After several years playing the drums in the rock bands Apryl Fool and Happy End during the late 1960s and early 1970s, Matsumoto decided to focus on writing lyrics for others in 1974.
Matsumoto's first band was Burns (バーンズ, Bānzu) in college, which covered songs like Them's "Gloria and Sam & Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'".
[7] In December, Shigeru Suzuki, who already had a reputation as a skilled guitarist in his band Skye, was invited to join after Hosono and Matsumoto heard him improvise over what would become their first original song, "Juuni Gatsu no Ame no hi".
1 singles), Kyōko Koizumi, Miho Nakayama, Masahiko Kondo and Hiroko Yakushimaru as well as musical artists such as Yellow Magic Orchestra.
The songs "Garasu no Shounen", "Hakka Candy" and "Boku no Senaka ni wa Hane ga Aru" by KinKi Kids are some of his notable recent work.
Matsumoto wrote nine of the ten songs on his Happy End bandmate Eiichi Ohtaki's record A Long Vacation, which won Best Album.
[11] A special two-day concert for the same anniversary was held at the Tokyo International Forum on August 21–22, 2015 featuring numerous artists such as Hiromi Ōta, Shinji Harada, Shoko Nakagawa, Yū Hayami, Junichi Inagaki, Akiko Yano.
Matsumoto himself stepped behind the drum kit once again to perform songs with the surviving members of Happy End; Hosono and Shigeru Suzuki.