Combine Townes Van Zandt with Joe Ely, and somewhere in the middle, you’ll find Matthew Payne.

“He truly is Austin timelessness personified,” says Taylor Wallace-Riegel, KUTX. Texas songwriter and Americana artist Matthew Payne grew up in the beautiful hill country surrounding Dripping Springs, and loved every minute of his two decades as an educator of English and Creative Writing in Austin public schools.

If there are two spirit guides to Payne’s debut album, Better Times, it is Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson and Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen. Payne’s own songs were recorded similarly, and share the bare-bones stripped-down feel of those classic albums, where both the characters and the music are raw and real. The ten songs that make up the Better Times debut tell stories of conflicted characters at their brink, looking for a way forward, trying to carve it out, trying to make something better, trying to believe that “better times come from these.”  

Sometimes folk, sometimes country, and sometimes blues, “Better Times” is about the stories, in the end. They feel like many characters, yet they also feel like one. It fuses the Texas songwriter tradition with Appalachia, pulling hill country poetry into old-time country and blues with fresh insight. "Payne seems like he’s sat down at a bar after hours on the road, regaling barflies with an overture of the epic of where he’s been. We get the highlights, but we also know one question will lead to a shower of tales, and his impassioned storytelling, punctuated with a driving, honky tonk rhythm, makes us want to ask the bartender for another boilermaker for ourselves and one for our new friend."

“Better Times,” the title track, is a country song, stripped down to its core, and tells the story of being caught in the middle in life, caring for an aging parent who is experiencing dementia and Alzheimer’s and raising a son – the joy and the sorrow. “Heartsick” is the story of Payne’s hometown of Dripping Springs, Texas, and it’s about “that feelin that you can’t go home again.” The small town he wanted to leave so bad in his youth is the town he wishes he could return to but can’t – it’s grown so big now. Musically, “Down in the Valley” is country blues meets Appalachia, but lyrically it’s Jack Kerouac meets Tom Petty. It tells the story of a drive from Payne’s hometown in Austin, Texas to visit his friends up in the Sandia Mountains. “Adilena,” and “Terlingua” capture poetic images from West Texas and mirror that with the emotional landscape of characters seeking love. “Silhouette” and “Kid” pull Appalachian bluegrass into country and blues, and the harmonica acts as the strings. They explore difficult emotional topics with poignancy and power, all the while keeping rooted in old time Americana and roots musical traditions.

 In 2025, Payne released his first EP, “Coyote Howlin Blues” and it became his introductory calling card to the city he grew up in and around and loved – Austin, Texas. “Spider House Blues,” was featured on SUN Radio’s “Sound of Our Town,” and fittingly pulls its title from a beloved coffeeshop in Austin’s days-gone-by. The music, however, feels born of bluegrass, of joy, of vibrancy, and it’s this juxtaposition of blues and country bluegrass that makes a unique combination. Songs like “The Light I Cannot See” and “Step Away” showcase the folk and Texas songwriter tradition, and the lyrics explore a great depth of feeling from characters who can’t seem to let themselves hold on to love. “Matthew’s vocals crack with raw authenticity and the songs sparkle like bright amethysts you find when you split open the dusty rocks of life,” says Americana Highways.

Matthew Payne has honored by being a finalist at Kerrville’s New Folk twice - most recently in 2026 - and performer at many festivals, including the Dripping Springs Songwriters Festival on multiple occasions, Bandera Songwriters Festival, Corpus Christi Songwriters Festival, and Pecan Street Festival in Austin, TX. He is currently out there, sharing songs around Central Texas, sometimes across much longer distances, solo or with a band. He can be found at his monthly residency at the historic Hole in the Wall, or bringing songwriters from all over together to play music and swap songs at other residencies and swaps in town.