Matthew Parker Goes to His Bucket List for Inspiration in Creating "Daydreamer"

Matthew Parker's Daydreamer will be releasing on October 26th, following up his highly successful album Adventure. Pre-orders begin today on iTunes, Amazon, and Apple Music, featuring the immediate release of his song "Good Memories" and new radio single "Breathe."

"Breathe" the debut radio single from Parker debuted most added in the Billboard Christian Hot AC / CHR chart  celebrating 7 adds (2 the previous week, 5 this week) by his add date this Monday (October 8th)

Q:  Matthew, thanks for doing this album with us. Congratulations on the release of your new album, why did you call it "Daydreamer"?

MatthewParker(MP): Hello! Well, the concept behind the title of this record is that sometimes you find yourself in a place in life that you don't want to be, and sometimes all you can do is daydream of a day when things will be better. I'm a bit of a daydreamer myself--sometimes I'm even daydreaming song lyrics or a beat idea, so it seemed fitting.

Q:  You mentioned that you have taken more risks with this record. What kind of risks have you taken?

MP: As a song creator I made a point to attempt to check off as many "bucketlist" song ideas as possible with this record. On my bucket list currently are to make a song that's bilingual (probably English and Spanish), and also to make a song that sounds like EDM, but made with 100% acoustic instruments. But that's in the future. On this record, I managed to do at least 2 from my bucketlist: the first track on the album, "Alice", is a song that has no background music--I started with a single vocal and then used that vocal to create electronic artificial harmonies that made up full chords. I was inspired to do this song by a British artist named Imogen Heap who made a song called "Hide and Seek" in a similar way. The 2nd bucketlist song is simply a song where the background music sounds like a full orchestra--kind of almost like a movie score song. This one is the last song on the album called "Time Stands Still".

Q:  I must say I love the album cover.  What's the significance of your cover pic?

MP: The butterfly and sun and moon symbols on my artwork don't have any weird symbolism or anything--to me the sun = day and moon = night (dream...er), hence "Daydreamer". And then the butterfly just looks nice...and speaking of, there's actually a story of how I came up with the butterfly concept for this artwork. The story is that I didn't come up with it at all. So I posted an Instagram picture of a small butterfly on my hand, and being the goofy dweeb I am, captioned it "smol buterflie". Long story short, one of my followers commented something like "You should make your album artwork be a butterfly, but make it the same color as the eyes of the girl on the 'Adventure' artwork--that would look sick"...and I tried it, and it did indeed look "sick". Not even sure that follower even knows I used his idea. I should tell him.

Q:  Let's start with your new single "Breathe."  What's the story behind this song?

MP: "Breathe" is about how sometimes life gets so overwhelming that it's just more than we can handle on our own. And it's times like this where all we can do is put it all in God's hands and just "breathe" because we know He's in control.

Q:  There are a few songs, like "Every Other Day" and "Good Memories," where you mention your past.  Are those songs autobiographical? And how has songwriting helped you personally in your own journey?

MP: Yes, a few of these songs are a bit autobiographical, although the details are a little embellished because, well, storytelling. It's been satisfying to include more personal experiences in songs with this record and make it more personal and real. I would say that writing some of these types of songs, especially the ones about heartbreak and loss, can be very therapeutic to write. Sometimes even though I wouldn't love to sit down and talk about some of these hard things with somebody, apparently I can write them in songs that will be heard by thousands of people...and that's kind of ironic, but I think it's because the music provides a mask that makes it less daunting to share very personal feelings--and although that sounds kind of like a negative thing, I think it's a positive thing because it's good for me, and people find that it's incredibly relatable since it's more honest and personal than many of the songs they hear.

Q:  And there are some songs which you speak of hope and finding love.  You have left it ambiguous as to whether you are talking about God or another human being.   Is that your purpose to leave your songs ambiguous?

MP: It depends on the song. I never write a song that is actually to God AND a girl, even if it has the ambiguous "you". That'd be kind of ridiculous. But I write some of each of those two types of songs, and I always know which is which, and I feel like if someone is really trying to figure it out, they can know whether a song is to God or to a girl. So no, I'm not generally trying to leave my songs ambiguous.

Q:  How do you wish this new album would help or inspire your listeners?

MP: There are a lot of good goals an artist could wish their album would accomplish, but mine with this album might be a little different. With this album, I want to encourage my listeners to realize that it's okay to feel emotions deeply and that they are not alone in feeling that way, and that there is always hope. I have a lot of very emotional songs on this record. I also want this music to encourage people to use their imagination to see life through a much bigger lens--to daydream, and to live life wide-eyed and full of wonder, because life is so much bigger and better that way. Why stare at the dirt when you can gaze at the stars?

 

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