by Dwain Hebda

It’s a surreal experience when the skinny kid next door is singing country’s No. 1 song through your radio, but that’s just what the people of Center Ridge have been experiencing of late. 

One of their own, Matt Stell, has racked up more than 45 million digital streams of his hit “Prayed for You,” putting it in heavy rotation on country radio. 

“I wanted to be playing my own songs as much as I could, and I wanted to be a songwriter. That’s what I set out to do,” Stell said. “I have a little perspective about it now because I can look back and see what a long shot that was, but I had no idea at the time.”

Making it in music is a moonshot under any circumstances and Stell’s background didn’t improve the odds. Coming out of high school, his first and most conspicuous talent was basketball, landing him at Drury University in Springfield, Mo., on a hoops scholarship. 

Few people knew of his musical aspirations early on, including Stell himself.

“I guess I always knew I could sing a little bit. I could carry a tune,” he said. “You never really know, or at least I didn’t, how good I was or wasn’t. What really got the ball rolling for me was writing songs. That’s the part of it that I was sort of infatuated with.

“I was in college, playing basketball and over the winter break you don’t get to go home. My mom got me this guitar when I was 12 that I never touched, and I asked her to bring it up to a home game. I sat and learned how to play in front of my computer. It wasn’t very long after that that I started writing songs. That was the bug that bit me.”

Stell started playing locally – under a fake name to duck the wrath of his basketball coach – and eventually met up with some touring acts.

Those encounters led him to write for other artists and when those songs made the charts, he set his sights on Nashville. There, his dreams got caught up with the millions of others seeking stardom and after a while the grind made him wonder if music was his path after all. 

In fact, a medical mission trip nearly ended his quest altogether. He came home from that experience inspired to apply for the post-baccalaureate pre-medical program at Harvard. He got in, but it would demand nine years of his life and the rigorous courses would likely crowd out music. 

It was decision time when he crossed paths with Ash Bowers of Wide Open Music who offered him a publishing deal. 

“I knew that if I didn’t do it, I would feel like I was quitting,” Stell said. “It was like, ‘This is what you came here after and now you have an opportunity. You need to see it through. They’ll still be holding class up there if it doesn’t work out.’” 

But work out it did. “Prayed for You” was part of his EP debut and immediately started grabbing attention online. Even today, Stell is a bit stunned by the way it took off. 

“We put out a little EP, just my publishing company, and ‘Prayed for You’ was on it,” he said. “It got the ball rolling on its own and we sort of built a machine behind it to try to get more ears on it. Fast forward, that turns into a record deal with Arista Sony Nashville and a No. 1 song on the radio.” 

A subsequent track “I bet Whiskey Would” continues his momentum as does “Home in a Hometown,” an ode to small town life that one can’t help but think echoes particularly true in one Conway County community. 

“When I think of Center Ridge, it’s hard for that not to be synonymous with family. I’ve still got a lot of family there,” he said. “Even when I was a kid and I wasn’t living there all the time – I spent a good portion of my childhood in south Florida – I was always back in Arkansas every summer and Christmas and spring break. 

“When I think about that, I think about the people I’m related to, I think about how hard they work. A really underrated thing, as I’ve noticed with a little bit of perspective, is there’s a flourish of language, the way it’s used and how a turn of phrase is appreciated whether it’s a good joke or just a particular way of getting a story across.” 

Stell credits a lot of his success to his parents – Ronnie Stell and Lisa Todd – who not only kept a lot of music on in his childhood home but set an example of hard work and sacrifice that leached into him. 

“My dad passed away going on two years now, and I think about the way he was able to come from where he did and build a successful business, and how hard he worked to do that, and how I have much of that same self-belief and confidence and the wherewithal to learn new things,” Stell said. 

“My mom is one of the most driven, accomplished people that I know. There were times when I would doubt myself, but she never did. She’s been as impactful a part of my life as anybody. She’s the sweetest person in the world, but she gets it done. 

“So, I would say there’s not much I do that I can separate out from roots there in Central Arkansas.”