Profile: Singer/Songwriter Matt Brouwer

Imagine signing a dream-come-true record deal right out of college and moving to Nashville to make it big—then walking away from it all a year later. That’s exactly what Canadian-born singer/songwriter Matt Brouwer did.

“I was so in over my head in Nashville and the music scene. I didn’t know who I was as a person, much less as an artist,” the now 29-year-old recalls. “I’d left all my friends and everything in Canada, and now I was going from little gig to little gig trying to pay the bills, living out of my minivan. I was like, ‘This isn’t what they said it was going to be.’”

With a fading vision of tour buses and packed stadiums, Brouwer felt lost and confused. He pled with God, “What do You want me to do that’s unique, that’s different from the route every other musician takes?”

The answer, surprisingly, was unlearning everything he thought about success.

Not Always Easy

One of seven kids growing up on a dairy farm in Nova Scotia, Brouwer found his two great loves—God and music—at an early age. While attending Bible college in Alberta, he and some friends started a weekly praise gathering called Monday Night Worship (MNW). MNW became so popular on campus that the group began to do some initial recording.

Soon, word spread throughout Western Canada as hundreds of students flooded in each week, attracting the attention of several record labels from Nashville. In 2000, Brouwer signed a deal with Reunion and packed his bags for Music City, U.S.A.

“Back then I thought, This is just how it works,” Brouwer says. “Everything was so easy—we just played music and people came. Naïvely, I assumed that’s how it would always be.”

But when he arrived in Nashville, Brouwer hit a wall. He didn’t know how to book himself. He didn’t have a manager. And he had no idea what he wanted to say to the world.

Just as the disillusioned songwriter was about to give up, a church in Houston invited him into their community. Chris Tomlin was their regular worship leader, but they asked Brouwer to play weekends he was out of town. Brouwer left the music scene, joined the church, and over the next several years, embarked on a series of mission trips to villages in Venezuela, Jamaica, Poland, and Guatemala with just his acoustic guitar.

“These mission trips really helped me see music in a different environment, where it was never about getting ahead career-wise,” Brouwer says. “I realized, man, I think God thinks about success very differently than we do.”

Starting Over

Returning home, Brouwer knew he had a choice: Dismiss the trips as an anomaly or do some serious soul-searching. He chose the latter, pouring out his doubts and questions on 2005’s indie record Unlearning. Slowly, he began to glimpse a unique pathway for his music, one that offered far more than fame and fortune.

“I learned that being an artist is not about being a celebrity,” he says. “It’s about getting your hands dirty and serving and giving yourself away.”

With a changed heart, Brouwer threw himself into playing music in smaller, more intimate venues and starting his own indie label, Black Shoe Records. He founded New Beginning Resources, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to building schools and supporting missionaries in Guatemala, Haiti, and Ecuador, and partnered with World Vision and Tom’s Shoes to bring awareness to global outreach. In 2009, he released his third record, Where’s Our Revolution, urging people—especially college students—to ask tough questions about materialism and cookie-cutter living.

“It’s about trying to stay in a place where you’re not taking, but giving,” he explains.

Today, the Houston-based artist spends his time leading worship 20 Sundays a year at his church, taking trips to Guatemala, and performing at churches, coffeehouses, and college campuses. Though he’s received critical acclaim for his transparent folk/pop music, including two 2009 Gospel Music Association Canada Covenant Awards (Fan Choice Artist of the Year and Folk/Roots Song of the Year for “The Other Side”), he still doesn’t see a tour bus in his future—and that’s OK with him.

“It’s tempting to go, ‘Wow, I haven’t succeeded,’ or, ‘I’ve failed, because in our culture, bigger is better—or the more people you reach the better.’ But I’m not sure that’s always true. Finding a true sense of purpose and calling and doing it inspired by God’s love in your heart and soul, that’s an amazing thing—whether you’re filling stadiums or the coffee house down the street.”

Little Known Facts About Matt Brouwer

• He’s a sci-fi nerd.
• He loves hiking and snowboarding.
• He’s writing a screenplay about a rock band’s chance encounter with a homeless man while touring America.
• He would love to teach music at a school in Guatemala.
• His favorite TV show is “LOST.”

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of Collegiate magazine.