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Singer-songwriter Matt Wertz had a captive audience for his first shows. Wertz was a performer in YoungLife camps - non-denominational Christian camps for high school students.

"I really kind of cut my chops there and saw how people reacted to things," says Wertz. "It was kind of leading everyone in a bunch of cover songs like 'Brown Eyed Girl,' 'Free Falling,' stuff like that. Then I'd play a song of my own that would help them transition to whatever the speaker was talking about. It was a great opportunity to kind of use a lot of the things I love into one thing ... and it was a great opportunity to try new songs out."

Wertz is one of several young singer-songwriters who settled in Nashville and have been finding a non-country audience around the United States. He's paired up with buddy Dave Barnes on several occasions. Wertz's most recent album, "Under the Summer Sun," was released on Universal Republic Records in 2008.

Raised in LaVale, Md., Wertz began writing songs while he was a freshman at the University of Illinois in 1998.

"They were just kind of in reaction to moving away from home and trying to figure out who I was separate from my family," says Wertz. "It was very much a kind of therapy and just getting it out. I didn't come from thinking I wanted to be a songwriter. It was just I wanted to share what was on my heart and music was a good avenue to do that."

Wertz formed a band while studying industrial design in college. As the band dissolved Wertz began working as a solo act and, during his senior year, made the decision to pursue music full-time.

"It wasn't a real popular idea with my folks," says Wertz, with a laugh. "This was sort of a late interest of mine and we didn't know anyone else who was doing this, so it was totally out of the box. But as soon as they saw it was working, it was 'OK!' They're real big fans now."

Wertz says his biggest leap of faith in his music career was paying to record his own debut album in 2001. The cost was minimal by music business terms, $6,000, but Wertz even with the little stash of money donated to him by his former band mates, he had to go into debt to pay for it.

"It paid off that summer and started making money and it kept encouraging me to keep going. So here I am 8 years later with the snowball still rolling down the hill."

Wertz is a rare artist in that, from the beginning, he enjoyed the business side of music as well as the creation side.

"At that time the numbers were very simple," says Wertz. "I figured if I had a room full of 100 people, it didn't really matter that I didn't get paid anything, because if I sold an album to 15 percent of the audience I was still going to make $150. It was an easy thing to make work."

Wertz says he's still learning his craft as a songwriter. Sometimes the learning is in trusting

"I didn't want to record this song 'Carolina.' I just thought it was too simple. And Barnes and Ed (producer/fellow singer-songwriter Ed Cash) said 'Come on, man!' It just seemed to easy. Three chords! Now it's easily one of my most popular songs. I love playing it now. You just never know."

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel
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