While his beach-blond hair and ripe age may categorize Howie Day as a teenybopper, you should make no other parallels. From first listening to his poetic lyrics, music lovers will take note of his maturity, intimate style, and depth of talent as a songwriter.
Starting off his musical experience in the elementary-school band, by age 15 Day began sharing his music with local audiences in his hometown of Bangor, Maine.
“Even at 15 I was playing at Margarita’s in Orono and some of the college bars around there … I had people I saw every week that dug what I did, and that I guess is why I kept doing it,” Day said in a recent interview with Around Maine magazine.
Quickly expanding his audience to include larger crowds at New England ski areas and Boston-area college campuses, Day paved his way to rock stardom.
But Day’s career wasn’t launched with ease. Upon recording his first album, Australia, financial restrictions prolonged the process. During this tedious year of alternating between performing on the road to earn money for short periods of studio time and actually recording his collection of songs, Day sometimes had doubts about his success.
Since his struggles in 1999 to produce a debut CD, Day, now age 22, has sold 30,000 copies of Australia. In 2001, he went on to earn the Debut Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards, and in 2002, he won the award for “Best Male Singer Songwriter.”
Despite his desire to control his own music, Day recently hired a full band and joined the tours of Sheryl Crow and Ziggy Marley, ultimately drawing national attention to his music. This year, Day once again boasted his career by releasing All the World Now and performing a cover of the Beatle’s original, “Help,” on the soundtrack for the popular movie, “I Am Sam.”
To promote his newest album this holiday season, Day has teamed up with the Massachusetts-born, San Francisco-based musician, Matt Nathanson.
Over the past two years, Nathanson built a loyal and impassioned grassroots following as he performed over 250 sold-out shows. Originally independent of a record conglomerate, Nathanson just released his lastest album, Beneath These Fireworks (2003), with the assistance of big-time producer Ron Aniello, the man most famous for his work with Lifehouse, Barenaked Ladies, Guster and Mark Endert, and known for mixing the sounds of Fiona Apple, Gavin DeGraw and Vertical Horizon.
Unlike past albums, on which Nathanson relied on a combination of natural talent, digital effects and studio tricks to fill in his sounds, this album showcases a whole new team of musicians — drummer Matt Chamberlain (Tori Amos, Fiona Apple), bassist Sergio Andrade (Lifehouse), guitarist David Garza (Dah-veed, Juliana Hatfield), keyboard player Jamie Muhoberac (Seal, Audiovent ) and cellist Matt Fish.
Catch Howie Day and Matt Nathanson as they crash Memorial Union this Friday, Nov. 21, at 8:30 p.m. Doors open at 7:30, and tickets are available at the Union box office.
