Best New Artist (Solo)
51.06% Matt Gates*
Others with Votes:
1999 Winner: NA
1998 Winner: NA
1997 Winner: NA
* On the ballot
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Sunny Taylor dared Matt Gates to make his debut at an open mic night more than two years ago at Toast & Jam, and it paid off with Gates being named 2001’s Best New Solo Artist. “Sunny and I are good friends. She had never heard me play but when I mentioned I played guitar, she dared me. I was scared to death, but since then I’ve had no stage fright. It’s kind of strange,” Gates said. Perhaps that’s because Gates did have stage experience, performing in a Campus Crusade for Christ band for a year. At 24, he has been playing guitar since he was a senior at Fort Wayne Christian High School. In shows, Gates plays a variety of acoustic music — blues, jazz, Dave Matthews, Radiohead, and Counting Crows. He also writes much of his own material. “My songs are all based in acoustic rock. My writing has not taken any on any particular form. I listen to a lot of music and I try to write in all styles, jazzy, blues, ballads, hard rock, whatever catches my fancy at the moment,” Gates said. Having worked at Wooden Nickel Music on Clinton Street for 16 months has given Gates plenty of opportunity to become familiar with music. He said people tell him his singing style reminds them of Steven Curtis Chapman or Derek Webb of Cadmon’s Call. It’s nothing intentional, he said. A self-described late bloomer when it comes to performing and writing, Gates already has plans to form a band. They have a guitarist and bassist, and are still looking for a drummer. The band, he said, will be “edgier, in the vein of Jeff Buckley and Radiohead. Edgy but meaningful.” |
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