Nearly a month ago, Grammy-nominated reggae, hip-hop, and alt-rock singer-songwriter Matisyahu kicked off his latest tour, “Hold the Fire,” named for his five-song EP released Feb. 2. But before that, the “One Day” and “King Without a Crown” singer, whose music digs deep into his Jewish roots and spirituality, was in Israel, where he made a music video at the site of the Supernova Sukkot Gathering — an open-air music festival where, on Oct. 7, members of Hamas attacked concertgoers, killing 364 and taking dozens of hostages. “The song is called ‘Ascent’ and it’s going to come out in early March,” said Matisyahu (born Matthew Paul Miller) in a recent phone interview. “It’s a song about antisemitism. It’s a powerful song and a powerful video.” The 44-year-old West Chester, Pa., native, who was raised in White Plains, N.Y., said he is looking forward to performing in Massachusetts in March (at the Blue Ocean Music Hall in Salisbury on March 15 and at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston on March 16). “I love Massachusetts. The first place I ever played was the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, and here we are again,” he said. “And Boston was the first place to sell my first album, “Shake Off the Dust” [2004]. . . . It was at Newbury Comics.” The father of six — whose two oldest sons are also musicians, and the second oldest, Shalom “DuvBear” Miller, 17, is performing with him on the current tour — lives in New York’s Rockland County with his wife, Talia Miller, with whom he has two children. We caught up with Matisyahu, who has three dogs — Manila, Rosey, and Reba — to talk about all things travel.
If you could travel anywhere right now, where would you go?
I’m exactly where I want to be right now. I am traveling. Every single night I’m on a tour bus and I’m moving from place to place. I’m in America and I’m connecting with my fans all over the country — in 34 cities. Tonight I’m [in] Austin, Texas, and tomorrow I will be on my way to New Mexico. But if I was not on tour, and could fly anywhere, I would go to Tel Aviv to be with my people, the Jewish people and the Israelis. I was there before this tour and it was an incredible feeling to be surrounded by such resilient people.
Where was the first place you traveled to after COVID restrictions were lifted?
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I traveled in the middle of COVID to Florida and I rented an Airbnb there and lived there for about six months, commuting back and forth to New York to see my children. But I wanted to get out of New York during COVID, and my wife is from Florida, so we went down there. It was an interesting experience. Right after COVID, I had a few shows here in the States.
Do you prefer booking trips through a travel agent or on your own?
The truth is I have a wonderful travel agent and her name is Darlene. I like booking stuff through her, and I found in particular that when I booked stuff through her, I would get room upgrades and little packages for the rooms. Plus, she has been to a lot of these places herself, so she knows what I’m looking for. I also let her handle my flights because if something happens with one of the flights, she usually is really helpful in helping me handle those situations where I might not know what to do exactly.
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Thoughts on an “unplugged” vacation?
I love it. I love turning off my phone. If I can be caught up on work stuff and have everything handled for me and I can take a break, then I love the concept of not having emails or texts or phones, as long as I know that my family is OK.
What has been your worst vacation experience?
I would say as a kid when I was in college [at The New School in New York City] I saved up some money and purchased a small motorcycle, 450cc — not that small, but small enough that it’s not really capable of making massive trips on the highway at high speeds for long periods of time. I decided to take a trip to see my friends in Minneapolis. I had finished up school for the semester and had a vacation from work, so I got on my motorcycle and decided to go the long way. I thought it might be nicer to go up through Canada. Basically, it was a total nightmare. At some point, I got a raging sunburn. I tried to camp and got attacked by thousands and thousands of mosquitos. I had to drive in the middle of the night and got hit by rain. My motorcycle was falling apart, and I was trying to drive in the truck’s streams in order to get pulled up the hills because my engine didn’t have enough power. I almost didn’t make it but I did. It was a pretty rough one.
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Do you vacation to relax, to learn, or for the adventure of it all?
I’d say I vacation to relax. If I go on a vacation, it’s usually combined with work. Usually, if I’m going somewhere to do a show or to do something, I’ll take extra days. On those extra days, I’m not much of a tourist. I don’t really like going to tourist attractions. I like to find good restaurants and bars and eat well and drink well, smoke good weed, and not be bothered by too much stuff.
What book do you plan on bringing with you to read on your next vacation?
To be honest, I don’t do much reading on vacations. I would want to bring a book on the paradigm shift. There’s a book written by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi called “Paradigm Shift,” where he speaks about how after the Holocaust there was a complete shift for the Jewish people and I feel like there’s been something like that currently, so I want to refresh some of those ideas and that would be a good place to start.
If you could travel with one famous person/celebrity, who would it be?
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Maybe Quentin Tarantino right now. He’s someone that I feel like I know is pro-Israel and he is probably a really interesting and funny person to talk to. Probably would be cool to hang out with him.
What is the best gift to give a traveler?
The best gift to give a traveler is money, because then they can spend it on whatever they need while traveling. But if you’re talking about something specific, it would probably be a really good bag to pack their items in. Something comfortable, something special, something that they wouldn’t purchase themselves. I like these duffle bags North Face makes that have straps you can wear as a backpack. Get one big enough to put lot of [stuff] in.
What is your go-to snack for a flight or a road trip?
In my old days when I was less healthy, my go-to snacks would have been Cool Ranch Doritos and Sour Patch Kids. In my healthy days, I would have gone with seaweed snacks and trail mix. My current snacks are creamed herring; that’s probably my little secret guilty pleasure. I like creamed herring, kimchi, and cheese and crackers.
What is the coolest souvenir you’ve picked up on a vacation?
I’m not much of a souvenir guy. On this particular trip/tour, fans will give me little gifts. I would say the necklace that I’m wearing was given to me by a survivor of the Nova festival. It’s a dog tag and has Hebrew inscriptions on it and the Star of David. It’s very meaningful to me. I wouldn’t call it a souvenir, but I would say it’s the best gift someone has given me while traveling abroad.
What is your favorite app/website for travel?
Honestly, I get on Instagram and that’s where I’ll look up most of my information.
What has travel taught you?
In general, by traveling you get to meet different people from different parts of the country or world. You get to have an authentic experience with different people from different places and that has probably made me less judgmental of a person in terms of geographic location of where somebody is from.
What is your best travel tip?
My tip would be to pack light and be organized with your packing. To be able to know where things are, not get lost in this maze of messy things or having too much stuff. I think it’s always better, potentially, to have less and if you need to get some more socks or a jacket at the thrift store, you can. I think that’s a good piece of advice when traveling.
Juliet Pennington can be reached at writeonjuliet@comcast.net.