We are the Matheny family. We have 5 kids, all boys.
Left: Skip and boys at Chenonceau Chateau, Loire Valley, 2017
Right: Timshel and boys at Musee Granet, Aix-en-Provence, 2018
We spent a decade traveling in a touring band across the U.S. and abroad.
Radio City Music Hall, 2006. Skip in the middle, Timshel is second from right. Baby Jude asleep in the green room.(This was a fun night.)
Photo to be restored3am load-out, Detroit, MI (2009)
(This was a typical night.)
Halfway into this time on the road, we decided to start a family. And… we took them along!
Photo to be restoredJude and Ambrose (with finger-puppet) chatting up our guitarist, Stanton, en route to Chicago, 2009
Photo to be restoredDiaper change behind ‘The Highline’ club in Memphis, TN, 2011 (That’s Skip’s mom helping!)
Because touring required us to spend most months of the year on and off the road, we also started the adventure of Homeschooling.
Photo to be restoredJude and penguin, work an atlas.
Photo to be restoredJude and Ambrose show Timshel how to keep time (2009)
And Skip learned how to pay the bills doing web work while on the road (most often in a moving tour van or in clubs before and after shows).
Photo to be restoredSkip, working at the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville, VA (2010), before a show with Alejandro Escovedo.
After a couple more kids, we decided to slow down touring, work on new recordings, and start an interview series about the creative process called “Drinks With.”
(published in American Songwriter Magazine and Paste Magazine).
‘Drinks With’ Colin Meloy (Decemberists) and Carson Ellis, 2013
Timshel, pregnant with our 4th, featured in Real Simple magazine (May 2015)
After a while, we started to miss traveling with our kids. We began renting out our house for the summer, and driving across the U.S (Nashville to Oregon) and camping along the way.
Photo to be restoredSomewhere on the side of I-10 (Arizona, 2013)
A few summers, and a brand new (fifth!) baby boy into our cross-country journeys, we decided to up the ante and try a year abroad.
With our oldest about to turn 13 and our youngest less than 13 weeks, we knew we had a precious window of time that would never come again. And so we rented out our house, applied for year-long French visas, and moved to Southern France as a family of seven.
Timshel and 4 of our boys in Giverny, France 2017
Skip and 3 of our boys in Aix-en-Provence, 2018
Actually seeing all of that written in short sentences makes it seem simple, easy, and quickly accomplished. As with many things (reduced to a few photos & sentences), this could not be farther from the truth. In fact, this whole overseas leg of our adventures so far has been one of the craziest, hairiest, most difficult, and most fantastical times we’ve had.
We made livingskool.com for our kids so that we can document parts of this adventure and have a place to put some of the details. Most specifically, the results of a year of “living school” for our kids (and ourselves!) using everything we can in our locations, regional histories, and minimized resources on hand. Read more about that here
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