Striking Matches
Striking Matches is an American duo from Nashville, Tennessee. The members are guitarists and songwriters Sarah Zimmermann and Justin Davis. They met in a Belmont University guitar class in 2007 and began writing and performing together, eventually leaving school to focus on music. They made their live debut at Nashville’s Bluebird Café and self-released a self-titled EP in October 2012.
On a trip to Nashville, the music supervisor for the TV show Nashville heard them perform and decided to use their songs on the program. Nine of their songs were featured across the show's four seasons. They later signed with IRS Records, and their debut album Nothing but the Silence, produced by T Bone Burnett, was released on March 22, 2015. The album reached No. 25 on the Top Country Albums chart.
Striking Matches are known for a sound that blends country, rock and blues, with tight vocal harmonies. Their style has been described as a countrified mix in the vein of The Civil Wars and The Black Keys.
In 2019 they planned to release three EPs—Morning, Noon and Night. Morning came out in May 2019 after they left Capitol Records. A music video for the song Don’t Hold Back was released in April 2019. The second single from Noon, “Say What You Wanna,” arrived in September 2019, and Noon was released on November 15, 2019.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 14:21 (CET).