Matt Haeck – ‘Late Bloomer’ (album stream) (premiere)

Matt Haeck was born in the West Indies and his parents were both Christian missionaries. As a result, he was expected to follow the path to the ministry and indeed he did until it really didn’t make sense anymore. The title of Haeck’s new album releasing tomorrow June 3rd via Blaster Records is Late Bloomer and it couldn’t be a more appropriate moniker, given that it took Haeck 30 years of life to really begin discovering his own voice. Once he did though, he was on his way. Haeck says, “I’ve never been a prodigy. In the years just after college, where I studied classical voice, I began writing and performing songs of my own, but due to a background in which I was taught to follow rules, I had the damnedest struggle discovering my own voice as a writer and a singer.”

Late Bloomer is a super confident debut, filled with strong songs and the sound of someone going places in the Americana scene. The album also features collaborations with Caitlin Rose, Elizabeth Cook, Critter Fuqua (Old Crow Medicine Show), and Paul Defiglia (The Avett Brothers).

Haeck says, “My best friend and engineer on Late Bloomer, Gabe Masterson, just reminded me of when we met. I was landscaping during the day, destroying brain cells and a marriage at night. We had a good laugh and wagged our heads at the foolish boy I was then. I was one of those transplant kids running around East Nashville trading drunken notes on ‘the projects I’m working on’ with other wasted transplant kids who didn’t actually have any projects either. I needed another four or five years of bullshit, misery, and recovery to get honest. And I needed to get honest to get a project worth working on. Late Bloomer kinda came right on time.”