Before joining forces with Old Dominion guitarist and keyboardist Trevor Rosen, drummer Whit Sellers, bassist Geoff Sprung and guitarist Brad Tursi, lead singer Matthew Ramsey made a name for himself as a songwriter while chasing solo success.
Though he's called Matt to this day by hometown friends and country music colleagues, the singer insisted on being billed as Matthew Ramsey early in his career for a bizarre yet sensible reason.
"Back in Virginia, I made a little album by myself and put it out, and it says Matt Ramsey," he told Bobby Bones in 2020. "I started getting emails from people saying, 'There's another Matt Ramsey out there that does something very different from what you do. I was looking for him and found your music.' It turns out he was a porn guy. So for a while there, if you Googled my name, you got something very different."
We'll spare you further details, but the other Matt Ramsey's better known as Peter North.
Matthew Ramsey (the Nashville star, not the other guy) was born on October 21, 1977 in Buchanan, Virginia.
A guitarist since age 14, he began his stay in Nashville as a songwriter for the stars, co-writing The Band Perry's "Chainsaw," Craig Morgan's "Wake Up Lovin' You," Dierks Bentley's "Say You Do," Sam Hunt's "Make You Miss Me," Tyler Farr's "A Guy Walks Into a Bar," Chris Young's "Neon" and Kenny Chesney's "Save It for a Rainy Day."
Old Dominion's Virginia to Tennessee success story first hit its stride in 2015 when "Break Up With Him" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart. The band's since impacted country radio with "One Man Band," "Some People Do," "Song For Another Time," "Snapback," "No Such Thing as a Broken Heart," "Written in the Sand," "Hotel Key" and "Make It Sweet." These and other memorable songs are spread across the Shane McAnally-produced albums Meat and Candy (2015), Happy Endings (2017) and Old Dominion (2019).
The group is regular nominees for Grammy, CMA and ACM awards. Recent wins include the CMA's 2020 Vocal Group of the Year award.
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