Matisyahuhas spent much of his life moving from place to place, but the place he finds himself in right now seems to already feel like home.
“We’ve gotten to beso goodat all of these moves,” Matisyahu, 44, tells PEOPLE in a recent interview. “We make it feel like home within days.”
The home that the Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, and alternative reggae rock musician currently occupies is situated right on the Hudson River. “There’s an upside to [moving so much],” says Matisyahu, who will head out on a 34-date headlining tour starting on Jan. 31. “It’s very cleansing. I think when you do a move, you get rid of stuff and you throw things away, and you start over in a new place.”
And often, the moves that the New York-raised and New Jersey-based visionary has made throughout his life also happens to correlate with his album releases.
“The albums all tell a different chapter of a story,” says the storyteller, whose career has included seven studio albums including the chart-toppingLight(2009),Youth(2006), andSpark Seeker(2012). “I can associate different houses with different times in my life. And a lot of my kids were home births, so different houses were different births to my children as well.”
Matisyahu.Juliana Ronderos
Juliana Ronderos
And while there was a time back in his 30s that Matisyahu found himself craving home ownership, he currently prefers keeping his options open. “There is something very special aboutnotowning anything,” he remarks. “It’s very much back to my Hasidic roots in a certain way of just not being too tied up with anything being yours. Our time here is not permanent.”
Certainly, the aging process has come to directly affect the process of creating music for Matisyahu, especially on his upcoming EPHold the Fire.
Matisyahu’s Hold the Fire.Courtesy Press Here Publicity
Courtesy Press Here Publicity
But as an artist and a man, Matisyahu continues to put the hard work in, and it is this hard work that he put into his new single “End of the World.”
“I had a hard time writing that one, to be honest,” Matisyahu says of the song premiering exclusively on PEOPLE. “It was one of the ones that I always loved, but for some reason, I just kept writing lyrics and melodies to other songs instead. Every time I approached it, I had a hard time with it.”
Sonically, the song feels different. Heck, the whole EP feels a little different.
“It’s a little bit of a different flow,” he admits of the EP, which also included his previous single “Fireproof.” “I had to stretch a bit. It’s kind of in my wheelhouse, but it’s also a song that has me pulling from new places. And that’s what feels good right about now.”
source: people.com
