Answering ‘Classified’ ad helped launch Matthews’ music career

September 30, 2024

32-year-old singer-songwriter Brett Matthews listened to a lot of Classified on his iPod in grade nine. In November he’ll be joining the Nova Scotian superstar rapper and producer on his second Canadian tour in two years.

The Welcome to the Maritimes Tour will wind its way through 18 cities in six provinces, but River Denys-born Matthews, who now lives in Stewartdale, in the Skye River Valley, says there’ll be one big difference this time around.

“When we did that first tour in 2022, my daughter was born in September and I had to leave in October, so it was a very tough thing,” he recalls. “My wife had lots of help. My family’s from here and her parents aren’t far either. But it’s very tough to leave a one-month-old.”

Since he’d always been such a huge Classified fan, Brett says he was more than a little nervous when he answered a social media post by the rapper, who was looking for a guitarist back in 2019.

“This was in preparation for his Retrospected acoustic album,” says Brett. “He was looking for someone to do some recording and possibly touring.”

After trading emails, Classified invited him to his home in Enfield, Nova Scotia. Brett says he was expecting to meet his idol one-on-one.

“I drove up and there were 15 cars parked all along both sides of his driveway, there were kids on the tennis court, kids on the skate ramp, there were dogs – there must have been about 45 people there,” he remembers.

“My heart hit my stomach. We went into his studio, and I had to tell him, ‘I’m a huge fan and this is not how I thought this was going to go.’ He said, ‘It’s cool.’”

The two clicked, and Brett ended up playing on eight of the 14 tracks on Retrospected. A planned acoustic tour the following year was shelved due to the pandemic, but Classified did finally manage to take the album on the road in 2022, and Brett was right there on stage with him.

Brett says it was a ‘full-circle moment’ when he got to record an acoustic version of Classified’s song, “All About You”.

“I did that with him and Breagh Isabel, which is pretty funny for me because that was one of my favourite songs when I was in grade 9 or 10, listening to it on my iPod,” he says. “I was always a big fan of Classified.”

Brett, who attended Whycocomagh Consolidated School before graduating from Dalbrae Academy in Mabou, got his first guitar when he was 12 or 13.

“I started taking lessons, and then I kind of realized that I could pick it up on my own, and play by ear,” he says. “Going to school every day, I couldn’t wait to get home to pick up the guitar.”

He says he realized he could sing soon after taking up guitar.

“I really got into this artist from Ontario named Dallas Green, who performs under the name City in Colour,” he recalls “I was super into the way he sings. He has sort of a higher falsetto voice. I think that was a big influence for the way that I sing.”

But even though he had found his voice, he wasn’t that sure about sharing it.

“The first time I ever played for anybody, a friend signed me up for the talent show at Dalbrae and didn’t tell me until it was too late to back out,” he says. “So I sang a City in Colour song. Everyone has always been very supportive, telling me I should be doing this. But I never really bit the bullet until recent years.”

Brett says there was always music in his house when he was growing up, and that he listened to a lot of country because his dad always had it playing in his truck. But he had other influences as well, noting that he’s related to three of the four members of the Cape Breton band Villages, who won the award for folk recording of the year in 2019 at the Nova Scotia Music Awards.

“They were a big inspiration for me too,” he says. “They kind of shaped a little bit of what I listened to. I really look up to them. I love their live show. It’s just phenomenal.”

Brett released his first single, “If I die”, last year.

“What really made me think about it – we had a loss in our community probably about four years ago,” he says. “When you get news that someone you know very well passes away, you’re shell- shocked. It just hits home that you never know who you’re going to hear about leaving the world.”

“It just really made me think, ‘If I died today what would I want my friends and family to know what I’m thinking, or what I wished I would have said to them?’”

A second single, “Tomorrow”, was released earlier this year, and it explored much of the same theme of living in the moment and not counting on a tomorrow.

“Stuff like that freaks me out, I won’t lie,” Brett says. “You’re almost not surprised anymore when you get terrible news like that. You just come to realize that you can’t sweat the small things. Somebody always has it worse. There’s a bigger picture.”

Right now, Brett’s bigger picture has put Classified squarely in the frame. But he’s also been increasingly busy with his solo act. This year has already been a big one in that respect, as he did his first showcases at both the East Coast Music Awards (ECMA) in Charlottetown and the Junos in Halifax.

“It’s always been my dream to support myself through doing music, and it really only came to fruition when I met Luke [Classified],” he says.

“In October 2023 I signed a deal with a record label in Toronto. We’re just putting out singles for now, but I think my plan down the road will be to combine these singles I’ve been releasing with a few unreleased songs, and we’ll put them out as an EP.”

His ECMA showcase led to an invitation to perform at St-Roch XP, a street festival in the hip Saint-Roch district of downtown Quebec City in early September. For now, he’s happy to be making a living doing what he loves.

“As far as my career goes, it all depends on who I meet and who catches my shows, so I’m sort of along for the ride. It’s going to go where it’s going to go.”