Matt Nathanson is done pretending.
It may seem like he has been around the block. The singer-songwriter is best-known for his platinum-selling single, “Come On Get Higher.” Last year, he recorded the song “Run” with country music greats Sugarland and made an appearance on “The Bachelor.” His music has been featured on television shows “One Tree Hill” and “The Vampire Diaries,” among others.
But through all of his success, Nathanson has never truly portrayed himself. In the music industry, where many artists feel as though they have to change themselves for an audience, Nathanson put on a metaphorical mask and wrote what he thought people wanted. With his new album, “Last of the Great Pretenders,” he’s seeking to change that.
“[The album title] is a play on one of the lyrics in ‘Mission Bells’ — it’s based on the idea that on records in the past, I’ve tried to manage the way that people see me. I’m done pretending and I’m trying to embrace this whole new part of me,” Nathanson said.
The inspiration to begin this journey isn’t something that stemmed entirely from Nathanson himself. He’s had countless influences, but most come from the voices singing through his headphones. His taste range is wide, including everything from Taylor Swift to Anthrax. In listening to the music of his peers, Nathanson realized that most of his favorite sounds came from artists who were totally truthful about who they were.
“On my past records, I spent a lot of time second-guessing and trying real hard, and I would round off edges a lot of times,” Nathanson said. “I call it the ‘creativity assassin’ — if you let it flow freely and don’t get in the way of it, the creativity assassin won’t attack your work. It was important that I duct tape the assassin’s mouth so he didn’t have a say.”
Much of this creativity came from where the album was made — Nathanson’s home of San Francisco. According to Nathanson, this wasn’t intentional and wasn’t brought to his attention until a fan created a Matt Nathanson scavenger hunt around the city, making note of landmarks and places mentioned throughout the album. One of those places was the diner mentioned in the song “Kinks Shirt.”
Nathanson recorded the album down the street from his home in California, and he and his band would break for lunch to a restaurant around the corner from the studio.
“I walked in and all of us fell in love with this badass waitress — she looked powerful and like she didn’t take any shit,” Nathanson said. “You know, she had sleeves of tattoos and stuff. She was super nice, the antithesis of what you would think.”
Nathanson fell so in love with this woman that she took on “mythical proportions.”
“She wore this Van Halen concert T-shirt all the time. [For the song] I pretended that she liked The Kinks because it sounded better,” Nathanson said.
One key element of Nathanson’s success is that many listeners don’t notice at first glance just how long he’s been making music. His first album was released 20 years ago, but despite his long-term musical history, Nathanson doesn’t feel as though his creativity has suffered.
“For me, every record feels like an evolutionary step, it feels like a real growth,” Nathanson said. “The two things most important are longevity and creativity. I’ve been doing this a really long time and I still get to do it, and I still get to talk to you. I’m also proud of the feeling I have as a creative person — I don’t feel like I’ve tapped the well.”
Louisiana holds a special place in Nathanson’s heart. His sister, along with his niece, live in Baton Rouge, and he enjoys visiting “the Big Easy” for late night trips to Café Du Monde in the French Quarter and walks through the city.
You can catch Matt Nathanson on Oct. 12 at Tipitina’s in New Orleans.
“I’m done pretending and I’m trying to embrace this whole new part of me.”