Date of Birth: September 20th, 1967
Birth Place: St. Joseph's hospital in Burbank, CA
Occupation: Musician
He began playing music when he was just 7 years old, when he got his first bass guitar of his own. This rhythm section of Matthew and Gunnar's honed their craft together for five years in a hayloft above the barn at their parent's Studio City farm.
He began his professional debut at 12 years of age, when he and his brother Gunnar began to circuit the incredible LA club scene of the early 80's with their punk/power pop trio The Strange Agents.
Around the year 1987, Matthew and Gunnar formed the band Nelson and with help from artist/producer Marc Tanner, wrote the album, "After The Rain." They signed to Geffen/DGC records in 1989 and Matthew released "After The Rain" in 1990 with brother Gunnar. The band, Nelson became an instant world-wide phenomenon. On his 22nd birthday, Matthew accomplished something his father Rick never had: his self-penned song "(I Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection" went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart. Three more top 10's were to follow shortly thereafter. Gunnar and Matthew's #1 also heralded the accomplishment of their World Record in the Guinness Book: the Nelson family is the only family in history to have brought forth three successive generations of #1 hit makers.
Their motto when they started out was "Love Us or Hate Us, You're Going to Know Who We Are". It worked. After four #1 videos on MTV, EVERYBODY knew about "The Twins with the Long Blond Hair". He's toured all over the world in the past ten years, doing what he loves to do the most, to audiences ranging from 20 close friends at Nashville's intimate Blue Bird Cafe to over 60,000 screaming maniacs at Erie, PA's Party at the Pier. He co-founded his own Stone Canyon Records label with brother Gunnar in 1995, and has released seven albums to date, including "After the Rain", "Because They Can", "Imaginator", "The Silence is Broken", "Brother Harmony", "Life", and "Like Father, Like Sons".
On July, 14 1995, Matthew married singer/model, Yvette Stefens.
Most of the above information came from the Nelson Brother's website. For Matthew's complete bio go to thenelsonbrothers.com/band.html and click on Matthew Nelson.
- Websites:
- Official: www.thenelsonbrothers.com
- Others: us.imdb.com (Matthew Nelson Bio), www.rollingstone.com (Nelson Bio), The Nelson Caravan (Matt)