How It All Began
It’s funny how things begin, isn’t it? Especially relationships that find their beginnings wrapped up in music. This is absolutely true for us. Matt and I got our start as Matt & Michelle in the early 2000’s snail-mailing cassette tapes back and forth to write our first song. Yes, you heard me right! Cassette tapes were still being used when our young little hearts began to beat wildly for each other. Matt wrote the instrumentation by listening to my lyrics and melody, a cappella, on a cassette tape recording!
Music, songwriting, and leading worship together were the avenues for our love story to unfold. Before we began dating, Matt and I would meet together at one of our houses and work on songwriting ideas or practice for a worship event. Throughout the beginning of our relationship and early in our marriage there was so much music. We led worship together on mission trips, Matt began his first job as a worship pastor, and we wrote and recorded our first album. This album had so many varying musical genres and songwriting styles that it will never see the light of day… But it was ours and we adored it.
In that season of life we would go back and forth in our desire to serve the local church and raise a family or work hard to become music artists. My longing for a baby and Matt’s practicality won the toss-up, so we laid aside songwriting and recording for many years. We focused on raising our little ones and poured our hearts and souls into the church where Matt served as worship pastor.
We loved creating music together, and yet our world became so full of family and ministry that we struggled to make time for songwriting. A few years later, once our kids were a little older, I was asked to sing for a few worship events while Matt began playing live music at a local Abilene venue called The Mill. The songwriting fire was lit again and we began traveling for events. We enjoyed our renewed passion and were invited to a couple of songwriting retreats to help us dust off our old tools and get back to work.
In 2017 I recorded a solo album titled “Who You Are.” I was loving writing songs about Jesus and my identity as His follower, and many women at the spiritual retreats where I led worship were identifying with these songs as well. This was such a sweet season of life, but I missed my music buddy. I felt pigeonholed as an artist and like I was only employing half of my abilities, so Matt and I began writing more together.
This was when our music really took off and our passion for becoming a music duo flourished. We began performing at a local coffee shop on the regular, we sang for as many fundraisers and business events as we could, we traveled for church conferences and retreats together, and Matt shared his solo gig at The Mill by letting me join in on the fun.
For Matt and me, music is universal and brings people together like nothing else can. It was the catalyst for our chance at a life that we thought was only a lofty idea or dream, and music is still a binding force between us.
