Matt Joe Gow & The Deadleaves

As a young teen, Matt’s great musical love was for the alt country sounds of bands like Wilco and Whiskeytown, and for artists like Grant Lee Buffalo, Neil Young, Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan, Ryan Adams and of course, Johnny Cash.

“I was just drawn to anything raw, anything real with great lyrics or melodies,” Matt says. “Country music, being such an honest form of music, lends itself to the songwriter. It really resonates with me.”

But there was too big of a world out there to stay still for long, so Matt set out on his voyage of discovery. His wanderlust took him trekking through Asia, Europe and North America, where he immersed himself in the various cultures, formed bands and always wrote new material.

Now Matt has taken musical root in Melbourne and is again writing songs that are too beautiful to keep to himself. He’s formed a new band, and after a year or so gigging around Melbourne together, Matt Joe Gow & The Dead Leaves already sound as though they’ve known each other for years.

In September 2008, they signed with Liberation Music and entered Melbourne’s Sing Sing Studios to start work on their debut long player ‘The Messenger’ under the watchful eye of producer Nash Chambers.

“Our idea was to create a recording that was raw and in keeping with our style. We wanted to make an accurate representation of our live sound,” Matt explains.

We’ll tell you more about the new recording soon, but in the meantime check out www.myspace.com/mattjoegowmusic for a preview to The Messenger and some older demos from the band.