awake eternally | Interview

When Matt started out, he had never heard any Christian shoegaze, so he set out to make the records he wanted to hear. He has carried the idea since 2012. The struggle session EP arrived in 2024, and the thirteen-track debut album even the dogs followed in October 2025. The titles come out of Scripture and, more often than you'd guess, out of Naruto. The songs sit with depression and the long feeling of distance from God, and they keep turning toward mercy anyway.

Matt answered our questions with the openness of someone still in the middle of the season he writes about. He explained why even the dogs swings from judgment to mercy at its midpoint, and how an anime villain's plan to trap the whole world in a dream ended up opening his first EP. He also had news: a new album, you can't hide from the sun, is underway.

Let's start with the name. "awake eternally" reads like it could be a promise or a sentence, depending on the day. Where did it come from, and did the project have its shape in mind from the beginning, or did that arrive later?

I first came up with the name as just an Instagram handle back in 2019. At the time I was trying to re-establish faith in the Lord, so it came from a desire for eternal life in Christ. As far as the shape of the project, I've really had this in mind since about 2012. I've always wanted to make music that would cause people to think more deeply about their relationship to God.

Shoegaze is a genre built on burying the voice inside the guitars, which is an unusual choice for someone with as much to say lyrically. What made that the right medium for this material rather than something that puts the words up front?

Shoegaze is my favorite genre of music, and I had never heard of any Christian shoegaze, so I just wanted to make music that I'd want to hear as a Christian who loves shoegaze. I do make it a point to make lyric videos for all of my songs or post the lyrics to the streaming services. I know most Christians care a lot about what's being said in the music they listen to, so I feel like if they enjoy my music, they'll take the time to look at the lyrics.

The sound you're building stands out from a lot of the music coming out of East Tennessee. Does being in the Smoky Mountains influence your music? How so?

Being in the Smoky Mountains has influenced my music, but not in the way that you may think. We moved here in 2022 and have had many negative experiences, so being here kind of feels like a wilderness experience. Like something I have to get through. I do enjoy being in the mountains, though.

On the "empty house" single, you wrote that you had the song for about eight years before you had a chance to record it, and that you were pretty depressed when you wrote it. Then you released it twice, on struggle session and again on even the dogs. What kept that song alive for you across all those years, and what did it need to become before you were willing to let it out?

What kept it alive was that I've always loved how it sounds. It's a very haunting and desperate song. Quiet desperation has been my experience throughout much of my life, and "empty house" pretty much sums it up. The main reason it wasn't recorded back when I first wrote it is because I didn't have a means of recording music at the time. Otherwise I probably would've released it in 2016.

struggle session borrows its name from a practice of forced public self-denunciation. Was that record an act of accusing yourself? And what put "tsukuyomi" at the front of it?

How I came up with struggle session for the EP title is kind of a long story and would be better explained in a video or something. But no, struggle session isn't really a self-accusation. It's basically just an expression of my internal struggle with feeling far away from God. I feel like many Christians go through seasons of that, and that's kind of where I've been for quite some time now, unfortunately. Also, there's no reason in particular I put "tsukuyomi" at the beginning. It just sounded like a good way to open the EP at the time.

Building on that, you use a lot of anime references and imagery in your music. Why is that? What draws you to it?

I really didn't get into anime until I was an adult, so I feel like as an adult, a lot of the deeper themes in the shows hit for me. The first anime I watched was Naruto, and all the themes of loneliness, forgiveness, reconciliation, and standing firm in your beliefs no matter what really resonated with me.

The song "guren's interlude" on the album is based on a character from Naruto who had done evil all their life, and they were won over by Naruto's unwillingness to give up on someone he cares about. That reminded me how no matter what we've done or where we've been, the Lord will never abandon us. On another note, I really enjoy a good story, and I feel like anime has some of the best character development and plots that I've ever seen.

even the dogs opens with "the axe is laid at the root of the tree (go away)" and closes with "a smoldering wick, he will not put out." To me, the album follows a theme of judgment on the way in and mercy on the way out. Was the record sequenced toward that, or did you find the shape once the songs were finished?

I did try to purposely sequence it that way. About halfway through, I decided that I didn't want the album to just wallow in misery. I spend a lot of time in self-judgment and even projecting those feelings onto God. Then I'm reminded of James 2:13, which says mercy triumphs over judgment. So the second half of the album is me trying to lean into God's mercy. Personally, in this season I'm learning that God is with me no matter what and cares deeply about what I'm going through.

You named your debut album after Matthew 15:27. That's a striking choice. The verse is a woman being compared to a dog and answering in a remarkable way, and it ends in a hotly debated moment in the Gospels. What drew you to that exchange, and what were you trying to say by putting the whole record under it?

It just goes back to me reflecting on God's mercy. Jesus healed that woman's daughter because she believed He would, regardless of her status as a "dog," which meant she truly understood who He is and how close He was to her as God. So I named the album with that in mind. Trying to realize God's closeness in spite of how I feel.

From what I can tell, "the lesser light to govern the night" takes its name from Genesis 1:16, which is the moon: a light that governs the night by reflecting a light it does not produce. You opened struggle session with a reference to a moon god. Two years apart, you have the same image. Is that a thread you've been consciously following, and what does the moon mean to you at this point?

I do like night sky imagery and the idea of space, but it's coincidental, really. "tsukuyomi" is another Naruto reference. I don't know if you've seen Naruto, but there's a villain who wanted to use the moon to cast a delusion over the entire world, and he called it the "Infinite Tsukuyomi." So the song is about struggling to avoid the delusions of this world. "the lesser light to govern the night" is about descending into darkness. It's the first song on a new album I'm working on called you can't hide from the sun.

"temporary cross" is one of the shortest tracks you've put out in two years, and it has a narrow, intense focus. Was the brevity, and the punk influence sitting under it, part of the song's purpose?

A friend of mine wanted me to make him a grunge beat. He said he wanted it to sound like that Nirvana song "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter," and you can kind of hear the nod to that towards the middle of the song. So I made it for him, but he decided he didn't want to use it, and the lyrics had already come to me while I was making the beat, so I just recorded it and released it. I made it short because my friend had never recorded a song before, so I wanted to give him something short and simple to work with. It's actually one of my favorite songs to listen to because of how straightforward and simple it is.

You tag your own music "Christian" right alongside "shoegaze" and "nugaze." Shoegaze has always brushed up against the transcendent, but often in sound only, and openly devotional work still gets treated as a separate thing. Has claiming that tag changed how the music finds people, or how people react once they find it?

I'm not really sure, honestly. I've interacted with Christians and people who aren't Christians, and they both react positively to the music. Christians can relate to the lyrics more, but anyone can enjoy the sound. But like I said earlier, my hope is that whoever listens will think more deeply about their relation to God.

From your perspective, who else in this corner of the underground should people be listening to?

Right now I'm working on an album with painting doves. He's got a great grungegaze sound and very simple yet deep lyrics about the ups and downs of following Christ. I highly recommend him. There's also CHANGETHEWXRLD. He reminds me of Deftones: very heavy and ethereal at the same time.

The very first Christian shoegaze I heard was by Medical Morning, though. His EP Ghost Riots Vol. 1 is amazing. There's also Purplish. They have that classic shoegaze sound straight out of the '90s. There's actually quite a bit of good Christian alternative rock coming out nowadays. I have a playlist with a bunch of artists on my Spotify if you wanna check it out.

P4LEHORSE exists to platform artists whose work builds the listener up rather than tearing them down. You have made two records about depression, self-accusation, lust, distance, and mercy, and none of them land in despair. If someone found even the dogs with no context at all, what would you want it to do for them?

I would want it to show them that God does not feel the same way about us as we feel about ourselves, and that He's not angry at us for being human. He made us, so He understands us and will help us.

One final question: if someone were to dive into the dark side of the Smoky Mountains, that is, Pigeon Forge, what's one gaudy, over-the-top, terribly touristy thing they should do?

My wife and I actually had our honeymoon in Pigeon Forge before we even moved to Tennessee. But I would say maybe visit the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum in Gatlinburg. It's a pretty strange place, but also kinda interesting. And also take one of the ski lifts up a mountain and just look around. You can't visit the Smoky Mountains without actually looking at the mountains. And when you get hungry, and it's before 2 p.m., go to the Log Cabin Pancake House and try the royale sauce.

Keep up with Matt’s work with awake eternally on Bandcamp.