Matt Lovell Explains “90 Proof” In Advance Premiere From June Album

Not everyone believes in coincidences but, there’s something fascinating about the timing of Matt Lovell’s new song, “90 Proof,” that’s premiering today on American Songwriter. Though the single – which serves at the first introduction to the album Nobody Cries Today (out June 5^th) – is actually connected to a source of heartbreak, its genesis was actually during a time full of positive motivations.

“I wrote “90 Proof” in the summer of 2015.” said Lovell. “This was a very vibrant period of my life—one that held a great deal of excitement, uncertainty, struggle, and color.  I always smile when I think back on 2015, because it was a year that gave me rich friendships, new ideas, and a great deal of new inner freedom.  All of these things were fun to explore.”

It’s not uncommon for musicians to find the words and-or notes to recount a life experience well after the fact and for that experience to contrast with how they are feeling in the present. Yet for Matt Lovell, this approach stands out with more significance because of the Nashville songwriter’s fondness for storytelling from the end first, as he is here.

“[2015] wasn’t without pain. I was still trying to let go of an old relationship that had ended quite some time ago. I was also broke,” he said. “I was what me and my friends laughingly call a ‘singer-songwaiter’ —employed by an upscale-ish burger restaurant in Nashville’s touristy Gulch neighborhood.

“I was in the middle of singing ‘I’ve been trying to lose your number, but my fingers won’t forget’ when one of my customers walked into the restaurant bathroom on me. They probably still talk about their silly Nashville waiter singing in the bathroom.”

Some might argue there’s a loss of emotional intensity in knowing the tension in “90 Proof” has since resolved. However, given that Lovell’s biggest retrospective moment – surviving being shot during a carjacking in early 2017 – was yet to come, even after realizing he “was able to put that old relationship to bed” and “sing a sad song with a little dignity” in one restaurant washroom, who wouldn’t choose to look at things in reflective hindsight a little more often?

Not only that but just one listen to Lovell’s voice as he delivers assertive but smooth blue eyed-soul during the song’s conflicted refrain (“I got 90 proof / that I ain’t over you”) and that’s all the authentic connection the song needs. Lovell knows how to tap into a part of himself that can bring the emotions of “90 Proof” to the surface and doing so is all the more honorable, knowing the story he’s trying to tell, isn’t a made up screenplay; it’s one man being willing to revisit challenging parts of his life and do so with performative solemnity and grace.

Listen to “90 Proof” below: