Matt Mahaffey


Matt Mahaffey is an American multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and recording engineer best known for his band Self.

Personal

Matt grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee and was involved with music from a young age. He started writing songs and playing the drums at age 4 and would often perform with his brother, Mike Mahaffey, when they were growing up.
By age eleven, he was playing drums at Dollywood, Dolly Parton's theme park in Pigeon Forge. In the mid-nineties he moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee and attended MTSU. He lived and worked for 10 years in Murfreesboro and co-founded Spongebath Records. He also formed the band Self in 1994.
In the early 2000s, Matt relocated from Murfreesboro to Los Angeles, in order to be closer to his record label, Universal Records, and to produce.
He has a daughter with his former wife. As of January 2nd, 2020, he is married to singer-songwriter Leticia Wolf of local Nashville band The Dead Deads.

Other work

Music production

Matt has performed with and produced for many artists. Some well-known artists he has worked with include Pink, Beck, Liz Phair, Tenacious D, Lupe Fiasco, Phantom Planet, Beyoncé, Butch Walker, Hellogoodbye, Forever the Sickest Kids, Miranda Cosgrove, The White Tie Affair, Keith Urban, The Sounds, L.E.O. and Smash Mouth.
In 2005, Matt began producing with Jeff Turzo under the moniker Wired All Wrong. Wired All Wrong's first full production, Hellogoodbye's Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! yielded the platinum single, "Here ". Matt recently contributed to Lupe Fiasco's certified gold album Lasers, and Beck's Grammy winning Album of the Year 2015, Morning Phase.

Performance

Matt played various instruments with Beck throughout 2005's Guero tour and 2006's The Information tour.
In the past, he has performed with pop stars Mandy Moore and Mika.

Film

Matt has worked with various film makers including Ivan Reitman, Michael Mann, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Andrew Adamson, & Hans Zimmer. He wrote "Stay Home" for the Shrek soundtrack, and subsequently produced the music for the surprise endings of Shrek, Shrek 2, and Shrek 4.

Television

Matt and his brother, Mike Mahaffey, wrote and performed the infamous Expedia.com tagline. Matt has also written jingles and composed music for Pedigree, Jumbone, Medicare, and Lexus. His music has been featured on numerous shows including , DanceLife, Entourage, MTV, E! Entertainment, Dirty Sexy Money, Weeds, and 60 Minutes. Matt wrote and produced the music for Nickelodeon's Ni Hao, Kai-Lan. Matt also played the Muppet character "Animal" in a drum-off with Blink-182 drummer, Travis Barker, on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
He is currently providing songs and score for Disney's Henry Hugglemonster, and Nickelodeon's Sanjay and Craig and also wrote and composed the theme song and score for Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Matt is Emmy and Annie Award nominated.