"Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way."-Charles Bukowski.
Though the quote was written long before his first birthday it served as the inspiration behind Matt Brandon's upcoming EP I Would Run. Written by the 19 year old guitarist, pianist, and vocalist; the EP serves as an homage to radio friendly pop hits similar to One Republic and Bruno Mars. Recorded in LA and co-produced by SR-71 frontman Mitch Allan, this is Matt's first splash into the Top 40 arena.

After Mitch Allan heard Matt's homemade demos, the hit songwriter invited him to LA where the two recorded and produced the entire EP. The highlight of Matt's stay in LA came at the end when he was unexpectedly given the opportunity to revamp an old track co-written by Kara DioGuardi. "The EP was finished and Mitch was just showing me some old tracks that had never gotten picked up", Matt says. " I heard I Am which was written by Mitch and his partner Kara and thought wow this is great but it needs some tweaking." After Allan agreed to the youthful direction in which Matt wanted to take the song, he gave the 19 year old creative control to co-produce it and the two began tracking that very day. " I had to cancel my flight", Matt says laughingly. ' He basically just said to me call your parents and tell them you wont be home for dinner tonight."

Having taken to Classical and Jazz piano since the age of 5, the Long Island native quickly found music as a form of escape. "I realized early on I was never going to be good at sports and needed another way of attracting girls," he jokes. By the age of 12, he began playing guitar and soon after found his niche as a songwriter. After two attempts in the studio, the first at 13 in Manhattan and the second at 15 at the famed Sound Emporium in Nashville, Matt found himself at a crossroads.` "I basically had to choose between going out, touring and promoting myself, or staying in school and continuing to nurture my songwriting." Matt chose the latter and looking back on it he made the right decision. Those new demos got him to LA.

For now the budding songwriter resides in suburban Long Island while he studies literature at Hofstra University. As for balancing college, and life in the music industry, Matt is the first to admit that it does get tough. " I was recently filling out the description section on Twitter" he says, "I couldn't fit everything in so I just wrote damn, I'm busy."