Matthew Ramsey Quotes

It’s very rewarding to know that people respect what you do.

When people want to be associated with us, in the end, that’s going to help us gain more fans.

I can’t imagine being a girl out there on the road. We can throw a hat on and stink. Girls have to do their hair.

Work hard at doing what you feel is right. Don’t be scared!

We have always been a touring band, and we love playing live.

As writers, you spend so long trying to build your cred as a writer, and then everything comes together at the same time: your artist career happens when your songwriter career is, too.

There’s no shame in being a support act for anyone. It’s been extremely beneficial for us to be allowed onstage for any of the artists we’ve toured with, and we’ve gotten some big exposure from them sharing their crowds with us in the past.

I love art in general – architecture, anything creative.

For me, ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’ is one of the most brilliantly-written songs ever.

In a certain sense, every time you sit down to write a song, there’s a fear that you’ve forgotten how to do it.

Sometimes when you’re writing a song, it’s work, and you really have to make sure you’re kind of pounding out every little piece of it. And then sometimes you write a song, and you turn around and you go, ‘How did we do that?’

Honestly, with pop and rock and things, artists are from all over the place, so they’re kind of isolated. The city of Nashville helps create the camaraderie. Everyone moves there for the same reason.

When you go out for the night with your buddies, it feels like you’re in a band, and I think everybody can relate to that.

We wanted to make a living, but success was creating a song that we enjoyed playing. Quite honestly, that is still a measure of success for us.

It’s pretty cool to see, like, from town to town, how different the crowds are.

I definitely wear a lot of Tom Ford jackets on stage.

Sometimes you can gauge the excitement of the rest of the band. If I’m bringing a song in and they’re excited, then I’ll hold on to that one. But there are times where it’s like, ‘Eh, I don’t really like that one,’ and we have to send that one on.

Personally, my favorite ‘meat’ song is ‘We Got It Right.’ As soon as it comes on, it transports me to a different place. And I’m really proud of our performance in the studio on that one.

That’s the challenge as a songwriter is that there’s only so many things people want to hear about, and relationships is just one of those things.

When Taylor Swift was first beginning to really take off, a couple of guys I knew in her band called and offered me a job on her tour playing acoustic guitar and singing background vocals, and they thought I would be a really good fit for it.

There’s a lot of people out there – like, a lot of people out there – that wouldn’t know our music if it wasn’t for Spotify.

The truth is, that’s what we moved to Nashville to do – to learn how to write hit songs. We weren’t necessarily trying to get on college radio. We’re trying for mass appeal.

In the end, yes, I’m the singer of Old Dominion, but we’re a band of great singers and great musicians, and we just respect each other so much.

There’s no such thing as a broken heart, and there’s no such thing as a Sasquatch.

We definitely wanted to show we’re a band that can be around, and we have something to say other than the lighter, ‘pickup line’ sort of songs.

We always talk about our kids being a great way to judge whether it’s a hit song because there’s something very basic about the way they perceive the music that I think needs to be there if it’s gonna be a hit.

The writing process for us is different with every song. Sometimes they come from our lives, or someone else we know may be going through something that we choose to write about.

I think that’s one of the hardest parts as an artist, and creating a career, is the song is what is gonna lead you there. So it’s hard to find great songs.

You definitely want your own fans, but you also want the support of your peers and the people you work with.

There are albums that I listen to religiously just because I’m such a big fan: any Bruce Springsteen album, or old George Strait albums because the songwriting’s so strong.

We take what we do seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and I think that kind of helps us stay focused on what’s important – and that is the music, our fans, and our families.

I get excited about a crowd that likes our kind of music.

‘Still Writing Songs About You’ – that one hits me every time. For some reason, I really feel that song every time we play it. I just love the sound of it, and I feel like everybody probably has that person that they never fully forget or never can get past.

I’m a huge Lionel Richie fan, and sometimes we actually listen to Lionel Richie on the bus.

There’s no need to put a dumb picture of us on the album cover. We always look at ourselves and think, ‘Wow, we look like idiots.’ We’d rather have a piece of art on there.

We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We’re just friends that like to goof off.