Exploring Life & Business with Matthew Szlachetka of Old Soul Record Club

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Szlachetka. 

Hi Matthew, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I grew up in New England, Western Massachusetts to be exact. Right in the Springfield-Northampton area and I had a steady diet of playing sports and music (guitar) which consumed me all the way through college. I went to a small liberal arts college in Maine and somewhere between High School and College I just knew that I wanted to pursue music as a profession. I was obsessed with it and couldn’t get enough. After graduating I lived at home for about 4 months working a few jobs to save money to move to California. In Nov 2002 I ended up moving to San Diego first to get my feet wet and cut my teeth trying to figure out how to make a go of “this whole music thing.” I played everywhere I could between solo acoustic shows and then full band shows. I wrote as many songs as I could and tried to record as much as possible to start getting the knack for it. I was able to stop waiting tables around 2005 and start making a full-time living from music and it was also around that time that I started frequenting Los Angeles for work between writing sessions, recording sessions, and gigs. I moved to LA between 2005- 2006 and lived there for 12 years. It was a wonderful experience living in LA and I feel really fortunate because I was able to get some very unique intimate LA memories and stories through music. I was initially doing a mix of teaching guitar lessons, gigging, session work, writing sessions and I formed a band called The Northstar Session with my friend and writing partner Kane McGee. We were together from 2006-2013 and recorded 5 albums together. We mainly toured non-stop up and down the West Coast but occasionally would tour the Northeast and parts of the Midwest. We typically would play 150- 200 shows a year. Right around 2011/ 2012 I started writing with and for lots of other artists and started writing more songs for myself. I personally was going in a different direction musically and personally and in 2013 I recorded my first solo album. I released it in 2014 and that’s when my solo career began. Between 2014- 2016 I kept up with the 150- 200 shows per year schedule along with guitar lessons, session work, writing sessions, etc., and my touring reach expanded to new parts of the Southwest, Midwest, Northeast, and South. It was non-stop tunnel vision and that’s when Nashville started calling my name. For the same reasons I moved to LA, I decided to move to Nashville in March of 2017. Aside from frequently traveling to Nashville for work, the landscape, lifestyle, and community really resonated with me. It reminded me of home and where I grew up in New England and I that’s why I moved my operation from LA and bought a house in Nashville. It’s been amazing. I had been coming to Nashville frequently for 2 years by 2017 so I had built up a wonderful community that allowed me to hit the ground running by the time I moved. From 2017- to 2020 I toured, wrote songs, recorded nonstop all the way until March of that year when everything came to an abrupt halt! Covid totally shut down my traditional system of how I normally would operate as a full-time musician. I was prepping for an album release in 2020 and I had to go back to the drawing board (as did the rest of the world) and take a hard look at how I was doing things. Despite the weirdness of the last 2 years, there have been so many silver linings. During the lockdown, I was still able to perform and play virtual shows which was an amazing way to stay connected to my community and make a living at the same time. I did virtual and remote guitar lessons and guitar/ vocal session work but more importantly, it was the first time in my life where I actually “had time” to sit, reflect and develop another musical avenue that I was equally as passionate about. Before I started playing guitar I had been obsessed with music. That obsession spawned from listening to records! Collecting records is a big part of my life and it was always an extra added bonus anytime I was on tour. I would hunt for records any chance I got and when the world shut down, I was able to keep “the hunt” going despite the fact of not being able to tour. I started selling records and built up a client list that allowed me to turn my garage into a record shop. This has been a wonderful experience and more than just a “side hustle.” I love connecting with people through music and it brings me great joy to help someone curate their own record collection. The idea of connection through the love of music and records got me thinking about taking this model a step further. Over the last year, I started developing a 100% personally curated subscription service record club and I’m proud to say that on Jan 28, 2022, I launched “Old Soul Record Club”! Now that things are opening up again, I’ve been able to tour and I’m planning on releasing my album “Young Heart, Old Soul” (that was supposed to be released in 2020) in spring of 2022 and this will be such a great balance of playing music and selling records. On top of everything though, moving to Nashville put me in an environment where I was able to meet my wife, Sarah. Another “silver lining” of the past 2 years is that we got married in Oct of 2021 and I couldn’t be happier with this journey. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Like anything that is worthwhile in life (in my opinion), it’s not always a smooth road. There obviously have been periods where the weather is calm and the roads are smooth, but there’s also been struggle and heartache. I think the biggest struggle was developing more and more thick skin along the way. For every “win” that I’ve ever had in music, it always comes after a whole lot of rejection and closed doors. There was a quote Barry White said once that always has resonated with me. He said something like this, “if you get into the music business because you want to be rich, you’ll starve but if you get into it because you love it then you’ll the richest person in the world.” I’ve always loved that quote and it’s true. I got into music because I’m obsessed with it and I can’t imagine doing anything else. Am I rich? From a monetary standpoint, no, but the experiences I’ve had in my career have been incredibly rich and I feel so fortunate that I can make a living playing music. 

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
www.oldsoulrecordclub.com 

So, there are a couple record clubs that exist, but not like mine. Old Soul Record Club is a 100% personally curated record club by yours truly based on a survey/ questionnaire that members fill out when they join. It gives me the intel needed so that way I send them the perfect “mystery box” of records every month. There are 4 regular price tiers ($25- The Napoleon, $50- The Dabbler, $100- The Collector, and $500-The Aficionado per month) and then the 5th tier (Dealer’s Choice) is a “name your price” per month. Each tier has a designated “welcome gift package” and the $100 and $500 tiers also have additional “personal livestream” incentives that is designed for even more connection with myself and the member. The livestream is designed to combine my strengths as an artist and record/ stereo connoisseur. In essence, the member could treat the livestream as a personal concert where I play original songs and/ or cover songs from albums that I have sent them, or they can pick my brain about musicology, album lineage, record care, and cleaning records, stereo setups, etc. 

I’m incredibly excited about the launch of this club. I love good music, but I also love sharing and introducing good music to my family and friends. 

Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
Follow your heart and do the things that you love… And hard work pays off. 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.szlachetkamusic.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/szlachetkamusic
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/szlachetkamusic
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/szlachetkaofficial
• Other: www.oldsoulrecordclub.com

Image Credits
Jo Lopez Photography
Chad Crawford Photography