Interview: Band of the Week - Matt Jenkins

Everything about Matt Jenkins says country. From his traditional country voice to his honest, straight-from-the-heart lyrical style, it’s written in his easy gentle manner and polite charm. Just one look at this 6’4” 24 year old from Texas, and you’ll see “cowboy” etched over every inch of him – well you’ll want to look for it all over him anyway. It is his unforced grace, natural sly wit and a traffic stopping smile that mark Jenkins out from the crowd.

He has had a turbulent career so far. Signed to Universal South (a division of Universal Records) on a development deal, he even released the song “Bad As I Want To” which reached the top 40 in the US country charts.

But when Universal reshuffled all its labels, including Universal South, Jenkins was one of the casualties. This autumn he was scheduled to appear in Fox network’s reality soap television series Nashville — a country music version of MTV’s The Hills. However, that got cancelled after just two episodes.

So not the best start in all, but Jenkins is man born with music hard-wired into his DNA. His little brother, Josh Jenkins, is frontman for former Band of the Week Green River Ordinance.

This charming, hunky, talented Texan may be down but he isn’t out. He is currently in the studio recording and he says he will have some new music for his fans, next summer. He recently took time out to talk to me and I was a bit taken aback. I’m not sure what I expected from a country and western singer besides being down to earth; I had always had the impression that country-boys weren’t, well… the sharpest tacks in the box. Matt Jenkins, however is intelligent, articulate, amiable, distractingly good looking and a shameless flirt. After about three minutes getting to know Matt, I decided, ultimately he isn’t going to have any trouble finding success.

You were signed to Universal, what happened?

I was signed to Universal when I was 19, and moved from Texas to Tennessee, put out a song (“Bad As I Want To”) recorded some songs with a couple different producers. Went up the charts… and I got to do a lot of cool stuff like play at the Grand Ole Opry and open up for a couple of legends, you know heroes of mine.

Article Author: A.L. Harper

I'm a writer and music journalist originally from Salt Lake City, but now living in Scotland. I was a Punk/Goth in the '80s and these artistic influences have stayed with me; although a love of Chopin, chamber music, and Spanish guitar would seem to belie this. …

Visit A.L. Harper's author page — A.L. Harper's Blog