Five years ago, I was introduced to a concept I fell in love with:
“Push On The Ocean” –
Just act without worry of how.
I spent years 1-26 doubting everything about myself, and then I woke up one day and started pushing.
Cats is the acronym grouping together the first four words of this album title alluding to Daniel in the Lion’s Den. My first name, Daniel, has major biblical symbolism. The root meaning of my last name, Matos, is the direct opposite of anything remotely holy, spiritual, or good. I’ve always been interested in this duality because I feel light versus darkness is exactly what the human experience is all about. This album encompasses three areas of my life where light versus darkness has been tested over the past few years: the emotional undulations within the creative process, multilayered stages of grief, and the quest for self-discovery.

These songs I wrote are the songs I constantly listened to over the past couple of years (2015-2017). They were my source of solace after many confusing days, sleepless nights, and early mornings. They were my lyrical motivations. These were the songs that freed me from myself. The irony is, these songs, themselves, became bound by life, self-doubt, and the logistics involved in taking them from my pen and page to the ears and hearts of many people – hence being “caged.”
I come from a place in where people genuinely say “but who really gets to live their dreams.” So often we forget our environment shapes the expectations we have for ourselves and the world at large. That’s only until we begin to take a look at what we were taught and whether or not it serves our own personal purpose. It took me a long time to cash in on my own dreams, passions, and intentions. Looking back throughout my life with the reference point of where I am now, I realize elements of my personality and temperament have always been present though suppressed and uncultivated or unable to fully penetrate the environments around me. This album is a redemption, a second chance, and a reflection of family, love, society, and myself.