Matthew Brendan McAndrew (born September 6, 1990) is an American singer-songwriter best known for his appearance in Season 7 of NBC's reality TV singing competition The Voice, where he finished as the runner-up as part of team Adam.[2] In January 2019, he became the lead vocalist of the American post-hardcore band Rain City Drive.[3]
In 2010, McAndrew started writing solo acoustic material and playing his songs at open mic nights, ice cream parlors, and bars.[4] He worked at Bach To Rock, a national music school franchise with a location in suburban Philadelphia, teaching voice, guitar and ukulele.[6] He self-released an album called View of The Pines on March 1, 2014.[8]
Among 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.[9]
In the Battle rounds, McAndrew faced Ethan Butler where they sang "Yellow". McAndrew was chosen over Butler, and advanced to the Knockout rounds. McAndrew covered "Drops of Jupiter", defeated Rebekah Samarin, and advanced to the Live Playoffs. He covered The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" 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.[11]
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.[12]
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 to the finale. During the finale the top four were given three songs to perform. McAndrew 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 released on The Voice's YouTube channel.
On December 16, 2014, McAndrew was announced as the runner-up of season 7 of The Voice, behind Craig Wayne Boyd.[citation needed]
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.[13] This is the highest mark ever achieved by a The Voice recording artist to date.[14]
Studio version of performance reached the top 10 on iTunes
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 released a YouTube video of Adam Levine drawing a checkmark on McAndrew's wrist, which was then made permanent by Studio City Tattoo, signifying that he had a record contract.[15]
2016: New label
On April 28, 2016, McAndrew announced that he had started a PledgeMusic campaign shortly after parting ways with Republic Records. He stated in his Pledge pitch, "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."[16] On September 9, 2016, McAndrew released the independent EP Rush in Slowly, produced by Job Killer Records.[17]