BearoticEntertainment for Bears and the furry at heart.

Matthew Temple Moves Heart, Mind and Spirit With His Music

Written by NetBear on June 17, 2008 – 4:51 am -

Music can be an extremely potent influence on our lives. With only a few words, with only a few notes, a powerful piece of music can move our mood and soul into a completely new emotional state of mind.

But even the most emotional and moving music can still fall flat without an inspired performer to emote and deliver those feelings. This is where talent becomes a requisite factor in the delicate and often elusive musical equation.

While watching a music video from Matthew Temple on YouTube, I found myself being drawn-in by elegant and poetic words, warm instrumental arrangement and a simple yet candid performance. Though it was his first attempt at filming a music video of this type, A jealous Heart struck a chord with me. This is an artist whose finely crafted words and music will tell you a story and pull you into the experience.

I thought that the name Matthew Temple sounded familiar. And sure enough, he was part of the Bears On The Run tour that we reported on back in March. He performed with guys like Elijah Black, seen here on the right with Matthew.

I enjoy learning more about an artist by asking them questions or having a conversation. We were fortunate to get in contact with Matthew at his home in Nashville, Tennessee one summer day. He was kind enough to subject himself to a Bearotic interview over the phone.

Where did you get your inspiration for the song, Jealous Heart?

I don’t know a lot about jealousy. I’m not like that — neither is my partner Dean. We’re comfortable in our relationship. But I witnessed it at a concert I was playing in Florida. While I was down there a couple I was nearby was having a profound disagreement. He just wasn’t like what his partner thought he was. It was a tremendously strong emotion. It opened up my eyes and I started paying more attention to other people’s lives. How could I write something about this? Where would this lead if a person started to end it?

How do you go about writing a new song?

Normally I start a new song by writing poetry. Once I have the feelings down in words, I have to learn the piece. I sang with Duke Ellington and was classically trained. I believe that for anyone that wants to do justice to a song, they have to take the whole thing apart and decide what they want to do with it. Where are the pauses? Where is the emotion? It’s the performance factor. For Jealous Heart I would start working on it and then I’d have to stop. It would make me cry. Sometimes on stage it still runs away with me. But that’s when I know I really like a piece of music.

Why Nashville? Isn’t that more of a country music area?

It’s actually about blues music more than country. And there are truly great studio musicians all over this area. For example, I have a song called After Dark and Chester Thompson, the drummer for Genesis, played on it. Johnny Garcia, Tricia Yearwood’s road band leader did guitar work on a few of the songs. Nashville has a folk, blues and a grassroots music community that makes networking very easy for a musician.

How do you feel about being “out” as a gay man?

This is a relatively new thing for me. A lot of musicians are hesitant about being identified as being gay. I had some misgivings about coming out. But now I’m 58 years old. I have a good job. I figured about 10 years ago that it’s time to just be OUT… As out as I can possibly be.

How I came out is a funny story. I went to a college to play at a folk festival. I had a guitar with a gay flag on it. I didn’t usually take this guitar out and it escaped my mind about the sticker. A kid at a college asked me if that was a gay flag and if I was gay. At first I hesitated but then replied, yes and yes. He said, well you want to come over and play a song at our gay/straight alliance? I just smiled and said “OK.”

During the course of my own coming out I discovered that there are a lot of gay younger people who are absolutely terrified of it. Or they feel they have to be straight acting to hide the fact that they are gay. Those young people don’t have a good role model. If we stay in the closet how are they going to have a role model. They’re not.

Have you ever had any bad experiences or gotten hassled about being gay?

There are people that just plain hate gays. These are the people that want to suppress us. Well, they need to be shaken up. They need to realize that they can’t just pick us out. For example, in the early days drag queens were brave enough to be out and visible. The rest of us were kind of hiding.

I just want to be visible. Hey look, if you’re gay and you’re a bear or a cub or however that is, you’re probably passing because you’re acting straight. You’ve got to be brave and you’ve got to stand out. I can make straight guys cry. So that’s no problem for me.

There are not straight people and gay people. There are some who are 100% straight. There are some who are 100% gay. Some have no sexual interest at all. But every single person is a degree. We’re made with a variety. There’s straight and gay and everything in between. Many people are taught to be afraid… or they’re convinced that it’s wrong.

Where do you want to go with your music?

Women try to get Elijah Black to go out with him. He tells them that he’s gay. But they just don’t believe him. We want people to see that. We try to book straight venues. That’s where I want to go with my music. I want to play as many festivals and cross-over. With LOGO’s support I’ll get Jealous Heart on national TV. If we can get a crossover to the more mainstream MTV we’d really love it.

It seems like you have a lot of real world emotions in your music. Where do you draw from to find those emotions?

Most all of my songs come from an experience I’ve had or someone I have met. Something happens to inspire emotions and feelings. For example, back when we were living in Texas, we met this really cool guy — straight, but cool. He had run away from home when he was 15 and gone to work for the railroads. He had worked himself all the way up to VP. I got to talking to him. One day I picked up the guitar and wrote, Written On The Rails. It felt great to write that.

We had another friend in Texas who was also straight. He was a policeman who inherited a large sum of money. Over the course of a couple months he became changed by the money. His whole character became different. When I tried to talk to him about it, he just wouldn’t listen. Things like that inspire me to write more poetry.

Browsing through YouTube, you don’t expect to get hit by an emotional whammy. You don’t expect to find music that will move you. Sure, there will be high school kids doing reckless physical stunts and kids embarrassing their parents in every way possible. That’s just the nature of the Internet, often you find just a lot of “stuff.”

But when I found this video by Matthew Temple it was a different story. I wasn’t expecting to get turned into a weepy-eyed mess. But a few moments later I realized that I just got pwned (internet geek-speak for “owned”) by this soft-spoken hit man and his music.

But I’m not complaining. If I’m not mistaken, that’s what it’s like when you find some music that you really enjoy. It pulls some feelings out of you that you never knew was even there. Here is Matthew getting his blues on playing St. James Infirmary at the Cantab Underground in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I hope you will take some time to visit Matthew Temple’s web site. If you get to know his music, you too will find yourself drawn into a bluesy, folk-inspired space where your heart, mind and spirit will be moved and inspired.

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