Matthew Ebel interview

Singer-songwriter Matthew Ebel made his iProng Radio debut back in September 2007 with a live interview at the Orange County Podcasters booth at New Media Expo, and later appeared in the debut issue of iProng Magazine in December. No stranger to podsafe music, Matthew recently took things a step further by giving away free downloads of three of his songs to anyone who wants them. We checked in with Matthew to find out why he’s giving away free music and what else he has going on…



What have you been up to since we last caught up with you in December?

Well since we talked last December I’ve actually moved from Nashville to Boston. I’ve been here almost five months now and I still feel like I just moved, though, it’s a totally different world. I definitely made the right move, though, since there are a lot more conventions and seminars up here that relate to what I’m doing. I’ve already been to a couple of new media events and a PR boot camp for musicians. Hopefully I’ll actually be able to start playing more shows soon!



You make a living by selling your music, so why are you giving it away?

I do make a living selling my music, but good luck getting people to buy music they haven’t heard. Some people will take a chance on an album based off of one listening, but I’d rather give people the chance to mull it over. I’m pretty sure that the more they listen to some of my songs on their good headphones or speakers, the more my music will grow on them. If not, they haven’t lost anything but time… but if they really dig it, I hope they’ll go for the rest of the album.

I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think the albums were worth buying.


What happened to the House Tour?

The house tour… well, a few things happened to the house tour. I mentioned a few things specifically on matthewebel.com recently, but the drift of it is that I would have gone broke trying to do it. God knows I wanted to make it work, but there just weren’t enough people buying tickets in advance to make the trip break even. At $4 a gallon, I literally would’ve come home from that 3,000-mile trip and had to get a day job. I’d rather try again later in the year and give myself a LOT more lead time to book other shows and promote more.



What have you got coming up next?

Right now I’ve got a couple of things on the horizon. First and foremost is Block Island; I spent a month there last year, but this summer I’ll be on the Block for 10 straight weeks. It’s going to be a hell of an experience, I know it. I was just getting into the rhythm last year when I had to go home, so hopefully it’ll be as great this year. I just hope my voice can survive singing 4 hours a day 5 days a week. The other thing I’m hoping to do by year’s end is release a Christmas album. I’ve been wanting to do that for a while, but I don’t want to just crank out some cheesy pop album where I’m butchering O Holy Night with vocal ornamentation. I want to do something classy and original, and if I can do that you’ll see it on round plastic by year’s end.