Matthew Hart: Press

Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX)
2002-06-20
Section: LIFE & ARTS
Edition: FINAL
Page: 2

Texas music's a gas for anesthesiologist
MIKI TURNER STAR-TELEGRAM POP CULTURE CRITIC

It's not often you'll find a native Texan performing Austin-inspired tunes in a Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles. It's even rarer when that Texan's day job is chief resident at UCLA's Department of Anesthesiology.


Meet Matthew Hart, 31, a Dallas native who was reared in Arlington and who has been writing songs and playing instruments since elementary school. And in the true tradition of Texan-born singer/songwriter/anesthesiologists, the St. Mark's School, University of Texas at Austin and Columbia grad gave his first live performance at a friend's 11th birthday party; released his first CD, Comet, last year; and is in the process of mixing his second, The Valley Sessions, while awaiting the birth of his first child with wife Dr. Daphne Stewart.


During a recent interview with the Star-Telegram, the singing doc discussed how he is managing to balance two careers and who and what have influenced his music over the years.


Q: First, how have Los Angeles audiences responded to your music?


A: LA audiences seem to be very accepting of the Texas sound. Granted, much of my fan base derives itself or has some connection to Texas, so coming to my show gives them a chance to wax nostalgic about good barbecue and Shiner Bock.


Q: How would you describe your sound?


A: Always a difficult question to answer. The foundation is acoustic guitar-based Texas singer-songwriter folk. Mixed in are elements of bluegrass, country, popular and Latin music. It's generally upbeat, but mellow.


Q: Who helped influence your sound?


A: Waterloo, a song on Comet, is directly influenced by Lyle Lovett's She Already Made Up Her Mind and is written about Austin. Night Shift is also pretty much Lyle. Native Son, Silverbird and Gladly Shipwrecked can be traced back to Robin Macy (former Dixie Chick) and the early Dixie Chicks. Like a Texas Storm was actually written for and about Robin and was inspired by a Dixie Chicks performance in Austin by Town Lake during a violent thunderstorm back in '91 or '92. Interestingly, my newer stuff is more heavily influenced by Texas. It's either nostalgia or I'm finally settling into my roots.


Q: When did you first get into music?


A: I wrote my first song in the second grade on piano, but everything really took off in the sixth grade when I learned how to play guitar. My first mentor was Robin Macy. Contrary to other kids my age who were learning how to play Van Halen and Led Zeppelin, I was reared on Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor and bluegrass. During my time at Columbia Medical School, I began to focus on becoming a solo singer/songwriter. Comet is the culmination of several years of writing that did not come fully to fruition until moving to LA and being reunited with my old Those Who Dig [former bandmates from Austin] pals. I released a three-song CD in 1999. One of the songs, Learning To Breathe, was influenced by my experiences in the liver transplant lab. It's basically about on-the-job training.


Q: Was it hard to choose medicine over music as your primary profession?


A: I think I've been struggling with this issue since high school. At many points along the way I've had to reaffirm the choices I have made. I guess I have always been blessed and/or cursed with my desire to maintain a music career alongside my other interests in life. I respect other people's all-out commitment to music, but I have never been that way. I was driven to succeed in school because I always felt I'd be letting myself down if I didn't become a physician. I have no doubt that medicine actually fuels the creative process. I will continue to do both for better or for worse.


Q: Do you ever perform for your patients?


A: I've been known to sing for some of the pediatric patients before putting them to sleep, but the average person on the street could care less whether or not their anesthesiologist can carry a tune. They tend to be more concerned with other important skills. Every so often, though, one of the OR [operating room] nurses will pop Comet in the CD player during surgery. My only hope is that my lulling capabilities will work on my newest production, due in August.


Q: Tell me about The Valley Sessions.


A: It includes 10 songs that were recorded live in a tiny studio up in Van Nuys, Calif., last February. The ensemble is more indicative of my live sound than was Comet and includes my old Austin pal Kit Pongetti on percussion and background vocals. Overall, it's a much more mellow CD and includes a homage to Texas [Pink Granite Spine] and more autobiographical material of the past five years of my life. It's happy, sad, heavy and silly.


Q: What do you miss most about Texas?


A: I miss fall and spring, Austin - especially late-night drives through the Hill Country, Sixth Street, the Cactus Cafe, Shiner Bock, flat-open drives through West Texas and the 64-ounce steak challenge, even though I'm a vegetarian now.


Online: www.matthewhart.com


Miki Turner, (817) 390-7046 mikiturner@star-telegram.com

Hart and Soul

With his music talents and training in anesthesiology, this UCLA resident knows how to make people feel better

Antero Garcia
Published: Tuesday, February 20, 2001
LISA SPINK Matthew Hart is able to find a balance between his love for music and his job as a resident in the department of anesthesiology at the UCLA Medical Center. His CD "Comet" is forthcoming and blends folk, bluegrass along with other genres of music.

By Antero Garcia
Daily Bruin Senior Staff


Like most other residents at the UCLA Medical Center, Matthew Hart is frequently on call.

Unlike most other residents, however, Hart has found enough spare time to not only keep up his passion for playing guitar, but also release his first CD, “Comet.”

“I love being a physician,” Hart said. “It’s extremely satisfying to take care of people.”

The job is not only fulfilling for Hart, it’s also an outlet for him to promote his music tirelessly to the staff of the hospital. Hart said that he constantly pages the doctors about his upcoming gigs and sometimes even plays his music in the operating rooms.

“‘Learning To Breathe’ is a favorite in the liver transplant room, which is kind of odd,” he said. “Doctors are always on call, so you have to really push them to go out to a show. The anesthesia department at UCLA is very supportive.”

However, the anesthesia department isn’t the only support that Hart receives; he has attracted a loyal fan base. One fan and close friend is Lynn Wang, a staff research assistant who graduated from UCLA last June as a physiological science student.

“I have known Matt since last summer while I was volunteering in the operating room of Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center and I have attended a few of his performances since,” Wang said.

Hart is adamant about the importance of a good live performance and feels that it is imperative as a performer to make the concert experience much more than a series of songs.

“I love the connection a performer can have with his audience,” Hart said. “Hopefully that happens when I am on stage, and it’s more of a communication between me and the audience.”

Indeed Hart has made that connection with members of his audience through the personal touches that he puts into his concerts.

“At one of Matt’s performances, he sang a song for the pre-meds in the audience called ‘Mitochondria,’ which he wrote in medical school,” Wang said. “We loved it because it was such a clever way of presenting the kind of material we’ve learned in our classes.”

While Hart loves both medicine and music, he finds it difficult to be involved so actively in both fields. At the same time, Hart sees his two interests as interconnected.

“It’s always been sort of a conflict for me, but I think that my medical life sort of inspires a lot of what I write about.”

One such song that was inspired by his medical practices is the liver transplant favorite, “Learning To Breathe,” which Hart said is basically about the challenge doctor’s face of having to learn their practice on a patient.

It is these autobiographical songs that make “Comet” a CD that Hart is proud of. The recording process for the album was especially rigorous due to Hart’s work duties at the hospital.

“It was really fun recording,” Hart said. “We did it up in this place in Van Nuys over the process of six months. I would work one day from 8 in the morning until 8 the next morning and have the next day off, so I would just go to the studio.”

Although the work was exhausting, Hart has integrated many different styles together to create a truly unique ambiance on his 15-song CD.

“The album is pretty eclectic,” Hart said. “It has a little bit of country, a little bit of bluegrass, a little bit of pop and a little bit of – for lack of a better term – a world music/Hispanic element to it, which is bizarre because I’m not Hispanic.”

Hart does note, however, that much of his music has been influenced by the various localities that he has lived in throughout his life. Originally from Texas, Hart attended the University of Texas, Austin, where he picked up the country sound of his music.

“Austin is a great music scene,” Hart said. “It has a lot of blues, bluegrass and country and I was really into that.”

Hart’s experiences with music in Austin also led him to pick up the mandolin, an instrument that he acknowledges is a bit more difficult to play than the guitar. However, this is only because Hart has been playing guitar for such a long time, and it has become second nature to him.

“In the seventh grade I learned to play guitar and started my first band with a couple of friends,” Hart said. “The first guy I ever played with was Rhett Miller who is now with the Old 97s. We went to school together in Texas.”

Soon after his interests in music were sparked in Texas, Hart traveled east to New York where he entered medical school at Columbia University. Upon finishing his studies, Hart moved out to Los Angeles, where he has since been fulfilling his residency as an anesthesiologist for the past three years.

With as much enjoyment Hart gets from the medical world, he admits that the lure of lucrative success which the music world offers is very tempting.

“I love being a physician, there is no doubt about it,” Hart said. “It’s extremely satisfying to take care of people. We’re taking care of people who are having heart transplants and it’s exciting to know I’m going to get up tomorrow and do that.

“At the same time, if I had the opportunity to do music for a couple of years and it would pay off my enormous financial loans, I would be hard pressed not to do it,” he continued.

Money, however, is not the driving force behind Hart’s music. Instead, Hart finds gratification in the words he ponders and the smiles they create.

“Success for me is being productive, prolific and just being original,” he said. “The financial aspects of musical success are just so hard to count on that you really have to focus on creative success and be happy with a job well done.”

And Hart has plenty to be happy about. With his many performances and his soon to be released album, Hart has truly touched people, both with his skills as a physician and as a vocalist.

“Matt’s a wonderful guy and I greatly admire him for following through with his passions,” Wang said. “It isn’t easy leading a life outside of the hospital as a doctor, but he’s given us hope that it can be done.”