If you were eating in any of the ubiquitous pandemic-era outdoor dining pop-ups around Indianapolis, you might have encountered the Piano Guy. He spent the lockdowns working hard to entertain the public, wheeling around his 64 key Melodigrand ‘apartment piano’ on a homemade cart playing songs, singing and laughing with strangers, and trying (and succeeding) to brighten up an uncertain and often dark time.
Matt Soverns is the Piano Guy. An Indiana native, his humble street piano has since captured Indy’s imagination, showing up on WRTV6 with Marc Mullins, at the Indy Fringe Festival, the Indy Pride Parade, and countless other Indy-based events. Maybe you’ve even seen Matt singing out on the street, like he did when Taylor Swift was in town.
Matt’s piano playing doesn’t happen exclusively outdoors, and on June 27 at 7:30pm he’ll be bringing his showmanship and energy to Feinstein’s at Hotel Carmichael in Carmel for an evening of original music, backed by a band of A-List Indianapolis musicians. To celebrate the occasion, Matt will release a new EP called Dropped Calls, with remixes and new versions of classic Matt Soverns audience favorites from his album Phoning It In. Find tickets here.
No stranger to the Feinstein’s stage, Matt regularly shares the spotlight at Dueling Pianos with Brittany Brumfield. If you’ve seen one of these shows, you’ll know that Matt connects with his audience in a way that’s hard to find, especially in small venues- walking the crowd, taking requests for favorites, singing from on top of the piano…a Matt Soverns show is an experience people remember.
And he does it all with no formal musical training.
Matt’s story begins as the youngest member of a busy family of six, and a decidedly less-than-stellar public school experience. When Matt got off the bus from a frustrating day at school, he was alone in the house for a couple of hours. He found his parent’s old albums in the basement and listened to them – Billy Joel, the Beatles, ELO, Journey, John Denver, Elton John – and then tried to play them on the piano. He only did this when no one was home, and he kept his budding talent a secret. Matt estimates it took about 6 years for him to sound like anything at all. But through an unusual process he got there.
Matt has synesthesia, a phenomenon where stimulation of one sense leads to involuntary experiences in another sense, such as seeing shapes when hearing music. In Matt’s words, his early learning process involved “just hearing the relationships between notes, and figuring out how all those different relationships made me feel, so I could see the shapes in each relationship.”
This approach goes a ways towards explaining Matt’s colorful, theatrical music videos. Although the Piano Guy thing didn’t really take off until 2020, the first taste of Matt’s genius for most people was his 2018 music video “Very Different Things.” The Melodigrand is a very prominent part of that work, but no one had any idea that it would become iconic. For any Indy-phile the rolling piano tour of downtown Indy sites is quite special, and “Very Different Things” has become a crowd pleasing part of any Matt Soverns show.
Both “Very Different Things” and Matt’s popular 2024 single “Tell My Why” both invoke songwriting of years past- the obvious influences of Billy Joel, Elton John, and those classic albums are evident, but listen close and you’ll hear Matchbox 20 and a touch of Parliament too. Watch the videos for either, and you’ll see Matt connecting with his audience in a way that’s rare in our climate of huge multimedia concert presentations that do more to keep the audience distant than to share an intimate experience. Come to Feinstein’s at Hotel Carmichael on June 27 and catch the vibe.
AN EVENING WITH MATT SOVERNS, June 27, 2025, 7:30PM, Feinstein’s At Hotel Carmichael, 1 Carmichael Sq, Carmel, IN. Get tickets and info via the venue website here.
