Hi! I'm Matt - the guy behind this little project. For those that want to read all the way through, I just thought I'd let you in a little on who I am, where I've come from, and why I have arrived here at this point in time. 

It's kind of a long essay, but hopefully gives you a bit of a background on what makes me tick…

I’ve always loved music and creative writing. It feels as though it’s woven into my DNA. Some of my earliest memories are of words and melodies pulling at me, asking to be shaped into something. In Year 5, I spent most of my time writing poems, locked in a friendly rivalry with my best mate Gary over who could write the most in a year. I think I finished with around 135. Gary beat me by a handful. So close. But the important thing was that a spark had been lit that year—and it never really went out.

Writing and poetry would come and go in waves as life unfolded. Like many developing teenagers, I was shaped by my circumstances. I started high school in the top English class, only to slide to the bottom by Year 9 as I disengaged from school and from the people meant to guide me. My learning response was directly tied to what was being taught, how it was being taught - and who was teaching it.

Some high school years were rich with creativity; others were sparse. That pattern would repeat itself many times over the years.

Music, though, always stayed close. I had previously begun piano lessons in primary school, but abandoned them out of frustration with rigid theory and structure. Once again, a result of sensitivity to earning methods and who was teaching it. Guitar followed in high school, but by then my dissatisfaction with school itself was overwhelming. I left school at the end of Year 10, briefly returned in Year 11, and then left again. 

In hindsight, I suspect my leanings towards an ADHD type personality played a role, though I was never diagnosed. But the pattern was there. Either way, the traditional classroom was unfortunately never a place where I thrived.

Music though had become my first true love. One of my earliest jobs out of school was with Christian music distributor Rhema Records in Sydney, working in the warehouse — humble work, but it placed me right where I wanted to be. It was an eye opening experience, and I saw the many highs and lows of the music industry first hand. The year was 1981.

That period was exciting and kind of soul destroying all at once, as my illusion of the integrity of Christians in the arts was busted a number of times over. I actually came out of that period with a lot more cynicism and distrust of the integrity of church people and particularly those in leadership roles, which in part still carries through to the present day. Rhema as a business collapsed around 2 months after I left.

That role at Rhema then led me to work for a number of years with music promoter David Smallbone (David Smallbone Promotions), who I had initially met as a part of my role at Rhema. David had branched out into his own business as an entrepreneur, primarily touring international Christian artists throughout Australia. So many memorable tours in those years with artists such as Larry Norman, Petra, David Meece, Leon Patillo, Whiteheart, Randy Stonehill, Sheila Walsh, Tom Howard, Leslie (Sam) Phillips and numerous others. 

David was forced to move with his family to the U.S. in the early 1990's after the disastrous collapse of his business over a failed tour. After reaching absolute rock bottom in the ensuing years, he would later oversee the successful careers of his kids who became the artists Rebecca St James and For King and Country, with other siblings also enjoying success in film and the arts. David and his family's story was recently made into the award winning movie “Unsung Hero”. It's actually well worth the watch!

Anyhow, whilst I was still working with David, and at just 17 years of age, I promoted my own first concert event on Sydney’s southern outskirts with the bands “Lionheart” (later to become “Avion”) and “Cascade” (the lead singer of which was my first English teacher in high school!). Tickets were $3. It felt like the centre of the universe to me.

Throughout my late teens and early twenties, I would go on to promote a number of concert events, partnered on tours, and work alongside various artists both local and international, with early mentoring from David Smallbone. Later into the 2000's I would also work with grammy nominated artists The Paul Colman Trio on their initial tours to Sydney.

I even produced a couple of my own radio shows for a number of years in Sydney, promoting and playing a lot of the music and artists I had grown to love. It was an extraordinary time—creative, chaotic, formative. Those years were completely immersed in music, community radio, seeing endless live gigs and promoting my own concert events. 

I didn’t realise at the time just how rare and special it was to be living so fully inside something I loved.

In the mid - late 1980s, everything shifted. My first overseas trip had awakened a deep curiosity of travel, and then slowly, almost imperceptibly, it began to pull me away from music. What started as curiosity actually became a career that ended up spanning the next 35 years (give or take a few years in the early 2000's when I took time out for Daddy Daycare duties!).. 

I left David Smallbone Promotions and ended up joining East West Airlines. Over ensuing years, I worked for airlines, hotels, travel agents, travel technology providers, and for a number of years operated my own business and ended up specialising in cruise travel. 

I would eventually become deeply embedded in the cruise industry — earning top industry accreditation, and ended up working ship turnarounds at Sydney’s terminals, as well as coordinating shore excursions for some of the premium cruise brands coming through Sydney. It was demanding, fast-paced, and strangely satisfying. 

Travel taught me about service, adaptability, how to think clearly under pressure —  skills that echoed and enhanced my earlier life in music. I was no longer a shy little kid, and no longer afraid to stand up in a crowd and give direction. All the while I was still occasionally playing guitar, bass & cajon in church bands.

Then in 2020, the pandemic arrived. The travel industry collapsed almost overnight. Cruise ships were entirely banished from Australian waters. Work completely disappeared. Friends in the industry were financially devastated, working for negative income just to repatriate clients and process endless refunds. I was forced to completely pivot and reinvent my working life. 

I gained a bus licence, and ended up driving for a local school, while staying emotionally tethered to cruising through my own YouTube channel, The Cruise Lifestyle. I produced a number of episodes, interviewing industry identities, cruise line representatives, keeping up with industry news and exploring the latest cruise stories coming out of the shutdown. 

When ships finally did return (it took well over 2 years!), I came back briefly — but something had shifted. My heart just wasn’t in it anymore. Travel - and cruising - no longer had a hold of me. And to be honest, it left me feeling a bit lost, and needing some sort of change. Renewal. Rediscovery of who I was meant to be.

And change was not far away. In 2023 (after many years of dreaming), my wife, my daugher and I decided to pack our bags and we left Sydney — the city that had been my home for my entire life — and moved to Queensland's Gold Coast. It was a sea change in every sense. It also marked the final closing of my travel chapter and a definite and final farewell to my life with cruise ships.

By this stage, I had spent quite a number of the last few years mentally drifting, unsure where I belonged, or where (who?) I was meant to be. The pandemic had stripped away that final curtain of certainty, and exposed how far I’d moved from my initial sense of calling and early direction in my career. I always knew I was meant for something else. I just didn’t know what it was or what form it was supposed to take.

And all the while there was something else that was increasingly underpinning my mental state. I would be reaching a landmark birthday in the not too distant future, but as I approached the milestone, a strange and persistent premonition had settled over me: I couldn’t see my life actually reaching - or getting past - that point. 

It was weird, but I couldn't see or vision my future beyond it at all. The slate was completely blank. So much so that I even shut down any talk of planning any sort of birthday celebrations. I couldn’t explain it, and couldn't tell anyone about the feeling I was holding (it would have totally freaked them out!). I could only keep the thoughts to myself. It was disconcerting to say the least. And the feeling just wouldn't go away.

Then, on 21 May 2024 - exactly 5 months before my birthday, that premonition actually started to play out. 

Getting ready for bed after what was essentially a pretty unremarkable, normal Tuesday, I suffered a sudden and catastrophic aortic dissection. I thought it was a back spasm. But my aorta had split from close to my heart down my left side into my leg, completely cutting off any bloodflow to the leg. 

In a moment, everything fractured — my body, my assumptions, my future. I spent the next 5 weeks in hospital between ICU and the recovery ward. Almost lost my leg. Underwent 4 operations. Fasciotomy. Blood transfusions. Dialysis. Stents. The works. It took 6 months to recover before I could even consider working again. 

I talk about that episode here, but by the grace of God and the skills of amazing medical staff, my life was somehow saved. And with it came a reckoning: I was still here for a reason. What that reason is continues to unfold.

There are many stories to tell, and I will probably expand on some of those moments in separate blog posts, but the main thing was that I survived. But it brought my restlessness and hunger for meaning even more to the fore. I had now been given a second chance at life, and that second chance brought with it a responsibility to make things count.

So, I started to revisit music. My first love. But what did that mean? Could I somehow make sense and meaning of the countless songs, lyrics and concepts that had been swirling in my head since primary school? Is that indeed where I was now supposed to be putting my energy? Could those talents somehow be of use? 

A Biblical passage kept coming to mind. It was where Jesus was giving the parable of the talents. And I was one who buried my gifts and talents for so many years. And after what I had just been through - and where I was at in this season of my (renewed) life - the passage was unmistakably calling me to make good on what I had been given. To not do so was simply no longer acceptable. While time was still ticking, but offering no guarantee on how long.

So I started exploring options to make good on those decades of lyrics, songs and unfinished concepts that had been collecting dust for year upon year upon year. And the seeds that were sown all those decades ago started to flourish.. 

Now, I am not a singer. I can, but I really don't have the ability (or maybe it's the confidence?) to pull it off. Maybe that will change and it is definitely something I can work on. Maybe God can use this broken vessel. Maybe that's what He's asking of me? 

The trick in the meantime was to initially be able to put over 40 years of thoughts, lyrics and song ideas together and find a way to publish them, knowing that I have no explicit guarantees on available time (given what I had just been through!). Or to be truthful, considering the financial side as well. Good production and song arrangement generally cost good $$!

So I have initially gone the most controversial route, and one that has already gotten me into trouble in traditional music circles. I am using AI as a songwriting and production partner to bring my songs and lyrics to life. That is, I am still writing every song, every lyric, but am using AI to put it together and produce the final result so that I can publish and distribute each song to streaming and download services. I will probably have some opinion pieces that I will be publishing around the controversies surrounding AI which I will put on the blog from time to time.

The hope is that as this is essentially a songwriting project (and I make no bones about using AI to achieve production worthy results), that the songs themselves will be picked up by upcoming and established artists to use in their own performing works. Or I will contract session singers and musicians to bring them to life in a “live” form (the songs - not the musos!). That is definitely the desire. But that also needs $$$ so any support is appreciated! 

It's definitely a learning process, and I am certainly achieving better, more polished results as I get more experienced at using these tools, but I am finally in a place where I believe I can be best used and be closer to where God wants me to be in light of the talents He has given. 

I will probably continue to cop flak for the AI angle, but truthfully, I have always been a bit of a square peg in life anyway. It doesn't stop me from continuing to be - and do - what I have been called to do. 

I know there is much more to the journey He is leading. And some of what He is asking is maybe a little scary as He takes me out of my comfort zone. But while I still have breath (and my arteries still hold), I will continue to try and follow that calling.

Matt Phillip xx