Penn State alum and former golfer Mattie Leon is working his way up in the music industry, pulling inspiration from his college days in his upcoming Penn State-inspired project. The singer/songwriter has already released two songs based on the blue and white, with more in store as he rolls out his newest album.

A Brampton, Canada, native, Leon spent the better part of his younger years on the junior golf circuit. The goal for many young Canadian golfers was to make it to the States, and Leon’s success on the national team bought him his ticket to do exactly that.

He came to Penn State on a golf scholarship and bounced back and forth between multiple majors. He loved music since high school, but it wasn’t on his radar as a career just yet.

He settled on the integrative arts program, where he got to work in the music building and the recording studios.

“I used to skip class a lot and go to the music building,” Leon said with a laugh. “They had like 25 little tiny rooms with pianos, like single pianos, so I just would spend so much time out there. It was so nice.”

Toward the end of his time at the university, he had started to play in a rock band with some of his friends from Canada. The band even had the opportunity to play Movin’ On, the university’s annual end-of-year concert.

After graduation, he moved back to Toronto, where the music scene offered plenty of opportunities for emerging artists.

He worked as a resource worker for several years while simultaneously pursuing his music career, and he made the big leap to commit to the industry full-time in 2018.

“It felt like my life was aligning. Like all the decisions I made it was like ‘oh, okay, this is finally working after a long time,'” Leon said.

After he started gaining some momentum with a label, a familiar roadblock arrived in 2020 with COVID-19, and he had to put a record out in the midst of the pandemic.

He has since started his own label with his brother, where he releases all his own music today.

The Penn State ties began appearing in his music after his 2020 wedding reunited him with old college friends.

“Your friends in college very quickly become like family,” Leon said. “In the months leading up to the wedding, I kind of invited a bunch of these people that I hadn’t seen in a long time, and I was really excited for them to come. With them on my mind, I wrote one song where I was like, ‘oh, this would be fun to write a song about that time.'”

After that, he began imagining how many songs he could write inspired by his time at Penn State and the people he grew up with there. During the pandemic, his creativity faltered, but he found a wealth of inspiration through his State College memories.

Many of the songs on this upcoming Penn State-inspired album can be related to college experiences across the country. His unreleased song “Heaven is a Dive Bar” is inspired by Phyrst, but can be related to by anyone who has been to a similar bar, Leon said.

The people and the environment inspired Leon more than anything else, especially given the differences between American and Canadian college life.

As he continues to promote his new material, he’s enjoyed reflecting on his experiences. It’s been easy for him to get a clear picture of what these songs mean because of the personal connections he has included in them.

“Everything is so exciting and heightened, and just everything about that place is kind of special,” Leon said.

You can find his latest song, “Stadium Lights”, complete with Beaver Stadium visuals, wherever you listen to music or on his website.