Mt. Joy and the Art of Togetherness

Five years for most people is encapsulated in photographs and old memories but, for frontman Matt Quinn, it’s etched in Mt. Joy’s music. To Quinn, the quintet’s folksy music exists in a dichotomy between the abstract and vividly real. If he could create a piece of art to epitomize their sound visually, it would be a collage of objects that shouldn’t exist together in the first place. “I think [our music] is this juxtaposition of down-to-earth storytelling and abstract surrealism,” he says.

Seated at a rickety picnic table, amongst the bustle of the tent city media lounge at Austin City Limits, Quinn is accompanied by the gifts he received from some other interviewers: a Lego version of himself and a ridiculously expensive Austin FC jersey—something we shared collective shock and a laugh over. The only gift I had for him was a genuine interest in seeing what it felt like for him to be back in the same spot, playing at ACL Fest five years later—a special déjà vu moment not many people get to experience.

Although the band grew up playing music, they didn’t all grow up playing it together. Quinn and guitarist Sam Cooper have known each other since they met in high school in Philadelphia. After trying and failing to succeed in making music in college, Quinn looked to get into the industry in another way—copyright law. He moved to Los Angeles with his girlfriend to pursue law school and, one night, as a joke, he decided to record “Astrovan” with Cooper. In an almost creepy premonition of their future, Quinn wrote, “Doobie smoking Jesus puts my name up on his guest list / He said ‘Son you’re famous in Heaven.’” While Quinn was knee-deep in law textbooks and late nights at the library, that “joke” uploaded to the internet started to connect with people, and it prompted him to drop out and give music a real shot. Fate has a funny way of working out sometimes.

Once Quinn and Cooper realized they were making music people resonated with, they found bassist Michael Byrnes on Craigslist—a tried and true method of meeting other musicians in the internet age. “I remember meeting these guys for the first time in such strange circumstances. The night we decided to rehearse was the night of the 2016 election,” he says. “We weren’t paying too close attention. I thought it was a foregone conclusion—not to bring everyone back—but, obviously, we had this really weird first night together. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it but, since then, we’ve been a family.” After recording a few singles for their self-titled debut, they added drummer Sotiris Eliopoulos and keyboardist Jackie Miclau to complete the Mt. Joy family.

Quinn had always dreamed of being a musician. Even with the failure he endured in college, he was able to revive a piece of that version of himself through “Silver Lining,” which he originally wrote and recorded with his band at Northeastern: Heavy Elephant. The viscerally authentic acoustic track about losing friends to drugs-related deaths in his hometown connected with so many people when he re-recorded it under the Mt. Joy name. It was clearly the right track at the wrong time—he just needed the right people by his side to complete it.

“I wasn’t able to make a career out of music right away. It wasn’t until I was 25, and I’d been working on it for a decade, that anything really ever broke through. The thing that I didn’t realize is the best part of it—a chance to do something you love as a job—is you’re just exponentially getting better and learning so much about music that it becomes this thing that keeps giving. There’s always a way to be better at guitar, no matter how good you are,” Quinn gushes. “That’s my favorite part about it. It’s not this dead-end job where you’re like, ‘Well, now what?’ If you’re looking or keeping your ears and antenna open. There’s always a path to improvement.”

Mt. Joy is the story of people with a passion they wouldn’t give up on. I think it’s refreshing to see a band hit success “later” in life—though I don’t see your late 20s as being that much later in life. They saw the clear manifestation of that success by playing Austin City Limits precisely five years after the first time they performed there. It’s such a trippy feeling to be back where you were so many years later, but it’s important to stop and experience how far you have come. For Quinn, that appreciation of success comes from his growth in his confidence as a musician. “I remember being so nervous. It meant so much to us to be included. It was, at the time, our biggest crowd ever. I thought we played really well that day, for at least where we were at,” Quinn jokes. “I still remember that it was kind of a test for us. You walk off feeling like ‘You know what? With these five people, we can go into this scary environment and succeed.’ That’s so much of being successful, controlling your nerves and performance anxiety. Music is pretty easy. Especially what we do, it’s not wildly technical music, for the most part. The only thing holding you back often is your own nerves. I remember those hand-shaking moments and getting through it. I think that stuff still matters today.”

Taking a moment to reflect on how they have changed in all those years of touring and getting to develop not just as musicians but also as people, Quinn says, “I feel like we’re a totally different band than we were five years ago, in a really good way. We were just joking about this the other day. We would be scared to hear a recording of Mt. Joy in 2018. We feel like we’ve gotten to a pretty good place, but five years back, we hadn’t played together much. That’s probably what’s changed the most. I think we’re a much better band.”

That growth is evident in their 2022 album Orange Blood, a project about how the sun is the blood of the universe was poignant following a time of so much tragedy. You can hear Quinn’s passion for improving as a musician in the layered production of songs like the title track or the fuzzed-out tones of “Evergreen.” They are intentional with the production and created this psychedelic trip through a collection of the band’s favorite genres: folk-rock, jazzy soul and surf rock. Over a year later, one song has connected with fans in a more profound way: “Bathroom Light.”

Now that he knows all the song’s nuances when he plays it live, Quinn can appreciate how the fans react to the track. “I get choked up hearing the crowd sing the song in such a cathartic way,” he explains. He isn’t sure why people connect to it so much, but for a song that is so personal to him, he is happy to share those feelings with other people. “I think it’s something about the way the song was made. There was just a moment when our producer had a tragic passing in his family, and we were all kind of waiting for him to come back. It was this sobering moment. I think that made it the most real song on the record in the sense that we wrote a song pretty quickly in this space that was really real and really sad. And a reminder that nothing’s as important as your family, the people you love, and how important it is to love them. I think that kind of hits everyone,” he adds.

For a band that practically stumbled into their success, they haven’t taken their recognition for granted and have made the most of it—spending the entirety of 2023 on the road, headlining shows and countless music festivals like Lollapalooza, Boston Calling and All Things Go. It’s tough to make music on the road while playing a different show each night. It can be impossible, quite frankly, to find the time to sit down and just play or write—and for Quinn, he is missing the freedom to quietly create. “It’s tough,” he says. “Our schedule has been pretty insane, honestly. There’s not been a ton of time to create, but absence makes the heart grow fonder. I’ll find myself in a hotel without my guitar being like, ‘Oh my God, I wish I had my guitar right now.’ So I could write a song. When you do finally get your guitar, the joy is back, which I think is important for writing music—to be in the space to create in your mind.”

Even amongst their packed schedules and touring, Quinn and his bandmates won’t stop making music, no matter how hard it may be. Earlier this year, they released an uncharacteristically upbeat pop-centric track, “A Little Love,” with singer/songwriter Julia Pratt. “I became aware of her because she sent a TikTok of her singing our song ‘Dirty Love.’ It gave me chills. I was like, ‘Who is this?’” Quinn exclaims. “Then I found out she was from Philly, which is amazing for me. Getting to collaborate with her was awesome. I think she is a future star.”

Another one of their impressive collaborations came through long-time friend and folk-pop artist Noah Kahan. During the pandemic, there wasn’t much to do but write music that dealt with the tragedy that the world was going through. When everything and everyone paused, Quinn and his bandmates retreated to a barn outside of Philadelphia and tapped into that younger version of themselves. One of the songs to come out of that seclusion was “Emily,” something fans at ACL’s first weekend were treated to during Kahan’s own set. The track has yet to be officially recorded, as they are still, according to Quinn, putting work into it—but from what they have released, it’s a beautiful collaboration between the two soft-spoken artists.

Quinn truly just loves making art, and he struggles with the capitalistic pressure of making your passion your career. As someone who writes for a living, I find myself struggling with the same things. It is a weird world to get caught up in, having to monetize something you create out of the necessity of expressing yourself. Yet, that is the reality for musicians: You need money to live and, sometimes, that means making a song that your heart may not be in. It’s refreshing to hear Quinn be so candid about the internal struggle of just being able to pay your bills. Talking about the idea of when your label asks you to put out another song to make money, he says: “To me, that’s just the antithesis of meeting people where they are with art.” Which is exactly what he wants for Mt. Joy fans: a place where they can just have fun.

After five years of booming success, I’m curious about what Quinn wants next for the band and where they might see themselves in another half-decade. “We’ve reached this place where I’m really happy with what’s happening. As the band continues to grow, I just want in five years, more so than anything else, for us to be having fun together and finding ways to express that. I think that’s what’s gotten us here. I know that seems simple, but I always feel like our best shows are when we just have so much fun,” Quinn says, smiling. “You can tell that it is this sort of contagious thing. I think that’s what Mt. Joy is. I think, as you get bigger, there’s more pressure—so I just hope that we’re able to keep growing with it and having fun and being a band that people go and just have a great time and cry and laugh and throw up. Whatever they’ve got to do.”

While I didn’t catch people throwing up at the Mt. Joy show after our interview, I did see people dancing together, singing their hearts out, laughing at Quinn’s jokes about “Johnsons” and just generally radiating happiness. In a world where so much is going wrong, maybe Mt. Joy have it figured out: All we need to do, sometimes, is sing and have a good time together. Perhaps it really is that simple.

Watch Mt. Joy perform at the Paste Studios in 2018 below.

Mt. Joy just announced their 2024 tour, featuring stops at Fenway Park, Red Rocks and Madison Square Garden. Catch up on the full itinerary here.