Matt McAndrew

Early life

McAndrew was born to Brenda (née Gordon) and Patrick McAndrews. He grew up in the small town of Barnegat Light, New Jersey, and has been writing songs and performing in bands since he was a young child. During his senior year at the Southern Regional High School in Manahawkin, New Jersey, he decided to pursue a music career. He attended the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, graduating in 2013.

Early days

In 2010, McAndrew started writing solo acoustic material and playing his songs at open mic nights, ice cream parlors, and bars. He worked at Bach To Rock, a national music school franchise with a location in suburban Philadelphia, teaching voice, guitar and ukulele. He self-released an album called View of The Pines on March 1, 2014.

Amongst other projects including Other People, and Hollow Shoulder, McAndrew gained notoriety in High School for recording and performing a Christmas themed tribute album dedicated to classmate Dwight Wagaman.

2014: The Voice

On September 4, 2014, it was announced that McAndrew would compete in season 7 of The Voice. During his Blind Audition, he covered Christina Perri's A Thousand Years. Three coaches (Adam Levine, Blake Shelton and Pharrell Williams) turned around. He chose Adam Levine as his coach.

At the Battle rounds, McAndrew faced Ethan Butler where they sang "Yellow". McAndrew was chosen over Butler, and advanced to the Knockout rounds. During the Knockouts, McAndrew covered "Drops of Jupiter", defeated Rebekah Samarin, and advanced to the Live Playoffs. During the Playoffs, he covered The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" on that night and advanced through the Live shows saved by "America's Vote". The following week, he sang Hozier's "Take Me to Church" and was saved by public voting that night, he received the first "iTunes bonus multiplier" of the season, with his studio recording of "Take Me to Church" reaching the fifth position on the iTunes Top 200 Singles chart at the close of the voting window. The song also charted at number 92 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In top 10 he performed "Fix You" by Coldplay and was saved by America's voting. In Top 8 he covered Damien Rice's "The Blower's Daughter", which peaked at 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 and had opening sales of 92,000 downloads.

In the top 5 Live shows, McAndrew covered "Make it Rain" by Foy Vance and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2 and was voted through the finale. During the finale the top four were given three songs to perform. Matt covered "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Lost Stars" a duet with his coach Adam Levine. His third performance was the original song "Wasted Love", which was his first single to break the top 10 singles of the iTunes top 200 charts. A music video for "Wasted Love" was also released on The Voice's YouTube channel. On December 16, 2014, he was announced as the runner up of season 7 of The Voice behind Craig Wayne Boyd.

On December 25, 2014, after the result of the show was announced, Billboard showed McAndrew's "Wasted Love" at 14th on the Hot 100 with opening sales of 209,000 units sold. This is the highest mark ever achieved by a The Voice recording artist to date.

2015: Republic Records

On February 13, 2015, Republic Records officially announced that McAndrew was part of their Class of 2015 lineup of artists. On the same day, The Voice (U.S. TV series) released a YouTube video of Adam Levine drawing a checkmark on McAndew's wrist which was then made permanent by Studio City Tattoo signifying that he had a record contract.

2016-present: New label

On April 28, 2016, McAndrew announced that he has started a Plege Music campaign shortly after parting ways with Republic Records. He stated: “Under my contract with the label, I wasn’t able to release new music, got out of that deal, and now I’m able to share some awesome new songs with you guys.” in his Pledge pitch. On September 9, 2016, McAndrew released his planned independent EP entitled "Rush In Slowly", produced by Job Killer Records.