VIDEO PREMIERE / MADI DIAZ "Wide" (Acoustic) ++ Interview

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on reddit
photographer / Evan Lane
stylist /  Leore Hayon
makeup /  Crystal Tran
hair /  Jackie Fanara
story / Koko Ntuen

Madi Diaz known for her belting pop anthems and face like the ideal manic pixie dream girl is back with a new album centered around everyone’s favorite topic to listen to music cry about–breakup. LA Weekly hails it as,”The Most Danceable Break Up Record Ever” and from the sound of her newest album PHANTOM, out on Nettwerk Records September 30th, we can back this statement 100 percent.
Madi  has been a staple in the music scene, releasing music and performing worldwide for years. She just wrapped a  tour with pop stars Fitz and the Tantrums and is heading out on the road with X Ambassadors and Jamie N Commons in September and October then Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. in October and Echosmith in November. Oh the life of a pop star!
Her songs manage to captivate, excite and motivate the listener to do many things, among those might be crying into a pillow or dancing like non one is watching. Whatever the case may be Madi is a will be in rotation in our music library for years to come. The video shot by famed photographer Catie Laffoon of Madi performing  an acoustic version of “Wide” is as stripped down and vulnerable as the song itself. Watch her guitar strumming and singing from her soul and get ready to have the ice on your heart melt away.
How instrumental was music for you at an early age? Can you tell us a little bit about your upbringing and what shaped your love of music?
Both of my parents are huge music lovers, so something was always playing in the background. i remember being so so little…so little i can’t remember quite how little, but little enough that i wasn’t able to reach the records. seeing whitney houston’s face on a cover, or the cover of the white album, or this VHS of the invisible touch tour that my dad had, are still super fresh memories.

What was it like touring with Fitz and The Tantrums? What did you learn about yourself on that tour?

The Fitz tour was the first tour I took having finished my record, so I was a little shy coming out of the gates again. Those first couple of nights reminded me that the stage part and the sharing my music with a crowd of strangers part is one of my very big and very real loves of this whole process. It makes the entire thing real.

You write and perform music. When you are writing music for yourself do you write differently?

I tend to approach writing pretty differently every time I sit down, probably without meaning to. I try to keep myself nimble!

Who would you love to collaborate with?

I would absolutely love to collaborate with someone like Peter Gabriel or Bjork because they’re so intensely themselves as artists. pure. It’s gotta be wild working with them.

Who is “Stay Together” about?

Wouldn’t you just LOVE to know? hahaha.

How is  Phantom different from your other albums? Does it feel like a debut album?

Phantom to me feels like a very honest progression from my previous records. the songs on this record are, I think, so so strong, and the production work on the record is lush and more wide than my previous records. I think Phantom is definitely the beginning of a new sentence.

What genre of music would you like to explore?

Gimme all of them. Except anything river dance-y. Remember river dance? ugh. Haha, techno celtic music- no thank you.

What other areas of the industry would you be interested in getting into?

I always thought I’d be a really great tour manager…I love micro managing in that way SO MUCH but I lose sleep over it when I’m doing it so it would probably be a very short lived career move for me. BIGGEST UPS to tour managers who are on top of their game, they make the world go around. seriously, they make or break any tour big or small.

Your voice accompanied by pop beats or stripped down is stunning. That is all! 🙂

Aw, man come on you’re making me blush way too early in the morning:).

What was the idea behind this acoustic version of “Wide”? Did you plan this out or just have a spontaneous idea?

There’s a tunnel downtown that leads to the LA river that I’ve explored a few times and I always end of singing by myself for awhile just because it sounds so gorgeous. I brought my acoustic guitar down there and sort of just started playing and listening to the reverberation getting shorter and longer while walking from one side to the other. It sort of ended up mirroring the meaning of the song which was really lovely and filling in that moment.

Have you ever had any exes come to your show not knowing they were there and sang a song about them?

I sure hope so…haha.

What are you most looking forward to on this tour?

I’m so excited to play music with my band. They’re two mega talented individuals, Jenn Stone and Pat Gerasia, and I’m just so pumped to see what it sounds like on stage instead of a little practice room in Silverlake!

What is the one thing you have to have no matter what city you are in?

A good pair of running shoes. I like to explore cities running through them. It’s my favorite thing, to get lost, find something new, and try and find my way back!