Biography
Heafy is Japanese from his mother and Irish from his father. As stated in an interview, he was born in Iwakuni, Japan, and only lived there for one year. His family then moved to Orlando, Florida, where he currently resides.
Heafy learned to play the saxophone in years leading up to becoming more serious on guitar at the age of twelve.
Heafy attended Lake Brantley High School. He completed his senior year while also touring in Europe, and graduated in 2004. He currently plays a custom Gibson 7-string guitar. He used 6-string guitars for Trivium's first two albums, utilizing standard tuning and Drop D tuning on Ember to Inferno, and solely drop D tuning on Ascendancy. On Trivium's third record, The Crusade, he returned to standard tuning and performed some songs on 7-string guitars. On Shogun, Heafy used 7-string guitars almost exclusively, with only two songs using a 6-string. For Trivium's fifth studio album "In Waves", Heafy returned to using solely 6-string guitars and used drop C# tuning similar to the drop D as seen on Ascendancy.
Heafy does not know formal music theory, and was almost completely self-taught. However, he does know how to read sheet music, but can only apply it on the saxophone. "Self taught for quite a bit of it, did lessons on and off for maybe two or three years, but I do not know anything formal music on guitar. I do on saxophone though…but that doesn’t help me on guitar."
On January 10, 2010, Heafy married Ashley Howard in Orlando, Florida. The wedding was attended by close friends and family.
Matt still often uses the same first Gibson Les Paul he got from his father, in both a live and studio setting.
Recently in an interview Heafy stated, "A lot of people have been asking about the hair. I cut it off and donated it to Locks of Love, which is a foundation for kids with cancer and leukemia. So they make wigs out of real hair. This is the first time I had short hair I guess since I was like 17 or so. So it feels good, I've been sweating a lot less than I used to."
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