“I often tell stories by first explaining how they end,” says Matt Lovell. “The story told in these songs has had several endings and several beginnings, a natural by-product when a project spans the course of so many years. As I have written these songs, each of them has been like a tiny rowboat to get me from one day to the next. These songs have witnessed me in the years that I was in the throes of trying to find acceptance for myself and for the world I’m living in.”

On his personally charged debut album Nobody Cries Today, Nashville-based troubadour Lovell delivers a set of lovingly crafted, emotionally resonant songs that stick with the listener long after the volume fades. Lovell’s revealing compositions radiate experience and insight, and he performs them in with a soulful urgency that effortlessly drives their vivid lyrics home. Such indelibly forthright songs as “Trouble,” “90 Proof,” “Sabotage,” “The Way That It Was,” “The Gospel” (with guest vocals by Sixpence None the Richer’s Leigh Nash) and the poignant title track exemplify Lovell’s approach.

“These songs,” Lovell states,” are kind of the story of everything I was experiencing and feeling in the period in which they were written, coming to terms with my identity, and grappling with my spiritual path. I spent a lot of time feeling alien and unsure of my place in the world.  I poured a lot of those feelings into these songs and my hope is that I’ve created a body of work in which other people can see themselves in some way.”

That’s the case with Nobody Cries Today’s title track. The song, Lovell notes, “describes my hopes for the world and for myself, and the purpose that I hope to serve within that. It was written the day that Prince diedin the spring of 2016, a year of great division and conflict in our world.  We wrote the song out of our feelings of helplessness paired with hope in a year that witnessed Brexit, Standing Rock, the Syrian refugee crisis and the Pulse shooting in Orlando. ‘Nobody Cries Today’ is a way of addressing this.  I think a lot of people were feeling small and scared that year, and this song was our way of processing that sentiment and trying to stir up a little hope.”

Recording Nobody Cries Today with producer Matt Odmark (best known as a member of Jars of Clay) at Nashville’s Sputnik Sound and Gray Matter studios, recording neophyte Lovell quickly shed his newbie status, taking to the medium like a natural.

“I didn’t really have a lot of recording experience,” he explains. “I remember how nervous I was to be in the studio at first. I felt out of my element, and I didn’t really understand how anything worked and had trouble articulating what I wanted. But within a few days, I started feeling more at home.  Matt Odmark made it easy for me to find my way of articulating and describing what I was hearing and what I wanted to hear.”

Despite the passion and energy that he’d put into it, Nobody Cries Today’s route to release was an unexpectedly difficult one. On January 20, 2017, with all but one of the album’s songs in the can, Lovell was shot in the chest by a sixteen-year-old assailant attempting to steal his car. Miraculously, he survived his physical injuries. But the trauma of the experience required an extended period of rehab. Matt emerged from the experience a changed person, and a deeper, more mature artist.

“There was a big delay and a lot of change, and in some ways I feel like I’m a different version of myself now,” he says. “People process near-death experiences in their own ways, and if I was going to get through this trauma, I was going to have to do a lot of work on myself. In doing that, I had to deal with a lot of my unfinished business. A lot of the question marks, and a lot of the lost-ness that I felt, were answered.

“But the trauma got very scary; for awhile, it was a day at a time,” he continues. “I knew that the recovery was changing me, and I wasn’t really sure that I’d ever get to release this album. But about a year and a half ago, everything just clicked for me and started to turn around, and I started writing.”

With Nobody Cries Today finally ready for public consumption, Lovell is excited about the possibilities. “One thing that I learned in trauma recovery is the importance of keeping one’s expectations realistic. Of course, I’d love to find an audience that resonates with these songs, but now I’m in a place where I’m not anxious about it. I think I have a real sense of acceptance now, combined with just wanting to get out there and do the work. 

“Now that I’m on the other side of that long nighttime, I’m so excited to sing these nine songs again, for anyone who will listen,” Lovell asserts. “Nobody Cries Today contains every bit of earnestness, desire and love that I have to give. These are songs that have brought me so much joy and healing over the years. My experiences have given me a whole new picture frame for life, and I’m glad to have this new light to shed on this collection of songs.”

-written by Scott Schnider