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In a time when connection and vulnerability are more important than ever, independent breakthrough artist Matt Hansen is keeping the musical economy lush with self-reflection. With his new single “Same Time,” the latest off his anticipated debut album, Orchid, arriving Spring 2026, the release continues a remarkable rise that Hansen has built without traditional label support. Wanting to learn more, we sat down with the phenom himself, chatting about being a hopeless romantic, the best baked orange salmon, and love under the right conditions: 

OnesToWatch: Who are you?

Matt Hansen: My name is Matt Hansen. I am a 26 year old singer songwriter from Los Angeles, and I make some really emotional songs. 

Why do you have so many feels? 

Just the way I was born, man. I can't do anything about it. I've always been a hopeless romantic and being a hopeless romantic, I think you get yourself into a lot of weird situations and a lot of sketchy relationships. So I just have a lot of stories to tell about that. 

So I love that. Were you always, as a hopeless romantic, directionally-oriented towards music, or were there other creative outlets that fought for your attention?  

I would say it's always been music for me... I've always been drawn to melancholy sounds, if that makes sense. I love ambient music and the way that sounds make you feel. That's where I lean with my melodies and music.
I always start with the melody and music first and then add the lyrics later, because I gather a lot of information from the way that it's making me feel at the moment. 

Do you cringe when you hear a major chord? 
Does it bother you? 

No, no, no, no. I'm not at that level.
I absolutely love major chords. One of my favorite things to do, actually, is to write a happy sounding song with devastating lyrics underneath it. There are so many scenarios where you're sad in a moment that should make you happy, right? 

When did you first write a song with the expectation that someone other than your immediate friends and family would hear it? 

I would say it took me about two years to do that. I would say that was probably 2019, right before COVID happened. Then during COVID, I basically wrote a song every day for a good year and a half. I showed nobody anything. That was really special for me because it was like journal entries, basically. I was just writing to write. I got infinitely better in that time, and also wrote some of the worst songs of all time.
But I was able to get into why I was writing and what I was supposed to be writing about. That was really helpful to open myself up to sharing what I'm feeling with everyone else. I needed to first be okay saying it out loud to myself. 

It sounds like you must have a process given the volume of songs you're writing. Do you have a methodology? Do you approach songwriting the same way every time? 


I would say in general, yeah. I love to start with chords. Whatever I play on the guitar or the piano, I just go from there. A lot of my lyrics come from just saying some dramatic shit in my head for no reason. Even when I'm happy, I’m like, let's try and make myself sad for a second. 


You sound like an artist. 


Yeah. And so I would say that there are a lot of songs that came from a singular lyric that I had written down that inspired the rest of the song. But most of the time I'm starting from complete scratch every single time and just letting what happens happen. I start with music first and then the lyrics come next. It's easier for me to attach the words to the music rather than the other way around. 

You are renowned for your lyrics. Are you someone who can be emotionally voyeuristic? Can you experience something separate and away from yourself, or do you have to trauma bond in order to write something? 


I would say that almost every single time that I'm writing, I'm trying to find my own way to relate to it. I've gotten better at taking someone else's story and really, really trying to feel that I was them, which is always difficult if you haven't felt the emotions yourself, because you're kind of making it up.
But I always find that my best songs are something that I didn't really want to admit to myself. That's the case for me. It's something that I didn't really want to say, but I needed to say.
And so there are a lot of songs that when I wrote them, I hated them because I was scared of what I was saying to myself. And then I was like, no, that was probably good advice, actually. Or I needed to say that this hurt me and that I was angry about this. That I was sad about this. So yes, I would say most of my songs are based on personal experiences. 

Which begs the question then… you've admitted to being a hopeless romantic – do you invite drama for the purposes of songwriting? 

That, I try not to do anymore. I did that for a long time. Everybody knows that. God, the people I wrote about, it was just so bad.
It was not good. I was addicted to having dramatic moments and that's not really healthy. It made a lot of good songs because I think when you're searching for something that inherently hates you and inherently doesn't love you back, you learn a lot about yourself and how you have to love yourself first. That journey, over the last couple of years, has been pretty amazing, and I feel very lucky to have gotten a lot of deep wakeup calls from those situations to finally find my way out of that pattern. 

Let's get into self-editing. You have an upcoming project. How do songs fit together on an album for you? 

It's actually pretty cool because all of these songs, I wrote them as a timeline of my life over the last couple of years. 

So they literally fit together, sequentially? 


I would say the track list is pretty sequential in terms of when I wrote them and what they mean. Some of them are a little bit out of order, but that's just based off of the artistic vision of where I want people to leave with this album. Otherwise I might make them a little bit depressed. And I'd rather not do that. Recently I've really been preaching hope in every genre, in every category. People need that right now. There's a lot of stuff going on right now. And I think that people need a little bit of hope, especially when it comes to love. The album really explores my emotional journey over the last four years. 

How old are the songs? Are they that old as well? 


There are some songs that are back at the beginning of when I was writing. It's important that I have those songs on there because not only are they important to the people that have listened to my music since then, but they give important context to why I am the way I am now. And the album is basically my own traumatic journey over the last four years for people to learn what not to do. It's a cautionary tale. There are people you can avoid and there are ways you can love yourself to avoid that. 

How many of those songs fit the narrative of the timeline, but you left off the album? 

I would say that there wasn't any song that was off the table, per se, but there were some songs that were a reiteration of the same feeling to me... Those, I put out separately from the album because I really loved the songs at the time and then realized that I was saying the same things, just in a different way. And that's great. But I just don't think those two songs should be on the same album. So it was really based on what songs perfectly represented where I was at that time. As of right now, I'm pretty confident that it's a pretty eye-opening depiction of what I was going through the last four years, which is cool to me. It feels like I've got a piece of my heart in the world. 


Vulnerable and beautiful. Tell us about the album title, Orchid. Obviously represents something that's rare, hard to find. 

It got its title from the title track, which is called “Orchid.” I wrote this song as a goodbye to my traumatic experience. The metaphor of the orchid came up as we were thinking about things that work in the right environment, but fall apart in the wrong environment. Like, if you know how to take care of it, it's actually very easy. You can keep it alive for a long time. Years, it can keep finding new ways to grow. But, if you leave it in too much sun, if you leave it in the wrong place, if you overwater, if you under water, all of those things affect the longevity of how it survives. And I think that's a perfect representation of the way that love works. If you have it in the right conditions with the right amount of care, you can always make it work. So, that's the reason for that song, and it was a perfect way to basically sum up the album. Yeah, I just, I truly love that song and I'm excited for people to hear it too. Beautiful. 
You said you were excited for me to hear it. 

If the audience took away something from this album, what would it be? 

It's that you don't have to completely forget all of that pain that happened because that's not possible. I tried very hard for a long time to just let it go, but I’ve accepted that it is a part of me, and it always will be. There's a lot of power in knowing that it happened to me and I got through it. Now I can share this with other people and make sure that they know that it’s okay to feel bad every day. If you're in it right now, it's okay to leave. It's okay to feel like you can't leave. I understand that too. There's a lot of hope in just knowing that that's always going to be a part of your life. 

Beautiful. Redemptive love. If everything goes to plan, in a year, what are you doing? 

Just playing shows just like I am now. Just bigger rooms. That's that. I truly have loved playing shows. I've been touring nonstop for the last three years and there's just something you can't substitute for singing your own songs in front of people and seeing their faces scream them right back to you. That's just the greatest experience I could ever ask for. And also hearing people tell me how these songs have impacted them and how it made them leave a situation that was hurting them. I think that's amazing. I absolutely love that songs like this can have an impact like that. 

I'm going to pivot to some more fun questions. If you could open for any two acts – alive or dead – who would they be?

Number one: Coldplay. That's my all time. That would be just so epic. And number two: Jeff Buckley. That would be truly spectacular, and it would be a really difficult opening gig, I'm not going to lie. He just existed on stage with his raw emotions and that would be so hard to follow up. He’s in pain up there. That's always what I try to do when I'm on stage. I'm trying to take myself back to those places and relive it and sing these songs like I'm feeling them for the first time again. That would be such a gift, to be able to try and do that to the max, you know? 

If your friends and family ambushed you at your place, could you whip up a meal? 


Hell yeah. 

And what would it be? 

I absolutely love making salmon. I love any kind of fish, but I would make salmon. I make a wicked orange salmon with garlic. Really, really good. 

Just oven baked?

Yes, you could sear it as well. 
You could do sous vide if you want to get really crazy.
It's so good. I also love the baked way because it also kind of crisps up the orange on the outside. I’d also make this sweet potato rice with purple sweet potatoes. And asparagus or broccolini, anything that's garlicky. I mean, you just can't go wrong there. 

Love it. What's the worst pickup line you've ever used that works? 

Ooh. I'm not going to lie. I'm not a pickup line guy whatsoever. 

How about a gesture? 

Oh yes, this one was definitely bold. I brought flowers and a lot of things to the first date, and it worked. It was love bombing to the max. I didn’t mean to lovebomb, but my heart was in the right place. I was very young. She told all her friends and I was kind of laughed at the next day, but then we ended up dating for a little bit. So it worked.
It was stupid and silly, but it was nice, right? Now I know love bombing does not work very well at all. 

I love that that behavior finally has a name now. 

Yeah, yeah. In reality, I was just 18 years old and was like, I really like this girl. But it wasn’t a great move. 

You're fearless. I like this about you. 

I would say when it comes to love, I'm definitely in that realm. 

Last couple of questions. I’d love a non-music recommendation. 

I just watched Bugonia, it's so weird, it's fantastic. I made sure to not really watch or read anything about it going in. All I knew was that people thought that she was an alien. It gets so weird and so crazy and I love all of Yorgos’ films, so I highly recommend it. It's a little bit intense, but it's very good. 


Great rec. And now, predictably, I’d like a music recommendation. 

Searows, his new album is fantastic. I'm such a big Ethel Cain fan, too. If you like Ethel Cain, Searows is like her but with acoustic guitars and that's my stuff right there. I have had that album on repeat, it’s fantastic. 

Love it. Finally, last words are yours. Anything you want to share? 

My name is Matt Hansen. My new album, Orchid, is coming out in May of this year. I cannot wait for you guys to hear it. If you love emotional songs and you love emotional trauma and digging into that stuff, this album is for you. If you don't like that, you might need to listen to it. 

Thank you so much. 

Appreciate you!