Welcome to jamhouse records
Meet the Artist
MATT CROWN
Matt Crown: Where the Crown Came From
When Matt Crown first picked up a guitar at 12, it wasn’t just an instrument ~ it was a lifeline. A new town, a fractured home, and the restless heart of a kid who’d moved too often found solace in six strings and the warlocks who ruled them: Hendrix’s fire, Page’s mystique, Kirk Hammett’s razor-wire riffs (thanks to a school bus headphone epiphany during Seek and Destroy).
For years, the guitar was their constant companion. Then, under northern Ontario skies, strumming from a tent while tree planters sang along, they realized music wasn’t just an escape ~ it could be a gift for others, too. So they traded the forestry life for sweaty clubs, co-founding Cardboard Crowns, a raucous ska-punk act that spent a decade crisscrossing Canada and the U.S., leaving crowds hoarse and hearts full.
The band self-produced two albums ~ Global Citizen (2013) and Hold On (2016) ~ with original drummer Tokyo Spears, the percussionist for Matt Crown’s 2025 solo EP (now producing/performing with Walk Off the Earth). They shared stages with ska-punk legends like The Planet Smashers, Mad Caddies, and Save Ferris ~ but the crown’s real magic happened offstage.
At a Kispiox Music festival in British Columbia’s northern mountains, the band hosted a workshop where kids crafted cardboard crowns. By showtime, the crowd was a sea of tiny royals. Crowds often became part of the show, pulled onstage as a reminder that the music only mattered because they were there.
After all these years, Crown isn’t just a name ~ it’s a reminder that music, at its best, is a shared kingdom.
The sound
As a solo artist, I spin that same energy into anthemic, folky grooves. My debut EP, Not Just Yet, is a collection of road-tripping tales and whimsical introspection, where punk’s urgency meets the melodic warmth of artists like Gillian Welch, Adrian Lenker & Jack Johnson.
My music is just me ~ my voice, my guitar, and the stories I’ve gathered along my journey. It’s not polished. It has scars and laugh lines. I write to remember the people, the near-misses, and the quiet moments in between. The ghosts of my old punk days still show up in the way I can’t help but want crowds singing along. Other times, the songs grow wilder ~ a Balkan violin humming like a late-night train, a trumpet sighing through an open window, the clatter of forks on a kitchen table keeping time.
Life Lessons in Sonic Form
Each song is a story, a moment I experienced, an accumulation that left a lasting impression, life lessons I never want to forget, an attempt to capture them to first remind myself where I've been, where I am and where I might be goin’ to. Ani DiFranco nailed it:
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"I just sing
What I wish I could say
And hope somewhere
Some woman hears my music
And it helps her through her day"
It’s about sprinkling wisdom nuggets, when a song holds up a mirror to something you’ve felt and suddenly you’re not alone with it anymore ~ whether you’re in a sweaty club or from distant tents under the same stars.
So here’s my offering: a batch of life lesson prayers in a bite size sonar sandwich format ~ hope your taste buds can handle it, and your ear holes welcome it.
Emma - the Jamhouse’s cosmic storyteller, keeper of musical campfires
I first spotted her walking her legendary dog, Tuggy, up the mountain in Montreal. I’d already heard her music after a friend played it for me when I’d just arrived in the city, so when I saw her there, it felt like running into a fellow traveler from the same creative constellation. One park jam later, she tossed out the invite: “Come to my birthday.” I followed into a hidden world that thrived even when the outside forgot how to gather. The Jamhouse became my home before I even unpacked.
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The "Not Just Yet" Space
The Jamhouse was a space that held me through a transitional time in my life. Its walls, it’s energy and it’s community. I’ve been witness to this space holding others through time. It’s likely built on some alien meteor dust resonating peace and love frequencies into the jam o sphere! The Jamhouse is definitely a place I call home and a place where the space itself and those that keep it living, hold space for all of you. To be you, & nothing but. To explore uncharted territory, to love and to be loved. To express, to create, to write and to unwrite, to hit or miss, to try again, to persist, forgivingly and with patience.
The Jamhouse inspires and expires. Along with many other artists and creators that have come through the Jamhouse experience, I too found new layers to my voice, but even more so discovered more about who I am now. A creative outlet of the magical universe that we all live in via storytelling in song.
What lights me up?
I'm a creator who dances in the in-between spaces, where poetry lives in the curve of a roof. A few summers ago, I helped conjure a witch's cave from clay and wild imagination ~ an earthen sanctuary where bio-architecture curled like a sleeping dragon, its walls whispering with hand-carved totems. We built it in the way a ceremony unfolds: with presence. My role was to listen to the land's wisdom and the witch's vision ~ translating between ancient traditions and modern hands.
When I'm not whispering to buildings, you might find me in the kitchen conducting banana bread experiments (a teacher of mine once said cooking and art are the same sacred act), or barefoot at an electronic music festival. I'm drawn to spaces where sacred and silly coexist.
I intend to keep weaving these threads ~ designing spaces that honor both ceremony and community, and always leaving room for the unexpected magic that happens when healing and play collide.
Oh … and of course ! There will always be more banana bread! PB (#PerfectBake) for life! Shall I save you a morsel?
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