Matt Benfield

Matt Benfield was born and raised in Naples Florida. Surprisingly he didn’t start playing instruments at a very young age. It wasn’t until his dad introduced him to classic rock that he really became enamored with music. His aunt bought him the game “rock band” when he was about 14 and by the time he reached 15 he was ready for a new challenge. He started out with his grandpa’s old Yamaha acoustic guitar and began to practice on average 8 hours a day every day. He literally played till his fingers bleed. His parents later bought him his first electric guitar and soon started up lessons with Ron Dipiro at Mega Music.

His influences at the time were classic rock bands like AC/DC, Van Halen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Three Dog Night, Doobie Brothers etc. He later started playing guitar at First Baptist Naples in their orchestra and school band at 16. This helped him a lot in understanding how to fit in sonically and rhythmically with a larger band. At 17 he joined his first high school band and was making a whopping $50 a gig. This was AMAZING to him at the time. He could do what he loved the most and get paid for it. From then on he knew what he wanted to do for a living.

When he was 19 he joined a much older country band called “Railhead”. He did not get to play guitar in this band and reluctantly played his second instrument which was banjo. He wasn’t as versed in banjo and these guys put him through his paces real fast. It was led by Patrick Murphy and the owner of Naples Park Music: Denny Scott. The legend. Denny and Patrick taught him all kinds of things about being in a local band.  It was sink or swim with Denny, and if you weren’t playing 1 million notes per second you were gonna get yelled at. Needless to say he built up some serious chops trying to keep up with Denny. This helped him form his unique playing style of combing banjo style finger picking with guitar playing. He became pretty versed in the banjo after this but was ready to get back to guitar playing.

His influences were drastically expanding into the country vein. He began listing to all kinds of classic country and started studying players like Danny Gaton, Brent Mason, Daniel Donato, Brad Paisley, Albert Lee, Johnny Hiland, and Buddy Emmons to name a few. During this time he started working around town regularly as a guitar player. This is when he met Jeffrey. Jeffrey and Matt first played together in a country band and later in a soul band. First gig they did together was at Riverside Park Bonita in 2015.

Jeffrey was the one who introduced Matt to a new style of music that completely changed his life and helped shape the direction he wanted to go with music. This was jam band music. Matt’s influences then began to expand to bands like Grateful Dead and Phish. These two bands single-handedly changed his life. From then on he began the slow process of studying what it really means to be in a jam band. It is a very delicate and long process to fully unpack what this means. Him along with the rest of the band are still currently exploring the gamut of all it has to offer. Later on that year Matt was working at the music store when this beautiful woman came in looking for speak-on cables. This was none other than Marcia. She began telling him and Denny how she was looking for a singer for her corporate dance band. Matt never sang before nor was he ever allowed to even try, but Denny pumped him up as this professional singer and somehow or another Matt ended up landing the spot in her band Winslow and the Rockefeller’s. They brought Jeffrey on board later on in the corporate project. This lasted till COVID hit.

Marcia, Jeffrey and Matt began playing as a trio and eventually formed The Moonstone Riders. This was their chance to really explore what a jam band could be. They started writing music together and trying new things that they’ve never done before. They become closer than ever as friends during that time. Later on they added Matt Baxely on keys and Charles Camisa on drums. And it’s safe to say that they now all consider each other family.