HAMBURG, N.Y. — For the past four years, Hamburg native Matt Reilly has been touring the world as the bass guitarist for singer Avril Lavigne. Thursday, he shared his knowledge of the industry with Hilbert College.
His gig began with a phone call in 2019 that changed his life.
“I got a call initially saying ‘Hey, we need a bass player,’ and I didn’t know who it was for. I said ‘Who?’ and they said ‘Avril Lavigne’ and I thought it was the wrong number. It was unreal,” Matt said.
Now, he has used his experiences over the past four years to encourage students in his hometown to follow their dreams.
“Honestly, I never thought I’d be doing this to tell you the truth,” Matt said.
If you’re thinking ‘that name sounds familiar,’ it should, because his father Ed Reilly worked right here at Channel 7 for 40 years.
“I’d like to think I’m the superstar,” Matt said. “But, when it comes to Buffalo, my dad has me beat times 10.”
Rather than saying “see you later boy” to Western New York, Matt is giving back to our local community.
Thursday afternoon, he spoke to a room of about 50 students at Hilbert College.
“For the entertainment industry, it always seems like there’s such a big divide between what is happening here [in Buffalo] and what is happening in the “real industry,” but that’s not the case,” Matt said.
One person in the audience, Sean Flynn, actually took piano lessons from Matt when he was a kid.
“He hasn’t changed at all since I did lessons with him,” Sean said. “When I found out he had the gig with Avril Lavigne, I thought it was crazy.”
Sean was happy to hear some of Matt’s most important advice for everyone watching.
“You have to be unique, you’re never going to have success if you try to be somebody else or cover up your own qualities,” Matt said.
That message resonated with the students in the crowd.
“Staying unique to who you are, he gave a lot of great points on that,” said senior Joe Kupczyk.
“Matt Reilly, he never gave up, and that serves as a great lesson for us,” said senior Alex Overhoff.
So, “Here’s to Never Growing Up” and sticking to your roots.
