Matt Maeson

Growing up in Virginia, Matt Maeson got his start performing for inmates atmaximum-security prisonsacross America at age 17. “I’d get up and do these acoustic songs on my guitar, and they’re still the bestshows I’ve ever done,” says the Austin-basedsinger/songwriter. “You’re playing for all these people whoare treated like they’re monsters, and it feels like spreading some light into a really dark place.”On his debut albumBank On The Funeral, Maeson uses his deeply incisive songwriting to explorethetension between light and dark in his own life. The albumredefines the limits of the classicsinger/songwriter’s sensibility and shapes a sound that’s richly textured and gracefully experimental.And with his soulful vocal presence, Maeson again reveals the raw-nerve vulnerability thatpromptedTIME to praise him as“never afraid to investigate his past and his demons, resulting in songs that areclear-eyed in their honesty and raw around the edges.”Centered on Maeson’s candid storytelling and gritty poetry,Bank On The Funeraltakes its title from itsclosing track: a quietly hypnotic number written for a beloved uncle, who was murdered when Maesonwas six-years-old. “He was a criminal when he was younger, but once he got himself together he’d goout and minister to the people he used to hang around with—the people the church would never try toreach—and then one of those guys ended up going crazy and killing him,” says Maeson. “What inspiresme about him is how he’d go to the places no one else would go, and talk about the things no one elsewould talk about.”ThroughoutBank On The Funeral, Maeson brings a similar courage to his songwriting, imbuing everytrack with an often-brutal self-awareness. On the album-opening “I Just Don’t Care That Much,”he firesoff a litany of confessions (“Maybe life was just a bet/That I lost to drugs and cigarettes”), brilliantlyoffsetting all that heavy-hearted deliberation with his bright melodies and upbeat rhythms. Later, on thefast-paced and…