ABOUT THE ARTIST

When Matt Andersen steps on stage, he brings a lifetime of music to every note he plays. His latest album, The Big Bottle of Joy, is all about hard-won celebration; a dozen songs infused with raw blues-rock, rollicking Americana, thoughtful folk and ecstatic gospel. Andersen’s stage presence is informed by decades of cutting his teeth in dusty clubs, dim-lit bars and grand theatres all over the world, delivering soulful performances that run the gamut from intimate to wall-shaking.  

In the studio, he’s always brought the same attention to detail and commitment to craft as he has to his live show, and the result—a multi-faceted and poignant body of work—has led him to amass over 23 million streams on Spotify and 26 million views on YouTube.

In addition to headlining major festivals, clubs and theatres throughout North America, Europe and Australia, he has shared the stage and toured with Marcus King, Beth Hart, Marty Stuart, Greg Allman, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Randy Bachman, Jonny Lang, Serena Ryder and more. Andersen nabbed the 2013 and 2016 European Blues Awards for Best Solo/Acoustic Act, was the first ever Canadian to take home top honors in the solo category at the 2010 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, won the CIMA Road Gold award in 2015, and has won multiple Maple Blues Awards. Matt Andersen & The Big Bottle of Joy was nominated for a Juno Award in 2024.

ABOUT THE BIG BOTTLE OF JOY

The Big Bottle of Joy is about celebration – hard-won, overflowing, exuberant celebration. Matt Andersen’s latest long-player lives up to the grand title from its opening song, “Let It Slide”; a muscular, organ-drenched urge for people to chill out and be good to each other – to its understated, romantic curtain-closer, “Shoes.” Andersen finds reason to sustain this celebration of the life we share together everywhere – on the road, missing a lover; between the sheets in a southern Ontario motel room; from Montreal “all the way to New Orleans;” in a “little kitchen ballroom” on a quiet night at home. Over a dozen songs infused with raw blues-rock, rollicking Americana, thoughtful folk, and ecstatic gospel, he testifies to something we could all do well to remember: the time we have together is special, so let’s spend it the right way.

“Being good to each other, you know, in taking care of each other – those are the biggest things I want to put out there,” Andersen says. “If we’re in it together, it’ll be a lot
easier than trying to do it on our own.”

Appropriately, The Big Bottle of Joy was a team effort. The title doesn’t just refer to the record, but the band that Andersen put together to make it. The songs were written
with not just a band in mind, but this exact group of people, and Andersen tailored moods and arrangements and sections to elevate the already substantial talents of the
players. The approach gave them the best possible scenario to record live-off-the-floor at The Sonic Temple, and the individual performances – shot through with the kind of dynamism that can only come from being in a room together – flow seamlessly into each other.

“Somebody told me a long time ago that when you put a band together, you need to make yourself the weakest musician,” Andersen says. “So that’s always what I’ve done.
And they’re all just absolutely monstrous at what they do.”

The combined vocal power of the Smiths: Reeny, Haliey, and Micah – is all over the album, adding extra electricity to “How Far Will You Go” and soulful harmonies to the pining “Only an Island.” Drummer Geoff Arsenault’s nuanced rhythms mimic bumpy, endless highways on “Rollin’ Down the Road” and swing soft on the ode to touring “Miss Missin’ You.” Mike Farrington Jr.’s bass lines drive the pulse of love songs like “Golden” and the Richie Havens cover “Hands of Time,” and Cory Tetford shares six-string duties to add extra flavour to the support anthem “So Low, Solo.” Kim Dunn’s bright, rolling piano moves “Aurora” – a Canadian, mini-epic road romance – down the line in fine style, mingling with the lush organ accompaniment of multi-instrumentalist Chris Kirby (who also sets the place on fire for “What’s on My Mind”). And throughout, Andersen leads the band in masterful fashion, weaving his way through intimate moments and raucous ones. The final song, “Shoes” (co-written with Donovan Woods), finds him celebrating a precious night at home, “dancing with the shoes we’ve got on,” as Kirby’s accordion and Smith’s Hammond B3 organ plays Andersen through a twirl with
his one-and-only around the kitchen floor. The Big Bottle of Joy’s songs were crafted in collaboration with some of the finest songwriters in the game. Terra Spencer, Carleton Stone, Breagh Isabel, Dylan Guthro, Dave Sampson, Ian Janes, Andy Stochansky, Ross Neilsen, Cory Tetford, Chris Kirby, Clayton Bellamy, Jason Blaine, and the aforementioned Donovan Woods all make appearances in the credits. It was recorded by Lil Thomas at The Sonic Temple in beautiful Halifax, Nova Scotia; mixed by Steve Dawson; mastered by Kim Rosen at Knack Mastering; and produced by Matt Andersen himself. Andersen will be taking The Big Bottle of Joy – the complete, world-class, best-in-show band – with him on the road to keep the celebration going throughout the year. Come out and add your voice to the chorus.

OPENING ACT: JULIAN TAYLOR

Award-winning, Toronto-based singer-songwriter Julian Taylor has been part of the musical fabric and landscape in Canada for two decades. Taylor enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2020, when his second solo acoustic album, The Ridge, earned more than five million plays on Spotify, praise from press worldwide, and airplay from America to Australia to the U.K. Loaded with soulful Americana and country twang, the album was produced by Taylor himself and Saam Hashemi, and was recorded at The Woodshed in Toronto. In addition to winning Taylor Solo Artist of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, The Ridge was also nominated for: two JUNO Awards (Contemporary Folk Album of The Year, Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year), the Polaris Prize Long List, a Summer Solstice Indigenous Award (Contemporary Folk Album of the Year), a Canadian Music Week INDIES Award (Indigenous Artist of the Year), and an additional Canadian Folk Music Awards nomination in the English Songwriter of the Year category. The nominations and awards kept coming in 2022, with Taylor winning best male artist in the International Acoustic Music Awards and scoring five Native American Music Award nominations. In 2023, Taylor received a nomination in the Country Music Association of Ontario Awards in the Roots Artist of the Year category, and a further nomination for a JUNO Award in the Contemporary Indigenous Artist of the Year category.

Taylor’s currently on tour in support of his new music, with confirmed dates in the UK, Canada and the US. With a live show that always wows audiences, Taylor caught the attention of Jeremy Vine of BBC2 last year at his show in London, who proclaimed that Taylor is “an incredible, profound, thoughtful, musical genius” on the social media platform X.