Matt Hansen, born in the year 2000, is an up-and-coming singer and songwriter from San Rafael in California, Los Angeles. Growing up, Hansen attended The Branson School, a co-ed college- prep high school in Ross, California, North of San Francisco.
Hansen is currently attending the Herb Alpert School of Music UCLA, a popular arts University founded in 1881 whose notable list of alumni include Hollywood actors James Franco, Ben Stiller and Gabrielle Union. Due to graduate in 2022, Hansen is currently studying ethnomusicology, a course relating to the cultural and social associations of music.
Alongside this Hansen is minoring in music industry and musicology, a research-based subject often involving the analysis of music and elements of the world. Throughout his studies, Hansen has been a part of the Alpha Delta Lambda Honor society, an academic community of students as well as fraternity house Sigma Phi Epsilon which is now one of the largest fraternity houses in UCLA.
In addition to his studies, Hansen is currently interning at record group ‘Artists Partner Group’ (APG), a label dedicated to supporting entrepreneurial artists. Hansen’s internship is centered around Artists and Repertoire (A&R), a role traditionally involving talent scouting and working with talent directly in order to help with their development as they record and release music.
Hansen began his musical journey, posting one-minute videos of musical covers on his Instagram which now has over 104K followers. Hansen has also seen a great deal of success on popular platform TikTok and has grown an impressive 1.9M followers. Performance on these channels also influence the music that Hansen releases independently. His cover of Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’, hit an incredible 3.5M views on TikTok and resulted in him releasing the song on YouTube, working with Hunter Moreno, a cinematographer, photographer and director to create a corresponding music video.
A notable performance by Hansen is his cover of ‘Iris’ by The Goo Goo Dolls, which gained an impressive 150K views in just three days. Hansen’s YouTube channel has over 38K subscribers. Similarly, Hansen has seen popularity on Spotify on which he has over 138,000 monthly visitors. Hi track ‘I’ll Take Some Time’ has received over 1.6M visitors. Other artists that Hansen has worked with include SHAYNA and Arc North.
Hansen is widely recognized by the style of both his fashion (with his epic fiery red hair) and music style. Notable influences include Justin Timberlake, Shawn Mendes and Ed Sheeran.
After a plethora of musical covers, in 2020 Hansen decided to begin releasing his own original music starting with single ‘Find Me’. On his debut track, Hansen worked with music producer Johnny What, known for working with a number of recognisable artists including Walk The Moon and The Glitch Mob. Other professionals with whom Hansen has worked with include Donovan Blair, a producer, songwriter, and fellow student at UCLA. Hansen prides himself on writing each of his original songs and has recently described how ‘Find Me’ describes the painful but necessary journey of letting someone that you love go. Through his lyrics Hansen has shared the desire to connect with his audience on an emotional and relatable level.
Channeling a wide range of musical genres from pop to soul, Hansen’s music often involves an acoustic vibe, and he often enjoys the accompaniment of instruments like a guitar or piano to compliment his rich and earthy vocals. As he graduates from UCLA, Hansen is likely to continue growing his musical career and presence on the LA music scene.
If you want to want more from Matt make sure you subscribe to his YouTube channel or follow him on Instagram