Music to Mend

Music to Mend

The posters on the wall attested to people once befriended and shows once played, but only one frame held memories of faces from the past. It was a photo of a high-school graduate, surrounded on both sides by his four sisters, dressed in a blue cap and gown, his eyes shining with excitement for a future yet to come. He let the frame rest on his knees, his eyes glazed by the ghosts of the smiles that beamed back at him, smiles from a time when new beginnings promised hope for the future and burdens of the past were not as heavy on the heart.

He began with a tone of detached recitation as he navigated through the history of his band’s beginnings, the struggles and the accomplishments that brought them where they are today. For him, these obstacles were minor, norms of everyday life that he accepted as inevitable and moved past without malice or bitterness. For him, music was more than a gateway to fame or form of creative expression. For Matt Callison, music offered an opportunity to return to his family what they sacrificed to bring him where he is today.

A senior at the University of Texas, Matt is majoring in English, with a minor in Radio Television and Film. However, his interests span from recording music to graphic design, evident in the variety of posters and memorabilia that lined the walls of his two-bedroom apartment in West Campus.

The air was quiet, but not uncomfortably so. The stereotypical sounds of the drunken passerby and cars blaring the latest dubstep hits were but distant whispers of a time passed. It was a space of serenity transplanted into a world of chaos. It was a space of untainted creative passion foreign to the world it was centered within.

“The first impression that I got from Matt Callison was that of someone you immediately wanted to be friends with. He just seemed like a laid back and genuinely happy person,” said Lorna Ebner, acquaintance and fan of Matt’s music.

His face was welcoming, unaltered by common anxieties that pervade the mind when one is asked to verbally assert their perception of the past, present, and future. There was no trace of fear in the rhythmic tone of his voice as he recounted the history of Lonesome Ghost, a journey that has stained listeners with the colors of beauty and hardship emanating from their lyrical musings.

“I thought they had a very unique sound that has a sense of nostalgia to it. I may have a limited view but a lot of the indie music I hear seems to follow some pattern set forth by previous bands,
and while their methods may not be completely original the amount of bands that try to do what they do is few and far between,” said James Gorman, writer for Kollection music blog.

Matt and his best friend from Dallas, Tanner Robertson, started the band their sophomore year of high school. Matt had only recently learned to play guitar in the eighth grade, but that did not deter him from becoming as equally skilled as the rest of the band.

“I taught myself… and I was getting a lot better over a short period of time because I was playing a lot… and the next natural step was to try and make a band,” said Matt.

Since that time, music has remained a natural facet of his everyday life. The band played their first show at the end of their sophomore year, and played approximately 30 shows throughout high school under the name “Slow Rewind.” However, college no longer loomed in the shadows of a distant future. They were forced to face the inevitability of their diverging paths.

As a last hurrah, they spent the summer after graduation recording four new songs under the name Lonesome Ghost. Since the album’s release, the band’s popularity has grown and they have been featured in Nylon magazine, online advertisements, various MTV programs, and have opened for big name artists at SXSW.

“I would say a majority of the time, the bands we are playing with are actually my favorite bands…That’s really been a big motivational tool to see the people I idolize and have a realistic perspective of it and see what’s still very far away, but how attainable it is. They’re just normal people,” said Matt.

Matt is using this time to work on a few solo EPs he plans to release at the end of this year. However, he made it clear this was not an attempt to go in an opposite direction of the band, but a means to fill a void while everyone is busy preparing for college graduation.

But, behind the success of Lonesome Ghost, Matt’s driving passion has always been his family. His parents’ separation and his mother’s unemployment have created a financial and emotional strain he is determined to relieve.

Being the oldest child and only son, Matt took it upon himself to fill the shoes of both provider and role model for his mother and younger sisters. For Matt, music is a means through which he can utilize his talents to mend the broken heartstrings of a family disjointed by the divergence of two separate tunes.

“I do have jobs and do my part… but I do know there’s a significant amount of financial investment that’s been put into my future. I think the best way to give that back, and the best way that I can do it, is through music and creating music,” said Matt.