Jason Matkin is a singer-songwriter from San Diego, California. He writes and performs mostly acoustic music with a mellow yet dramatic and dynamic sound, sharing his often inspiring and thoughtful lyrics filled with angst, love, joy and desire. Jason's singing voice is deeply soulful, resonant, but soothing and he intends to reward listeners with insight and enjoyment as he expresses his heartfelt feelings through his music. “Forget the Dark” is Jason's debut album and is the result of more than two years of intensely hard work, writing, recording and mixing. Top studio musicians contribute deeply soulful cello & violin accompaniment, driving percussion beats. Country hints of banjo and pedal steel guitar fill out the mixes. All vocals (including harmonies), guitar, piano, harmonica, tambourine & shaker are performed by Jason. At age 16 Jason was a winner in the Carnegie Hall Music Exchange’s national songwriter search enabling him to perform for an audience of thousands at the Route 40 Music Festival in South Africa. Jason was chosen by an international panel of judges that included three-time Grammy-winner Dave Matthews, Wayne Kramer of MC5, Vicki Peterson of the Bangles and South Africa’s Vusi Mahlasela. As a winner, Carnegie sent him on a 10-day trip to South Africa, where he opened for some of that country’s biggest acts. Dave Matthews, a native of South Africa, wrote in his judging notes on Matkin: “Jason is clearly an accomplished songwriter. I don’t know if I’d have any advice. He seems to know what he’s doing.” But the road to South Africa and further successes in his musical career have not always been smooth for Jason, who struggled to find his voice during a typically challenging adolescence. He knows now that the many nights he spent alone with his guitar and the angst he channeled into his songs, were critical steps in the journey. “You just have to have faith,” he said, in an interview with San Diego's Union-Tribune newspaper in his guitar-filled bedroom. “I've failed several times but I can see now the way life figures things out. It all comes together in the end.” Jason has continued to write and record his music, performing live throughout the San Diego area and he has toured Southern California playing coffee houses and pubs as he continues to build his craft. Jason has enjoyed busking from Encinitas, California to Brisbane, Australia to Seoul, Korea. He recently had the opportunity to open for a well-known band in Korea (Blue Paprika) at the Rolling Hall venue in Seoul. Jason grew up on a five-acre farm in California's rural San Joaquin Valley farming town of Exeter, where his father, ran a food ingredient distribution business and his mother, was a retired professional choir singer from South Korea. She insisted that 8-year-old Jason take piano lessons. As a piano student his teacher noticed that Jason had a natural flair for music and dynamics. She had once commented "Jason has such a deep emotional connection with the music. He feels every nuance so deeply.” As he entered high school, his father announced that his family would be moving to the San Diego area for better schools which seemed initially to be a terrible setback for Jason. “My life had been pretty sheltered. I grew up in a small town where I knew everyone and had a lot of friends. Moving to San Diego was very difficult for me.” But, the hundreds of hours he spent alone in his bedroom was time well spent. He excelled in school, taught himself to play the electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, drums, ukulele and mandolin, and the pain of his isolation proved good fodder for his deeply thoughtful and often sad songs. Jason is active in supporting meaningful charitable organizations, especially those promoting suicide prevention awareness, performing benefit concerts whenever possible. He wrote his popular song "Stay with Me" (Check out his YouTube channel - JasonMatkinMusic to see his music video) specifically to help raise awareness. Following in the footsteps of one of his influences, Jack Johnson, Jason is currently a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Jack's Alma mater. He continues to pursue his music career and a degree in economics. The path is clear and some of the hardest hills are behind him, as he sings in his first recorded song, “Parkside” . . . life just keeps moving and these wrong directions seem to bring me closer to the greater things.”