Our newest single from For the Birds, “Spinning Bells”, just came out today!
Check it out below or stream it wherever you get your streaming!
Mar 3 2023
Feb 10 2023
Dec 15 2022
Nov 17 2022
Jun 15 2020
Jan 20 2020
Jan 7 2020
Aug 16 2019
Apr 2 2019
Jan 16 2019
Jan 11 2019
Dec 20 2018
Oct 31 2018
Aug 20 2018
Sep 28 2017
Sign up now to get a free copy of the first single, "In the Garden", along with an exclusive bonus-track "campfire version". You don't want to miss it.
Join me at SideYard for fabulous drinks and a night of classic country and blues (along with some of my original tunes).
The Box Factory for the Arts, 1101 Broad Street, St. Joseph, MI
Join us at one of Southwest Michigan's truly unique music venues, The Box Factory for the Arts in St. Joseph, to help us celebrate the release of our new record, "For the Birds". Even better, we'll be joined that evening by Michigan's own Americana darling, Kait Rose and her fabulous band. It's gonna be a night to remember!
$12 in advance, $15 at door
Join us for the Chicago edition of our For the Birds record release party! We'll be sharing the night with some fabulous bands and we couldn't be more excited to celebrate this album at Montrose Saloon. Not only is it a great sounding room and one of our favorite places to play, but they're also darn nice people over there. What's not to like?!
Come on out, celebrate with us, and grab your copy of For the Birds before it hits the interwebs the next day!
THURSDAY APRIL 20th
Sunndog /10 Nectarous /9 Matt Lenny and the Breakdown / 8 Jesus Coyote /7
$10
CD Download |
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For the Birds. New music by Matt Lenny & The Breakdown.
Have you felt it? You’ve felt it. That excitement when a door opens on a room you’ve dreamt of but never seen. That charge, that crackle, the sweet hurt of life as it cuts you. That’s this album.
Matt Lenny got lost in guitar as a kid. Kept him sane. Sort of saved him. He’s made albums
For the Birds. New music by Matt Lenny & The Breakdown.
Have you felt it? You’ve felt it. That excitement when a door opens on a room you’ve dreamt of but never seen. That charge, that crackle, the sweet hurt of life as it cuts you. That’s this album.
Matt Lenny got lost in guitar as a kid. Kept him sane. Sort of saved him. He’s made albums before, loud ones, soft ones, rock and country and blues, but none like this.
He blew out his voice last year. Had to learn to sing again. Spent time writing. Hearing new tunes. Dreaming of the room where he and The Breakdown could not just play the songs but bring them to life. What does coming to life sound like? This.
The Breakdown is scattered all over these days: they have separate lives in Chicago and Michigan and out East, but they came together for three days to follow a path to a sound Matt only faintly heard.
Three days means no time for doubt. Fewer hours placing mikes and turning dials and punching vocal lines and perfecting perfect: more time fast tracking and finger picking and letting the music lead.
This is the sound of a band of brothers cutting through new terrain. Learning the path through songs while playing the songs. The sound of doors opening to new rooms and the joy of filling all that new space. The good life as it’s celebrated and lived. As familiar but rare as the shape birds trace in the air. -Bryan VanDyke, NYC, Fall 2022
Matt Lenny & the Breakdown is:
Matt Lenny - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar Dave Méndez - Electric Guitar, Dobro, Vocals David Jamison - Drums, Vocals Erik Vaveris - Bass, Vocals Bryan Trenis - Piano, Hammond, Rhodes, Acoustic Guitar, Vocals Bucky Hayes - Acoustic Guitar, Vocals Sonny Ratcliff - Banjo Anthony Gravino - Percussion, Guitar Kait Rose - Vocals on tracks 2 & 4 Laura Neuroth - Vocals on track 5
All songs written by Matt Lenny and published by Harmon Street Songs, ASCAP Recorded by J Kaufman at Local Legend Recording Additional recording by Matt Lenny, Bryan Trenis, and Anthony Gravino Mixed and mastered by Anthony Gravino at High Cross Sound Produced by Matt Lenny with big assists from Josh and Anthony Graphic design by Dan Spielman, Cover photo by Joshua Woroniecki This album is dedicated to Laura, Archer, and Bowie. Thanks for giving me the space, time, and support I needed to create these songs. Thanks beyond words to my amazing band for making them a reality, and to their loved ones for letting me steal them away for a long weekend. Thanks to Jim Carson for giving me back my voice. - ML
Matt Lenny is a guitarist, songwriter and singer born of Bowie and Muddy Waters. Whether playing solo acoustic or with his full band The Breakdown, his powerful songs are both lyrically rich and immediately accessible, driven by rock hooks and country blues licks.
Matt grew up in Connecticut where he obsessively listened to Led Zeppelin cassettes, but it wasn’t until he moved to Tulsa at age 15 that he started playing guitar. Although he felt out of place at the conservative churches of his new home, he found solace in guitar, which he learned through his youth group. Ironically, it was not country or gospel music that seeped in during his time in the Bible belt, it was experimental rock and pop music.
“You would have thought that I would learn about country music in Oklahoma,” Matt laughs. “Instead I discovered Radiohead, Spoon and T. Rex. Years later, I moved to New York to become a rock star and fell in love with country music.”
Matt moved to New York City after living in Chicago, playing in a couple bands and graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in Poetry and Creative Writing. “I just really fell in love with New York on a visit,” Matt says. “I actually moved there to take a break from music. I was sorta feeling like it was going nowhere and that I wanted a change. So, my plan was to move and look for a job at a non-profit or something, but I needed something in the interim and the only job offer that came through was at Matt Umanov Guitars.”
He began working at the world-famous guitar shop in Greenwich Village, where he’d regularly see a who’s who of musical talent – including PeteTownsend, Patti Smith, Bjork, Ben Harper, Rosanne Cash, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones – who would come in to buy guitars and have their instruments repaired while they were in town. He even started giving guitar lessons to Minnie Driver and Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba. But one visitor changed everything for him.
“I was sitting in the shop and in walks Steve Earle,” Matt says. “He picked up an acoustic guitar and just started strumming some chords. And…I don’t know how to put it except to say that, when he played G and C, it was every country song ever written. When I played G and C, it was just a couple of chords. But, when he did it, it was deep; it had soul and groove and power. It really blew my mind. I’d been touring the country with all these loud rock bands and had all these fancy guitar chops, but he had the song in every strum. I’ve been chasing that ever since.”
Matt moved back to Chicago and started a new band called The Breakdown, including some of his oldest friends like Dave Mendez (electric guitar, dobro, vocals), Erik Vaveris (bass, vocals) and David Jamison, who was the touring drummer for Hurray for the Riff Raff. Since then the band has grown in size and sound, releasing four albums. Their new album For the Birds, features this core group along with Bucky Hayes (acoustic guitar, vocals), Bryan Trenis (piano, Hammond, Rhodes, acoustic guitar, vocals), Sonny Ratcliff (banjo), Anthony Gravino (percussion, guitar) and guest vocalists Laura Neuroth and Kait Rose.
Now living in Michigan, Matt continues to pursue that powerful simplicity, with a full band and as a solo singer-songwriter. The resulting music is somewhere on the rock and roll side of Americana with simple chord changes and melodies married to heartfelt emotions and old-fashioned storytelling.
When not making music, Matt loves spending time with his family and doing Taekwondo with his kid.