We finally caught up with Matthew McNeal after he took home the Mullen & Mullen Music Project’s inaugural JAMBALOO Music Prize for his 2025 album HIGHLONESOME. Besides a bevy of local-music-industry-related boons, the prize package included $20,000 cash, a sum at which anyone (let alone those engaged in the perennial struggles endemic to an independent music career) would be hesitant to sneeze. I’ve been thinking about what that prize might do for an artist. Would it fund touring? A follow-up album?