An Interview with Matt Hansen
Here at The Georgetown Independent, we love supporting independent artists. On Sept. 16, I had the privilege of doing just that by interviewing L.A.-based singer-songwriter Matt Hansen.
Hansen hopped on our afternoon Zoom call fashionably late, wearing a plain white t-shirt and a backwards baseball cap. He joined from his phone, holding it near his face as if he were on an intimate FaceTime call with a friend. Hansen’s laidback approach set the tone for the interview: casual. As fellow INDY editor Natalia and I spoke with Hansen, we never would’ve guessed that he’d amassed 1.4 million followers on Instagram; he exuded the off-the-cuff energy of your favorite local artist or your brother’s best friend (who you may or may not have a crush on) rather than that of a standoffish star.
Hansen’s commitment to remaining an independent artist has helped him maintain his humility. (Kendrick Lamar would be proud.) A Bay Area native, though so unpretentious you would never guess it, Hansen moved to L.A. eight years ago to attend the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Two unexpected, life-altering events occurred while Hansen was a student: (1) the pandemic struck, and (2) he went viral on TikTok.
“I literally was dared by my friends to go post a video in the parking garage,” Hansen admitted, recalling his now-viral cover of Frank Ocean’s “Godspeed.” The singer-songwriter presented his rise to fame as complete happenstance, yet it came in the wake of blood, sweat, and tears. He always loved singing and was studying music at UCLA, yet he failed continuously to jump start his music career before finding success on the internet. During his freshman year, for example, he was kicked off American Idol after only two weeks, never reaching the heights of fame the show promises to its winners. Adding to the damage, Katy Perry bluntly told him that his “falsetto sucks.” (I beg you, Katy: come back to Earth!)
Thankfully, Hansen refused to take “no”—or even “your falsetto sucks”—for an answer. He continued pursuing music, and his talent started to shine through when he stopped overthinking and trying so hard. Reflecting on his parking garage “Godspeed” cover, Hansen disclosed, “I did it in one take. I just put my phone up, and I didn’t even think about it. I posted it…literally the most free form, no thoughts [video]. Just singing with emotion.” I have no words for Matt Hansen other than “Godspeed,” truly.
The raw vulnerability of Hansen’s impromptu TikTok video had undeniable appeal. Hansen awoke the day after posting the cover to a flood of notifications: 5,000,000 likes and 400,000 new followers. Still in disbelief eight years later, Hansen confessed, “My whole life just… just… completely changed from there.” Transformed from a daring college student to an internet sensation, Hansen described his transition to full-time artist as “seamless.” He credits this ease to his ability to “stay independent the whole time,” which he considers the “greatest achievement of them all.” Despite the social media presence Hansen has gained in recent years, the number of followers he has on Instagram matters far less to him than the control he has over his image and marketing on the platform. This independence is a rarity in Hollywood but a treasure for Hansen.
Clearly, Hansen likes to go against the grain; in fact, he attributes his success to it. While our Georgetown environment is incestuously political, UCLA’s is suffocatingly artsy. Taking classes with the children of rockstars and acclaimed directors and walking down streets with Emmy-adorned windows forced Hansen to adopt an “audacious mindset” that he balanced by surrounding himself with friends who studied and valued non-creative interests. These diverse social circles accepted Hansen for who he was rather than what he produced. While the singer-songwriter remained cautious of the relationship between self and artist as he navigated UCLA, his vigilance was not his saving-grace. Rather, Hansen professed that industry success ultimately boils down to two things: being good and being lucky. (Unless you’re a nepo baby, of course.)
Hansen, stunningly, is both, while still remaining down-to-earth. You won’t find him performing in sparkly jumpsuits or backflipping off pianos, at least not anytime soon (sorry Benson Boone). Hansen detests the spectacle of Hollywood and doesn’t feel the "insatiable need to be viewed” that often permeates celebrity spaces. He is a man of the people, for the people, and by the people. In early May, before beginning the tour for his debut album Orchid (2026), Hansen demonstrated this by putting on a free pop-up show in Salt Lake City. His ultimate goal is for his album, and live music in general, to be accessible to a wider audience; I hope this audience soon includes you.
Speaking of aspirations, Hansen desires to lower the barriers to discovering new music and, in the process, welcome more fans. Describing himself as “the kind of guy who has never gotten over anything (like ever),” Hansen knows it takes only one listen for people into this genre of music (read: mentally ill ruminators) to be hooked on his work. He credits influences like Bon Iver as he attempts to create music that plunges both him and his listeners into the emotional abyss.
Hansen, though, is not a sadist; rather, he seeks to harness his pain to heal. Orchid explores a heartbreak he experienced in his early twenties and his years-long journey to recover from it. (He’s finally there…maybe.) The album oscillates between periods of Hansen’s life where he “thought he was fine” and moments in which he realized that he definitely wasn’t, comparing these traumatic events to grief because they “never fade away.” With this realization, and with Orchid, Hansen accepts the ever-presence of trauma in his life but reclaims his power by learning to “live with it.” His now-28-year-old, fully-developed brain understands that there’s no alternative.
Hansen homed in on the healing nature of the artistic process as he reflected on the album’s title-track, “Orchid.” He initially found the song “so depressing” and “so sad” that it bordered on unbearable. However, the more he listens to and performs the song, he sees it as the “final release,” the last realization of a lover being “gone”—never to return but somehow “still with you.” Always still with you.
If you, like Matt Hansen, carry everyone you’ve ever loved in your heart, then I implore you to tune in to Orchid and show out at Hansen’s concert at the 9:30 Club at 7:00pm on Wednesday, Nov. 18. We’ll plunge into the abyss, and, as we climb out, we’ll find the light together. Or, at the very least, we’ll find glimpses of it.
Grace Guernsey is a senior in the SFS studying Culture and Politics and minoring in Spanish. She originally discovered Matt Hansen through his Orchid tour opener: Conall Cafferty.
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