Matt Hawkins
Suburban Dad Acoustic Folk Pop
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About
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Listen / Watch
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Name
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Matt Hawkins
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Genre(s)
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Indie, Folk, Pop
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Content
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Covers & Originals
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Taking Bookings
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Australia Wide
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About Us
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Brisbane’s first and possibly only proponent of the musical genre “Suburban Dad Acoustic Folk Pop”, Matt Hawkins has been honing then re-honing his craft since the late 1990s. His love of Archie Roach, Paul Kelly, Robert Forster, Charles Jenkins, Darren Hanlon, Mick Thomas, Tim Rogers and Billy Bragg has seen him aspire to write stories of real life put to music. Studying an Arts degree majoring in English and History at UQ in the mid-90s, Matt discovered he had some serious time on his hands. When endless games of 500 failed to fill the time in a pre-Netflix world, Matt bought a cheap acoustic guitar and asked a mate to teach him some chords. When that mate then convinced Matt to buy a bass guitar and they in turn conned their other mate into playing drums, the well-loved but short-lived “Right You Out” was born, playing Oasis and Van Morrison covers to mildly adoring fans at establishments like Rosies’ Tavern, Alices’ Rock Café, and the RE in Toowong. A support slot for The Choirboys was perhaps the band’s career highlight…
With members leaving and new members joining over the years, the band morphed into “Waiting for Tom” and Matt started trying to write some tunes of his own. “Waiting for Tom” released three EPs in the early noughties and had the privilege of supporting the likes of Jebediah, The Superjesus, Skulker, The Daisycutters, and even Daryl Braithwaite. Life for the members of the five-piece shifted with the arrival of real jobs, spouses and kids, and “Waiting for Tom” went on an indefinite hiatus, which continues to this day. In early 2020, cleverly just before the arrival of a global pandemic, Matt decided to dust off his acoustic guitar and start playing and writing again. After reading fellow Brisbanite Trent Dalton’s debut novel, Boy Swallows Universe, Matt was inspired to write what would become his first solo offering, “Bridge of Stories”. He kept writing, with the help of his song-writing Yoda, Charles Jenkins, then booked the beautiful Airlock Studios near Samford to lay down what he had come up with. More songs and more recording followed, until 12 tracks had appeared and could be cobbled together to realise a life-long dream for Matt, a debut record. When trying to come up with a name for the record, Matt remembered an interview he had read featuring the great Paul Kelly. The journalist had asked the musician what inspired his song-writing, to which Kelly replied, “Sex, death and cricket…what else is there?” Matt lacked confidence in at least two of those things… Hence, “Love, Loss and Washing Lines” was born – an album of stories about suburban life in Brisbane, or anywhere for that matter. Stories about love of kids and family, about the loss of loved ones, about the beginnings and ends of relationships, about life in the back yard. Matt is a single dad and the Principal of a group of flexi-schools for young people who have disengaged from mainstream education for lots of different reasons. Life is pretty good. |
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What We Bring
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Story-telling put to music, glistening harmonies, a fun show.
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Members
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Matt Hawkins - Vocals and Guitars
Kelly Jensen - Violin and Vocals Mad Cocolas - Keys and Vocals Andrew Webb - Percussion and Vocals Dave French - Guitars and Vocals Justin Shears - Bass and Vocals Tom Croese - Drums |
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Country
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Australia
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State / Region
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Queensland (QLD)
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Home town
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Brisbane
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