TOLEDO — When 2013 Lake High School graduate Matt Cashin first heard the Van Halen song “Eruption” as a teenager, his life was changed forever.

Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo from the second track of the rock group’s 1978 debut album was all it took for Cashin to put away the football cleats.

“It kind of had a choke hold on me for a long time,” said Cashin, referencing the lyrics “You really got me” in the song.

“I didn’t find out I liked music until I tried it in high school,” Cashin continued. “I was into a lot of video games and playing outside and then I heard Van Halen for the first time and I was like, ‘Oh, what is going on, you know?’

“From then it went from there. I was in a couple high school jam projects that were more recreational than actual school involvement and meeting more of the people who I may not have become friends with if it were not for music because I was more of a sports guy.”

Although he continued to dabble in athletics through his senior year at Lake, he had found music. Today at age 28, he is the bass guitarist for the three-man post-punk rock band January Man, which is just about to release its second album.

“It’s pretty grungy, but not without pop elements,” Cashin said. “I think that we follow the rules at times, and at times we tend to break them. I think we do a nice job of that, too. A lot of emphasis on clashing melodies.”

Cashin, who today plays keyboards, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, sings and writes music, is also active in an alternative/Indie rock band called The Currents and for several months assumed guitar duties for another alternative rock band that played regionally.

However, it all started after he heard Eruption and started listening to other classic rock from the 1970s and 1980s. He stumbled upon a guitar in his own home and began playing just after turning 15 years old. As he got older, he found 1990s style grunge music and became more rounded as a musician.

“It was pretty silly because I would just sit and listen to 94.5 every day, and 104.7 — I would switch between the two if I didn’t like the song,” Cashin said.

“Then, I found a guitar that was a gift to my sister that she had left behind in the closet. I was like, ‘This is perfect. I don’t have to ask for one — I have one now.’

“I kind of learned on that and I played that for quite a few years. I used that guitar. It wasn’t the greatest but it made noise, it made sound.”

Finding the music scene

Music is Cashin’s life now, although he still is works at Aldi grocery store in Rossford. Cashin lives off Collingwood Boulevard in Toledo’s historic Old West End and is a well-known figure in the city’s music scene.

”(It is a) beautiful, beautiful neighborhood,” Cashin said. “I’m very fortunate to have the ability to live there. It was just kind of knowing the right people at the right time because I definitely cannot afford those Old West End houses.”

His start in music was humbling, but it did the trick.

“I had a brief stint with a band, with a person who graduated a couple years before me, and he had a good batch of songs and heard about me through the grapevine,” Cashin said.

“So we actually got another person in and we did a couple shows and that is how I kind of started meeting people, figuring out how to do shows. Then that kind of fell through. Everyone kind of butted heads.”

One of Cashin’s early issues was he did not really know how to read music, let alone know people in the industry. So he began studying on his own.

“I really didn’t know people. I had the dexterity but I didn’t know what I was playing,” Cashin said. “I couldn’t tell you an A from an E, so then in the off time between bands I kind of took the time to study more music and figure it out and be able to actually communicate with musical people.

“That was when I met the front man (Seth Fronteen) for January Man — he had moved up from Alabama and he was kind of meeting people in the scene and trying to make his way into it.

“(Drummer) Mason (Baker), my neighbor who I grew up with, he was in a two-piece group, and Seth had went to one of their shows and said, “Hey, do you want to be the bass player?’ so then he came over to jam. So we had a joint practice and it went from there and it’s been us ever since.”

That was eight years ago. Since then, the band put out their first album, King of Cups, and their second album, The Furnace, will be released soon, although the first single was available last Friday.

They are touring regionally to places like Nashville, Kalamazoo, Cincinnati, Columbus, Youngstown, Lima, and South Bend. In addition, they have collaborated to create music videos for many of their favorite singles.

Cashin welcomes the life he now lives and the people he’s met. He can name drop collaborations or associations he’s had with musicians from New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.

“Since I’ve been through that I’ve met a lot more people and become more acclimated to the scene as someone who is pretty well known,” Cashin said.

“I’ve worked with a lot of groups and a lot of other musicians, a lot of collaborations that have lasted years. It’s been pretty awesome to have met some of the people I know in the area.”

Creating, recording and mixing

Plus, Cashin has found his musical ear, like when they were recording the sixth song for the King of Cups album and the band decided it needed keyboards, which is where Cashin stepped in.

“That was fun because we were in the studio and we finished the song and it didn’t have a keyboard part. We were sitting there listening to it and we were like, ‘This needs something,’” Cashin said.

“So we hooked the keyboard up and I played a chord, which was a fun bit. You listen, you hear the gaps, and sometimes the space is all you need, and sometimes the space needs filled.”

Cashin said all three band members had to take time off work to record King of Cups and then followed a similar path while recording The Furnace.

“The first album was kind of a blur,” Cashin said. “We each took three days off of work and we pounded it out. Really, the first day we recorded the whole instrumentals live.

“We did it all as one band as a go, but of course, if someone messed up we had to all stop and restart a song. The whole first day we spent 12 or 13 hours recording.

“The second day was kind of the overdubs, a second guitar track if we wanted to, the guitar solos, or whatever. Then day three was vocals and by the end of day three we were very close to finished, which was nice.”

It helps that as of 2019 they have had their own studio to record in at the Collingwood Arts Center.

“It’s been awesome,” Cashin said. “It gave us freedom and kind of took things to the next level for us, as opposed to a couple of our other efforts we recorded with someone downtown, and then we did a few songs up in Ann Arbor with someone.

“But once we could just dial it in ourselves and figured out how to record, I think our pace just picked up and it was really good.”

There are some minor changes in the way The Furnace is being produced.

“We’re finishing up the second album now — waiting to get masters back. The recordings are done. The recordings are kind of the same deal where we took three days off and spent all day, all night up there and worked on it.

“But we didn’t want to mix it again because it was kind of a nightmare. You start to hate the songs when you’re mixing them, especially when they are yours and you are hearing yourself over and over again. There are definitely things that even to this day I hear and I”m like, ‘Oh, man.’

“So, we had sent it someone out of New York. He was in a couple bands previously in Toledo and had moved out to New York. He did an amazing job to say the least. It felt more like he was another member of the band. He did an awesome job. He gave the songs a new sense of life, which is awesome.”