A self-made singer/songwriter, Matt Wertz spent years creating soulful, feel-good pop music on his own terms. But "I realized I'd been making records in a similar way in the same geographic area (of Nashville)," Wertz admits, "and I wanted to get away from that comfort zone. I personally was needing a fresh approach — to pull the clip on the grenade and blow things up and start over. I'm a fan of current pop music, and L.A. is very much about what's happening now. I wanted to see how my music fit into that space." Filled with left-field love songs about guarding yourself, opening your heart to new possibilities, and wrestling with the sacrifice and vulnerability that love requires of everyone, Matt's latest album "Gun Shy" finds Wertz urging his listeners—and, perhaps, himself—to continue taking leaps. It's an album about stepping into unfamiliar situations, armed with the courage to fail and the drive to succeed. More than a decade into a career filled with commercial success and touring milestones, Matt Wertz remains proud to be an independent singer/songwriter. But don't mistake Gun Shy for the sort of intimate album you'd hear at your local coffee shop. These are not acoustic guitar songs. They're songs built on laptops and driven forward by dance beats. Songs that move you physically and emotionally. Songs that splash Wertz's super-sized hooks across the backdrop of the Los Angeles skyline, creating their own brand of scenery along the way. Multi-instrumentalist virtuoso Dustin Ransom opens.