Meet Matt Hanna

Nicole Gardner
May 6
5 min read

Q: Matt, you started your career in music. What was that like and what did you do?

The first 30 years of my life I was absolutely obsessed with music – playing, composing, listening, analyzing, and teaching. As a musician, I’ve been playing music in clubs, house concerts, and weddings (even in the middle of a furniture store once). And I’ve been teaching guitar, piano, and theory lessons to adults. And I’ve been composing and licensing original music.

But that’s not all I’ve done!

I’ve always been a hard worker, and I love thinking creatively, and learning new skills, ideas, and perspectives. And so I worked in lots of settings as a teen and in my twenties, including ….. fast food, camp counselor, daycare assistant, babysitter, running intramural sports, helping in my parents’ print shop, customer service, chopping onions and crying at 5am as the assistant to the sous chef at a catering company, lugging boxes as an overnight warehouse worker, selling instruments in an upright bass shop, being director of ecommerce in charge of multimillion dollar platforms, doing information architecture for databases, coaching people through phases/projects in their life. I’m probably forgetting some things!

I think my various job experiences have helped me in relating to lots of different types of people. Or at least I hope so!

Q: A lot of us know you from your podcast, Little Local Conversations, which just hit its 1 year birthday. It's a favorite of mine. What inspired you to create it, and how do you find interviewees?

Thanks! It’s been great to see how the podcast has grown and I’m still surprised when people come up to me saying “are you the podcast guy?” It speaks to how many people there are in Watertown that are truly interested in their community, which is just great!

Here’s how it got started. I spent 6 years as a stay-at-home parent. I loved being there for my son, but it was pretty socially isolating for me. So I came back into the “real world” as he went off to school. As part of that, I played music and had a booth at the first Watertown Arts Market. That led to Liz Helfer (Watertown’s Public Arts and Culture Planner) asking me to join the Public Arts and Culture Committee. I met some amazing people through that committee, the Watertown Business Coalition, Porchfest, and other initiatives people are doing because they love Watertown and believe in helping others and making the community better.

As I was getting involved in all that stuff, I really enjoyed getting glimpses into the work and lives of the people I met through meetings and events. And I was very curious about the deeper story of these people. So in early 2024 I decided to try podcasting again, with the hyperlocal focus of discovering the people right here in Watertown. (I had done a blog and podcast on the creative life with people all over the world earlier and really enjoyed it.)

As for finding interviewees, as you know, there is no shortage of amazing people in Watertown! I try to balance people from 4 groups: government staff/leaders, artists/creatives, business owners, and nonprofits/volunteers. Having a self-imposed restriction of local folks helps me focus, but still gives me plenty of room for exploration.

I really enjoy creating these podcasts. I love learning about the people and their stories, work, and perspectives. I enjoy adding just enough questions and prods to keep them going. Many guests say they don’t think they have anything interesting to talk about and then after we talk for 45-60 minutes they’re amazed they could talk that much. Everyone has a story to tell, you just have to be genuinely interested in listening and give them the space. I never have an agenda other than trying to learn their story and what shapes their perspective.

I release one episode a week – sometimes 2. And I’m building out different episode formats. For example, I'm doing monthly local government update episodes with Tyler Cote, the city’s Community Engagement Specialist, and Victoria Weichel at WCA-TV. I’m doing monthly live recordings of Creative Chats events at the Mosesian Center for the Arts. I’ve started regular local arts and culture roundtable updates with Allie Fry, Liz Helfer, Kristen Kenny, and Lydia McCoy. And I’ve got more ideas coming!

I started the podcast as a passion project, but set up the podcast as a business a few months ago as I try to make this a sustainable project. So many people have told me both how much they enjoy it and how important they think it is to the community. So I’m trying to thread the needle of getting financial support for the project while keeping everything accessible to people. I’m enjoying the experiment and we’ll see where it goes!

Q: You mentioned Creative Chats. What's the concept there?

Creative Chats are monthly live podcast events I’ve been doing at the Mosesian Center for the Arts. I have a short conversation with a guest on the creative life and something they’ve been grappling with for about half an hour, and then people split into small groups to discuss the topic. Topics so far have been art as lifestyle vs art as business, making art after parenthood, how we use/the need for creative work spaces, and how do we find what’s next as we go forward as artists.

People like actually talking about the topic and how it applies to their own situation; it makes it hit home and people find they can apply what they’ve learned.

Q: And Porchfest?

In late 2023, Liz and a handful of us who had mentioned the idea of a Watertown Porchfest got together to plan one for 2024. We weren’t sure we’d be able to pull it off, but we thought we’d get a small test run, with maybe 50 musicians.

We held the first event in May 2024 and the community response was incredible. We had about 75 hosts and 150 performing groups spread all throughout the city. My favorite part was hearing stories of it bringing neighbors together for an afternoon, whether they had known each other for years or just met each other at the event.

I really hope Porchfest continues to foster community as it moves forward! Porchfest 2025 is this coming Saturday, May 17th, from 12-6pm with a couple special “After Hours” events going on that we’ll announce soon!

Q: OK, let’s close with 3 fun facts about you!

I’ve won card game design contests using only a standard deck of cards (versus people designing their own decks).
I’ve been complimented by a Harvard social science professor on my operationalization of variables.
My first job was at a Wendy’s and as a 14 year old I set the NH state record for fastest drive-thru service time for a shift.

Q: And that’s a wrap! You can find more resources here: