paradise and just broke down in front of all of his friends. I went in to write a song about beer that day. I work with Budweiser quite a bit. I had an idea that I was going to do that. I told him my idea. He said that is not what we are doing today buddy. He had an idea. It wasn’t the hook or anything, but what he wanted to do.
I pulled out my phone. Anyone can relate to this who has lost somebody. In my favorites it is mom, dad, and my two brothers. I broke down. I balled through the whole writing session. I knew it was going to help people. I said that to him that day. It was so honest. It was exactly what I was feeling right then. I hate why I have the song, but I realize the impact that it has had. We haven’t had a big media push. It is just organic. It is really helping people. I have people that bring their families to my shows to tell me their stories of their dads.
Lynn told me after we wrote that song that I am going to have to sing through every line so I can get through it. I rode around Nashville for over nine hours in my truck. I sang through each line until I could get through it. It has done a few things for me. It has put a wall up so I can get through and perform the song. It has distanced me in a way. When I get the emotions is when people come after the show and they are telling me their stories. I see their emotions is when it gets back to me. It is an interesting dynamic there. It came from an honest place as humanly possible. A lot of the times that is where the best songs come from.
AE: What is your creative process like when you are writing music? Do you write when you are inspired about a topic or do you sit down and start creating music?
MS: The very first song that I wrote that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. (Both laugh.) I recorded it and everything came to me in my head for that one. This was before I could play anything. I couldn’t play guitar or piano or nothing. I had to have someone help me play chords to accompany me with that. That doesn’t happen very often.
In the recording process and writing process I took all of the energy from baseball and moved it to that. I started reading books. I moved to Nashville. I started writing with other people. The co-write is a different animal than something just coming to you. Nashville is built on publishing companies. On 16th and 17th Avenue there are houses up and down there. What you think are houses next to big building those houses are publishing houses for the most part. You have writers that go there like Tin Pan Alley in New York where they go there to work every day. Five days a week. Two to three sessions each day where they are wri
ting songs with other people. I immersed myself into that. I learned about what my role was. Am I going to be an artist or a songwriter? Or am I going to be some hybrid of that.
A guy named Dean Dillon that has written every George Strait song helped me out. He said if you want to be an artist you can write with us and other people and while out on the road. I drive my bus a lot. We play from Seattle to Miami typically every year. So I have been seeing the country and I get that open mind time out on the road. That is where ideas come to me. I learned that is more of my role in that song writing process. I want to bring in that idea and develop that into a certain point, but I love the collaboration of writing with someone else. That is where my creative side comes in and I just trust my gut after that.
AE: Switching to fatherhood now, what were some of the first few thoughts that popped into your mind when you found out that you were going to be a dad?
MS: Wow! (Both laugh.) You might get this from other artists or athletes, but I thought it was not what I needed to do. It takes up time. It takes up energy. It takes up resources. Those first few thoughts were that I was scared to death. I have a song about it. It is called Cold Beer. I wrote it with Dean Dillon. It is my wife and my story. We were scared. She told me the night before Easter. We had brunch with my manager and his wife. He told me that they were pregnant. So I didn’t even get to tell him. I am sitting there holding all of that stuff in during that moment. There is a lot of things that are at stake here. I had so much stuff going through my head, but Good Lord it saved me beyond saved me in many ways. What a blessing.
AE: In what ways did becoming a father change the way you look at your career?
MS: Absolutely. What I realized is now that I am a dad and a husband is that it has added to my pedigree as opposed to being taken away from it. In the Country (music) world that is valued. Being a great dad is a good thing. I had a great one to give me an example of that. I immersed myself in it like I did in music. I felt that is has rounded me out from the creative process in choosing direction and what moves you are going to make.
My first song was called Moonshine, which my girls love. They don’t love moonshine, but they love the song. (Both laugh.) Then it goes into Whiskey Well and then to Cold Beer. My girls think that Budweiser is my logo. They know Cold Beer backwards and forwards, but we don’t have it in the house. They just see it on clothing 
and all of that kind of stuff. They have immersed themselves in and they are big fans.
In terms of making decisions it has rounded me out as a person to where I can make better decisions. I never needed motivation, but it certainly narrowed my focus and everything involved in my career.
AE: What are some of the core values you look to instill in your children as they grow up?
MS: My wife is amazing. She is with them the most. My kids are so well behaved. There is not a ton of discipline. I try and talk to them like a person and not down to them. I am conscious of that. I try to listen just to see what they have to say. Some of the stuff that they say is outrageous. My oldest daughter for two days has been crying because she is worried that I am not going to be there when she grows up. They are convicted about it too. That just hurts you and we have been talking about that for the past couple of days.
I really try for them to be thankful. We got to do some things that other people haven’t gotten to do. The first time they got to fly on a plane was a private plane to Sea Island. Every time we go to the beach they ask me if we are going to get on a plane. Ironically that might have been my second time flying private. I am not to that point yet. When a two and three year old get to do it that is their reality.
We live very modestly. We have to. I am still a starving artist. We get to do some special things. We try and make them be aware of that as much as they can understanding that and be thankful. At night that is what we talk about. I tell them stories about dad and what I did with him. They get to hang out with my brothers who are in construction too. They got to run a backhoe the other day. Both of them rode it with me. It is more of an experience base, but I will tell them things. We are very blessed. They are good kids.
AE: What advice do you have for new dads?
MS: I would have to say just love them. Listen to them and talk to them. I love being able to talk to them like an adult. I really like that aspect of it. I feel like they listen to it most of the time. I think they understand more than we give them credit for a lot of the time.
Loving them and letting them know that you support them in whatever they are doing. My parents were very hands off in some of that. They supported me and gave me everything that I needed to go and be the best baseball, basketball, and football player and a musician. Whatever it is that they choose I want to be that for them. I want to be that support and help them when I can.
Life of Dad Quick Five
AE: Do you guys have a favorite family movie that you all love to watch together?
MS: Miracles in Heaven.
AE: Do you guys have a favorite song that you all like to sing to or dance to as a family?
MS: (Laughs.) Besides daddy’s songs because they ask for them a lot we listen to Katy Perry’s Dark Horse. They do interpretive dancing. We have dance night every night.
AE: Describe the perfect family vacation. Might be hard to top that time on the private jet, right?
MS: It is going to be hard to beat Sea Island. I felt like we were the Kennedys at Kennebunkport. It is an unbelievable place.
AE: What was the first album that you purchased?
MS: Bon Jovi, Slippery When Wet.
AE: You played baseball in college so do you have a favorite MLB team?
MS: I grew up a big time Atlanta Braves fan. I was part of the Braves clubhouse collection. I have got to know a lot of those guys. Bruce Sutter, who is in the Hall of Fame, he and I have become very good friends. A lot of that is because of the St. Louis Cardinals and Budweiser. I get to go and play in the St. Louis Cardinals fantasy camp. I got to play second base with Ozzie Smith playing shortstop. I also have become good friends with Cal Ripken Jr. I almost more of a fan of players, but I grew up a big time Braves fan. The Cardinals are in there somewhere.
Follow Matt on Twitter at @mattstillwell and check out his website at mattstillwell.com.