The early years...
Matt’s musical career started at the ripe old age of 3 days when he came home from the hospital… seriously! His dad Jack Dallas Smith was one of the founding members of the Colleagues who were voted one of Americas top 5 show bands of the ‘70s. Matt spent most of his childhood traveling the country with his family following his father’s band. Matt being a sucker for attention would sit in the audience during his fathers show and play the drums with straws and empty glasses.

The still early years...
Around the age of 3 Matt gets his first guitar for Christmas… of course Matt thinks it was a drum set… so he layed it on the floor and beat it with sticks while playing his Beach Boy records.

The still early years after that same Christmas…
Matt’s best friend beats him over the head with the same guitar in a game of hide and seek… In fact if you come up to Matt at a Stranger show ask him to show you the scar!!! 18 stitches!

Enough of the early years…
Piano lessons for one year. Matt plays "Stray Cat Strut" at his 6th grade talent show and gets his first taste of the rock-star life.

Junior High…
Matt goes to a 7th grade dance with no date cuz he is a dork but watches the coolest guys in West Carrollton (Chuck Ridell, Terry Sheets, Dave Sorg, Billy Kuhn, Chris Farrah and some guy name Mike) play at the same dance… The band was called AWOL and they were all in High School. Determined to be that cool , Matt asked for a keyboard for X-mas. He gets it by the way.

8th grade…
Dave Sorg leaves AWOL and the other guys in AWOL hear about this kid in Junior High who could play keyboard. Matt gets to hang out with the coolest guys in High School and wear his AWOL t-shirt around school… All of the girls who wouldn’t talk to Matt now want to talk to him… Matt thinks he cool now. All of Matt’s guys friend’s think he’s a stuck-up weener cuz he has an AWOL t-shirt and gets to hang out with high school guys before the legal drinking age was changed.

9th grade… (Matt has secretly been learning guitar by the way)
AWOL breaks up, Matt starts up TTARGETT (yes I know… 4 letter T’s), They headline the Junior High talent show. Matt is the lead singer and guitar player. He wears white shorts and a Hawaiin shirt. The place goes nuts and Matt thinks he has found his nitch…. White shorts and Guitars.

High School:
TTARGETT rules West Carrollton . Matt is cool but loses the white shorts. Matt gets selected to go to Disney World and compete in a National talent competition. He goes and gets fourth place. At the same time he even auditions for the Mousekeeters (I swear its the truth). He doesn’t make the Mouseketeers but he gets free acting classes and started doing a few local modeling gigs. Kinda similar to how Rick Springfield starts does Soap Operas to support his musical habit. Well… I guess Rick never worked as a busboy at the Holiday Inn.

College…
Matt meets Dave and Gary Garwood and Niles Johns and starts a original Band called BLUE SEPTEMBER… They sounded like Seal and Depeche Mode and looked like Duran Duran. Pretty cool stuff because they were approached by a financial backer and a record company. Being young and clueless. They put out there first record "Monocle" and single "Same old Story"… Which ended up receiving airplay in about 26 states. This is Matt’s attempt at true rock stardom. Being young and dumb… the group falls apart after about 4 years… but Matt still has some tapes left to sell if you're interested.

Still College…
Matt has a bad taste in his mouth from Blue September but is begged by Chris Thompson to play in his new band called STRANGER in 1994… Matt says no for about 2 months. Finally breaking down… Matt ends up playing with them.

Post College…
Stranger is playing around town but no one is coming to the shows but friends… Matt ends up meeting Jay Stueve (DR. X), John Hughes (Slamsons) and Randi Rideout… Randi is back in town from touring and signing with a Playboy production in Lake Tahoe . This is the birth of SCREAMING PLAID. Plaid plays for about 2 (1997-1999) years and ends up being pretty popular. Randi decides to get married and stops playing in bars… PLAID breaks up…

Current…
Well this chapter is still being written but being in Stranger remains a consistent plus to my life… outside of the band I have a professional life, great family and a lot of stuff to offer the world that is very non-rock and roll but our PR doesn’t want us to talk about it too much… some kinda image/sell records thingy… industry people are shady I guess… :) I do continue to write and produce music in various projects which is cool though… Keep your eyes out for the project I am doing with Jane French (NBC Passions theme song “Breathe”) and Gary Garwood (Velvet Crush)… Some of the songs will be pre-released and released on her myspace page… www.myspace.com/janefrench... Eventually you should be able to get the songs on itunes, cdbaby and other online musice outlets… I’ll let you know.