Matthew Payne grew up in the beautiful hill country surrounding Dripping Springs, and loved every minute of his two decades as an educator of English and Creative Writing in Austin public schools. “He truly is Austin timelessness personified,” says Taylor Wallace-Riegel, KUTX. If there are two spirit guides to Payne’s debut album, "Better Times," it is "Red Headed Stranger" by Willie Nelson and "Nebraska" by Bruce Springsteen. Payne’s own songs were recorded similarly, and share the bare-bones stripped-down feel of those classic albums, where both the characters and the music are raw and real.
