Matt Stell is ready to take on the new year with some infectious music.
The singer/songwriter has been making his way up the charts on Country Radio with his new single “Breakin’ In Boots,” which is the country-rock heartbreak anthem that’s got a storyline everyone can relate to during a night out on the town.
Co-written by Stell with Joe Fox, Ben Stennis, and Nate Cyphert, the vivid track is peppered with scenes of buzzy nights and irresistible attraction, but ends with a clever turn of phrase and a country boy left in the dust. All about a wild heart that can never be tamed, “Breakin’ In Boots” serves as a weary sense of dive bar disbelief; which Stell unfortunately has some hard-earned experience in.
A song that he says truly “checks all the boxes” when it comes to making a good country hit, Matt knew he wanted to take the song to airwaves from the moment its concept was created.
“I wrote [‘Breakin’ In Boots’] about a girl that I never met. She was a girl that I kind of saw across a bar. It was pretty close to the next day when I walked into the writers’ room and my buddy Ben [Stennis] said he had a title, but wasn’t sure what it meant. I told him I knew exactly what that meant and I told him the story and we kind of wrote the song from there,” Stell recalls to Celeb Secrets in an exclusive interview.
“It’s one of those songs where I’ve lived this more times than one. And just from a playing live standpoint, anything that’s got energy like that that also tells a true story is something that I’m passionate about. I’m just not ever gonna compromise on that anymore,” he continues.
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Last December, Matt brought his song to life when he entered the ring for a boxing match of love in its official music video that you can watch below. Filmed at Punches n’ Bunches Boxing Studio in Nashville, TN, the Dustin Haney-directed clip shows Stell becoming a part of the retro video game he is playing, and the knockout that broke his heart.
“I love the opportunity with these visualizer music videos to be able to like tell a story that goes with the song in a way that kind of gives it a different dimension… it kind of makes the song the soundtrack,” Matt says. “With this song, I thought about those shows like on Nickelodeon when I was a kid where they would be inside a video game, and the girl in this scenario being like the final boss of a video game. I always loved that kind of retro look on some of that stuff, so that’s where the idea came from.”
“Breakin’ In Boots” doesn’t even scratch the surface of what the 39-year-old has in store for fans in 2024, as he says a ton of new music is dropping later this year that gives the listener a true glimpse into his real truth.
“I really have a team around me that really empowers me and believes in what I do in a way that they’ll go to bat for me in a lot of different ways. I just have some music that I’ve written that is true and I’m proud of it. I think it’s music worth making,” Matt says of his new material. “I sing a lot about things that touch on some childhood things that I grew up with like not having my parents in the same house. That’s just a story that I needed to tell. I am telling the truth and I’m following my heart and my ears, and to put together a project that… I’m very proud.”
“I’m not someone that doesn’t care. I’m someone that has to get over the fact that if I want to do stuff that I’m proud of, I can’t care about what everyone thinks. I have to set a bar for myself and meet it and be true to myself on when I meet it and when I don’t, and hope that that translates to listeners,” he continues. “At the end of the day, sometimes, you have to stand up for who you are and what you sound like and be unapologetic about it. I learned that the hard way but I did learn it. That’s where I’m at now, and I guess that’s why I’m so excited about this project because it really is coming from the realest place,” he concludes.
Let us know if you’re loving “Breakin’ In Boots” by either leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sliding into our DMs on Instagram at @celebsecrets.
You can connect with Matt by giving him a follow on Instagram at @mattstell.
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