Cover photo © 2025 Blues Blast Magazine
The world does not have a shortage of guitar players. Over the last sixty years, the instrument’s popularity has evolved to the point where, at times, it seems like guitar, and nothing but guitar. We are often subjected to lengthy solos that demonstrate technical mastery without making us feel much at all. Fortunately, there are players that understand the value of space, dynamic tension, and the “less is more” approach.
You can count Matt Woods in that group. A native of Des Moines, Iowa, Woods was more into sports than music in his formative years. He showed lots of talent for baseball as a pitcher and first baseman, eventually pitching at Simpson College, an Iowa institution. Schools are always on the lookout for tall, left-handed throwers.
“When baseball went away as a career, I needed something to sort of fill that hole. I’d always wanted to learn to play guitar. So that’s what I did. I graduated college with a degree in biochemistry and went to work with that for a lot of years while playing music alongside of it. I guess I’m clever enough to fool people. For whatever reason, I was just attracted to that instrument because it’s cool! Of course, I figured girls would like it. I’ve been so horribly misled throughout this whole process. The thought was there would be girls, money, and glory. There really hasn’t been any of that stuff! Well, I got the woman I needed, my wife Rachel, so I got the one that matters.
“Music was something I was always really passionate about but just never had the space in my life to learn an instrument. I was so dedicated to sports. Then it seemed like a good time to try it. Obviously, I didn’t know what would become of it, just bought a used guitar and taught myself how to play a little bit. Soon I really wanted to get as good as possible. I didn’t even want to open the bedroom door. Probably within four months of picking up a guitar, I started playing little local gigs, getting into the grind of it all that has just never really stopped.
“Trust me, it was very, very bad for a long time. Going back to sports, I’m one of those guys with that switch that flips. One of the reasons I don’t want to do that stuff anymore is because the competitive side of me is really not pleasant to be around. That is the obsessive nature of my brain. I’m super stubborn, the kind of person that when I get onto something, I’m just not going to stop until I figure it out, for better or worse. It’s caused me more difficulty in life than successes, but that’s the way my brain works. A lot of it’s just a war of attrition, who’s gonna give up last.
“Our son Rodney has been trying to pick up a couple things musically. He had this song he wanted to learn on keyboard. He doesn’t play piano at all, but we were able to sit down and watch a YouTube video and within 45 minutes he was able to play the song. I explained to him that when I started, you did it the old fashioned way. You just clawed through the wall, listening to records, however long it took.
“That’s about as slow and tedious as it gets, an uphill battle for sure. But I think it has served me well because it really helped to develop my ear, and to understand all the subtleties of what’s going on in the music as opposed to just watching a YouTube video where you breeze right through the nuance of it all. Still, it’s pretty amazing to see these newer tools in use.”
By day, Woods is deeply involved in the science of farming, looking at ways to protect the land while increasing crop yields.
“I’m an agronomist, managing some research farm plots for Iowa State University. For the layman, that means I am a science farmer. I’m a researcher that works in agriculture. It’s fairly down in the weeds, so to speak. My specialty is cropping systems, how different crops work together. You’re always discovering something, the kinds of the soil health and sustainability benefits of longer cropping rotations than what are typically used in this part of the world.”
Starting to play music later in life meant the guitarist had to do some catching up, so he put that stubborn streak to good use.
“It’s always been just grinding away. With the exception of that first COVID year, I don’t think I’ve played less than a hundred gigs in a year this whole time. In those early days before I was married and had a family, it was closer to 200 gigs for a lot of years. I just played all the time, wherever I could get in.
“I decided that playing guitar was something that I wanted to be good at, and I knew from my sports experiences that if you want to be great at something, you have to constantly work on it. You have to be obsessed with it, and that’s the way I was for a lot of the 26 years of my career. I’ve mellowed out as I’ve gotten older and had a little bit more perspective on life, trying to be a little bit more well-rounded person.”
After putting in his time as a sideman in various local groups, he decided to front his own band, aptly named Matt Woods and the Thunderbolts
“That started about 2005, although we had done some recording together before then. We did a lot of regional work and was my first taste of being in charge of an operation as the front man, and from a business standpoint as well. The rhythm section was Scott Cochran on bass and Michael Swanger on drums. We did two albums together before calling it a day in 2012. Our drummer had to stop playing. He retired due to some physical issues,and had a couple back surgeries.
“Throughout that time I was always doing about 50-50 in terms of playing band gigs and playing my solo shows, which I do still. I was also playing with other bands, getting hired to back somebody up or play guitar on a recording session. My decision was to move forward primarily focusing on playing as a solo act, doing session work, and being a side man. Before the band ended, we represented Iowa at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, sponsored by the blues Foundation. I went back as a duo with Michael Swanger on drums, and also was proud to represent the state twice as a solo act.
“I learned pretty quick to surround yourself with not only people that are great musicians, but people that you can count on, that don’t have substance abuse issues or any other kind of issues that will affect the day-to-day operations of my business. Scott and Michael were older guys that had been around a bit. They taught me how to go about your business professionally, start on time, end on time, speak to the club owners in a certain manner, be professional even if things don’t go your way.
“I also learned pretty quickly not to take myself too seriously. It’s such a grind and most of the time things aren’t gonna go the way you think they are, or you want them to go. You learn not to focus so much on what’s right in front of you. It is better to play the long game. Those were important lessons I learned as a young man.”
In 2018, Woods felt the time was right to establish another band featuring his guitar work.
“Fronting a band is a different muscle to use, a different part of the brain. When you’re playing as a solo act, you’re required to fill up a lot of space musically, playing bass parts and, and melody parts all by yourself. That means I’m not really able to express myself on lead guitar. I missed that. I wasn’t really getting that itch scratched with the side side man gigs I would do, so I decided it was time to have my own band again so I could just play as many guitar solos as I want. That lad to the formation of the Matt Woods Band.
“When that band started, I had Dwight Dario on drums. He is an Iowa Blues Hall of Fame member, a really incredible top-tier drummer. My bass player’s name was Eric Gaukel. Those guys were my first rhythm section for a three piece band. Then starting in 2021, Patrick Recob started playing bass for the band. My previous band was great, but as I’ve gotten to a certain point in my career, this lineup is the way I want things to be. We’re all really close friends, but Dwight and Patrick are especially close, allowing them to lock in really well. Patrick likes to sing. I’ve been forced to sing my whole life, but I don’t like doing it, so he’s happy to sing part of the night, which makes my life a lot easier. We released an album, Almost Made It, in 2022.”
With all that is going on in his life, one would think that Woods has a full plate. Yet he somehow finds time to be involved in several other projects.
“I have been doing a duo thing with Dustin Arbuckle. He sings and plays harmonica, plus from time to time I sub on guitar with his electric band, the Damnations. We do quite a bit of work together. The whole goal for me as a musician, and as a guitar player especially, is to be as well-rounded as possible. In order to do that, you need to put yourself in a lot of different musical situations. The duo with Dustin allows me to not only work on my solo guitar chops, but also the chops required to back up a harmonica player and singer, exercising different creative muscles to get better at what I do. They are all rewarding in their own different ways.”
Additionally, the guitarist along with Dario and Recob perform locally as Malcolm Wells and the Two Timers, with Wells fronting the band as the lead vocalist and playing harmonica.
When it comes to equipment, like most guitar players, Woods has settled on some personal favorites.
“I’m a Fender Telecaster man for my electric stuff, I love Telecasters, the Esquires specifically, which is just a single pickup. They work in every scenario. By work I mean I can leave them in the car all day and they stay in tune at the gig. You can bash them around and they still work, super reliable. I like that they are very present in the mix, and the way the notes respond. The notes are immediate when you’re playing, with a very quick attack. They kind of jump off the guitar. They’re super versatile. So what’s not to like!
“For my acoustic solo gigs, I like to play either a National steel guitar or a big Harmony arch top model. As amplifiers go, for a lot of years I used Fender Tweed amps, which I love, but recently I’ve been going in a different direction with a unit from Headstrong Amplifiers, based out of North Carolina. That’s been really great. It’s a Fender Princeton style amplifier, called Little King. I’ve had that for a couple years and just haven’t brought myself to use anything else because I love it so much.”
Ask Woods who are some of his favorite guitar players and you will get some familiar names, but also a few surprises on a more personal level.
“I play a lot of slide guitar, so I gravitated to artists like Mississippi Fred McDowell, Elmore James, and R.L. Burnside. I’m also a big Hubert Sumlin fan. As you might guess, there’s been a million of them, but probably my biggest hero is a guy named Joe Price. Joe’s the king as far as I’m concerned. Thankfully I still get to see him play, he’s still around. Joe is an Iowa guy who was inspired to play after seeing the great blues slide player Earl Hooker in a record store. There’s a lot of other Iowa musicians that I’ve really been influenced by including Bo Ramsey and Dave Moore, just to name some off the top of my head.”
Throughout his career, the guitarist has invested plenty of time, energy, and the old combo of blood, sweat, and tears. He fortunate to have a wife who understands and supports his passion for music. For Woods, it is his abiding passion for the music, and that stubborn streak, that fuel his quest to constantly redefine his artistry on the guitar.
“I plan to keep doing my thing. Hopefully people will listen. I decided a long time ago that I did this for myself and not really for anybody else. I don’t really have any expectations. The older I get, the more I try to focus on the process itself and not the results. That’s all I can do.
“I would encourage people to give the music a listen. It doesn’t cost anything these days, so getting some ears on it would be great. I hope that through what I’m bringing to the table people can hear in my playing that I’m expressing myself, that I’m a real person. I’m not really trying to win anybody over. That’s not my job.
“My job is to express myself and if people like it, or if I get people’s attention, that’s great, but it’s really not what I’m trying to do. It’s not my ultimate goal to make other people happy. Maybe that sounds selfish or silly. It’s kind of to explain, but I don’t put myself out there hoping that I get people’s attention. I’m just trying to make art. So I would hope that if if somebody’s listening to it, that comes across to them.
“A lot of times, honestly, I fall flat on my face doing that, but that’s what art is. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s different for each individual listener or observer of the art. You start off down that road and sometimes you hit a little side road, or you want to see what’s down this alley. You just kind of go, especially from a improvisational soloing aspect where a lot of times you’re just going wherever this road leads you and praying at the end of it you won’t drive drive off into a canyon or a cliff. You just try to come out on the other side hoping it works out.
“That’s what I would tell a younger musician just starting out, that it is okay. It means you’re going for it, something you’re trying to be, trying to do something interesting, not playing it safe. If you’re just up there, playing it by rote, not really challenging yourself, it would get old in a hurry. I was in my forties before I felt like I was truly expressing myself, not just playing licks that I’d heard somebody else do. For me, that’s what art is all about.”
