Madi Diaz

All Music Guide:

Nashville-based singer/songwriter Madi Diaz spent her formative years balancing the disparate worlds of her native Pennsylvania Amish country and Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music. Raised and home-schooled by her liberal musician parents, Diaz, who spent her childhood immersed in books, music, and horses, began composing at the age of 16 after the family relocated to nearby Philadelphia. It was there that Diaz achieved minor celebrity status as one of the more precocious and engaging students in director Don Argott's hit 2005 documentary about the Paul Green School of Rock Music. While attending Berklee, Diaz spent time in the indie rock outfit Talk Radio before embarking on a solo career in 2006. With the help of producer Frank Charlton and recording engineer Martin Cooke, a handful of the school's best musicians (all of whom would eventually join Diaz on the road) were recruited to record her 2007 debut album, Skin and Bone.

Wikipedia:

Madi Diaz is an American singer and songwriter.

History [edit]

Diaz grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she was home-schooled by her Peruvian mother, Nancy, a proponent of early childhood development and the visual arts, and her Danish father, Eric, a woodworker and musician. Diaz began piano lessons at age five, as her father was a keyboard player in the Frank Zappa tribute band, Project Object.

In her early teens, Diaz switched from piano to guitar and attended Paul Green School of Rock in Philadelphia, where she was featured in director Don Argott’s 2005 documentary about the program, Rock School.

After high school, Diaz was accepted to Berklee College of Music. At Berklee she began working with Kyle Ryan, the Nebraska-raised guitarist, who remains her songwriting collaborator. The two began their collaboration when a fellow student, a producer looking for a project, offered Diaz the chance to record an album in Hawaii. The self-released album Skin And Bones (2007) was the result, a songwriting and performing partnership between Diaz and Ryan stuck. Shortly after, Diaz dropped out of the program at Berklee.

Diaz and Ryan continued writing and began playing shows in New York City, where she met her manager. Diaz and Ryan were then sent to Nashville for a month to write. In mid-2010, the two moved to Nashville.

After releasing the EP, Ten Gun Salute, Diaz began touring with The Civil Wars and Landon Pigg. She was featured in Paste Magazine as one of the “Top Ten Buzziest Acts” At SXSW 2009 and has had songs featured on ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars and Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva and Army Wives.

Her EP, Far From The Things That We Know, was released on September 20, 2011, by TinyOGRE Entertainment and previewed songs from her full-length album, "Plastic Moon," released in early 2012. The EP was recorded in Los Angeles and Charlottesville, VA with John Alagia (Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer) serving as producer. Her latest album, "We Threw Our Hearts In The Fire," is expected to be released on October 23, 2012.

Diaz has provided backing vocals for Joseph Arthur on four tracks of his latest album, The Graduation Ceremony.

Most recently, she collaborated with Joe Hawley, Ross Federman, and Bora Karaca of Tally Hall on vocals for the track "Black Rainbows" on the album "Hawaii: Part II".