Matt Rouse was born in 1977 into a musical family, and lived in Eastbourne. His father was a multi-instrumentalist, his brother a keen drummer and piano player, and his mum was a stage performer. Matt was keen to get into music from an early age, landing his first singing gig at the age of 6. It was his initial taste of music in a studio, and the journey that lay ahead.
At school, Matt mainly excelled in sports and music. After getting an A in GCSE music, he decided it was time to explore life as a musician. He played drums for a National Big Band Orchestra, and started to sing in a national choir. He then went on to playing in bands, sometimes playing in 5 bands a week! He played in good and bad bands, but still took on the message of learning more and more each time.
After college he went on to University studying Music Industry Management. He then started making Hip hop and R&B music using his drumming knowledge, and his new friends used his understanding of rhythm to lay down “phat beats” and other musical sections very quickly and easily. He also started learning more about using keyboards, pianos and synths and the whole new world of computer-based music!
After University and BIMM, Matt took a variety of jobs but was always playing drums in bands, with some of those bands going on to bigger things landing record deals with labels such as SONY BMG, Galaxy records, Global Warming Records, Big Village Records and other independents. Playing with these bands at such a high level gave Matt the tools to go off and do it himself.
After starting a family, Matt Rouse has now changed his focus to using the skills that he had learned from his thousands of hours on stage, in studios recording over 100 tracks, on tour with over 300 hundred bands, and playing at hundreds of festivals (including Glastonbury), to concentrate on the music he is making today.
