Matt Cooper Leans Into Faith After Tragedy With Debut Single

Matt Cooper has lived the “Highs & Lows” he sings about in his debut single, and he credits his strong faith for seeing him through the storms.

What Happened to Matt Cooper’s Mom?

“Highs & Lows” was inspired in part by the death of Cooper’s mother, Pam Cooper, who passed away in 2023 after a decade-long battle with cancer.

He was a freshman in high school when she was first diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. That turned into breast cancer, which eventually turned into the pancreatic cancer that took her life.

“Nobody ever really teaches you about grief, when you lose somebody that important to you,” Cooper tells Taste of Country in a phone interview while on his radio tour for “Highs & Lows.”

What Inspired Matt Cooper’s “Highs & Lows”?

He ended up getting recommended to a therapy group, which is where he had the experience that led to writing “Highs & Lows.”

A man in the group stood up and said, “I get high all the time when I feel low,” Cooper recalls.

They spoke after the session and swapped stories of what had brought them there that night, and Cooper recalls going home and writing “Highs & Lows” in “an hour” at 2AM.

“I went home, I started playing my guitar and words started going on paper,” he relates.

The song juxtaposes serious subject matter with a carefree acoustic bed track and an instantly hummable melody that sticks the chorus in your head from the first listen:

“I been high and I been low / I ain’t rich but I ain’t broke / I prayed I’d find someone to hold me together / I was lost but I was found / When Jesus turned my life around / And I laid all my troubles down / Down forever.”

How Does Matt Cooper’s Personal Faith Inform “Highs & Lows”?

The song depicts a journey from struggle to redemption that mirrors Cooper’s own experience in some ways. He says he wrestled with both grief and faith in the difficult time after his mother’s death.

“She was just the most special person that I have ever met,” he says softly.

“She was a fighter. She loved people. Just so others-focused, and she loved Jesus,” Cooper continues. “She was one of those people where, she could step into a room, and you would just feel this radiation of love from her.”

She raised her son in the same spirit, but the blow of her passing tested that faith.

“You just start questioning things,” he admits. “Everything you’ve been taught … is it really what you believe?

“And then you go through things like I did with my mom,” he says, taking a deep breath.

“You get pissed off at God. You love God one day, and then you get sad, and you’re just questioning everything: ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Why would a good God allow this? All of the questions. I had tons of that.”

The 24-year-old says he eventually came to a place “where I really understood what grace was, and what that meant for my life. And I’m still learning that.”

“Highs & Lows” is the end result of all of those lessons, but Cooper says he “didn’t think anything of” the song when he first wrote it, looking at it as just another song in his growing catalog.

But the song drew intense interest after he shared it online, which eventually led to him signing a deal with Quartz Hill Records.

What’s the Message Behind Matt Cooper’s “Highs & Lows”?

“Highs & Lows” heads to country radio on Tuesday (Sept. 29) as his debut single, and Cooper is hopeful the song’s message will translate with listeners.

“I’ve gone around to a bunch of cities, and I’ve been seeing how the lyrics impact people personally,” he states.

“I want to this to inspire people to dance, but also to say, ‘Hey, it’s okay,'” Cooper finishes. “This is my story, and there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”