Matt (Joe) Lambert began playing music at age 6 in Charlottesville, VA. Starting with voice, Joe moved on to learn piano, guitar and bass before settling on drums at the age of 12. At 13 he moved to Chicago where he met legendary music educator Don Skoog, where under his tutelage he was invited to study at the National School of Music in Havana, Cuba and shortly thereafter in 2001 he was awarded a scholarship to the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston. It was at Berklee that Joe was able to hone his skills by taking private lessons and classes with greats such as John Ramsey, Kenwood Denard, Victor Mendoza, Bob Moses (NEC), Joe Galliota, Mark Walker, Fransisco Mela, and eventually Jeff Ballard upon moving to New York City.

 

It was the day before the start of his first fall semester at Berklee in 2001 when Joe was introduced to bass player Ben Geis by his roommate Ian Fletcher. Ian had thought that it only made sense to introduce a like minded drummer and bassist, both liking similar styles. Often practicing 6-8 hours daily, Berklee offered the perfect learning environment for these dedicated musicians. 

 

It seemed a natural progression that Ben would ask Joe to join his group Lifted which was lacking a drummer at the time. Ben's brother Colin had gone to engineering school in Amsterdam leaving the drum set open for the taking. From there the band progressed in a much similar fashion picking up and losing players throughout their time in Boston before moving to New York City in 2005. Currently Joe lives in Queens, NY where he plays in several other side projects when not on the road with Lifted Crew.