In just a few days, long-time Jasperite Matt Cushing will find out if he gets to move on to the next round of Canada’s Got Talent.

Nationwide auditions for the upcoming CityTV series were held throughout the country recently and Matt made the trip to Edmonton in hope of going all the way in the 2012 series, scheduled to premiere next March.

On Sept. 10, Matt was among the many lined up to audition in Edmonton, after applying online in mid-August. It all happened very quickly for him; after receiving his audition date on Sept. 10, Matt was among the 5,000 in line on Sept. 15 to audition for the show. He will find out if he moves on to the second round of auditions in Calgary on Sept. 30.

Matt, who has participated in many of Jasper’s jam nights, started taking piano lessons and singing when he was seven or eight years old.

“I played piano for three years, and then I played trumpet all though high school,” he said. Matt would pick up the guitar at 18 and never look back.

“I’ve always loved to perform and sing and do that sort of thing,” he said. “My background is in improvisational comedy. That’s where my presence comes from and as a waiter, that’s what you do; it’s performance art.”

Matt practised that particular genre of entertainment throughout his high school years and beyond, but eventually decided it wasn’t his calling. Now, he and friends have their own band where he sings and plays rhythm guitar – his instrument of choice.

“For years I wasn’t a very good guitar player, but I could sing over my bad guitar playing,” he joked. “And about six or seven years ago, I really started to learn to play and the last three years have been another level of playing. Honestly, I attribute a lot of that to guys like the Linkomatics and Mike Day, who has been a huge influence on my music. He’s a good player and we have both had a great learning curve together over the last few years.”

Matt loves to sing and though he has had no professional training, he does recall singing along to The Beatles as a kid.

“My parents were teachers and every summer we’d load up the van and drive through North America, be it through the United States or Canada, and The Beatles were huge in our van,” he said. Matt has no solid favourites when it comes to influences. “Honestly, I just like so much music that there are so many influences for me.”

These days, Matt is in a band called Well Spaced Trees that started five years ago with friends Jim Bottomley, Mike Day and Randall Pervis. Matt plays rhythm guitar and sings.

“Ideally, we’d like to get the music out there, but we have no visions of getting out there on the road,” he said of the band. “But, we’ve been working on an album for the past three years.”

Aside from the band, Matt thought it would be interesting to try out for Canada’s Got Talent and said the experience was incredibly positive.

“It was just a great process because everybody there was there for the same reason,” he said. “It was like we were living the dream, and it was the most positive experience I’ve ever had in my life in many aspects. It was very cool.”

After eventually being separated into groups of five, Matt said the groups then waited outside the audition room for about an hour.

“We got to know each other and just started jamming,” he said. “After that, any nervousness was gone.”

Matt auditioned with a cover of Eagle Eye Cherry’s Say Tonight.

“It’s sort of the first song I learned to play as a cover,” he said. “I felt like I did the best I could do and I was completely satisfied with what I did.”

The second rounds of auditions for Canada’s Got Talent will be held in Calgary on Oct. 18 and 19.