Madi Diaz

Madi Diaz (pictured above with band mate Kyle Ryan) has been turning heads in Nashville since moving to the city after graduating from Berklee College of Music. She recently completed a stint on the Ten Out Of Tenn tour and has logged performances at Bonnaroo and Next Big Nashville in 2009. Madi recently spoke with us about life in Nashville, co-writing and ’80s hair metal. (Click here to check out Madi’s profile on American SongSpace.)

You’ve been touring this year with Ten Out Of Tenn. Can you tell us a little bit about the experience?

About three or four months ago Trent Dabbs (the big daddy of the TOT crew) approached me, asking me if i’d be into doing the TOT tour. I of course was way super flattered. Seriously, when Kyle and I moved to Nashville, one of the first big things going on in town was the TOT shows and all of those folks are phenomenal writers. So after shock wore off and rehearsals started, etc etc…yeah it’s been pretty awesome. It’s becoming a new little family that I’m super excited and proud to be a part of. There are so many hilarious personalities and so many ideas bouncing around. It’s been quite a trip with TOT and we’ve all come back from tour ten times as excited for the next one I think!

Are TOT audiences at all surprised by the strong indie vibe coming out of Music City?

Yes and no. I think that although this group is so artistically scattered across the genre board, the set was assembled in such a way that it didn’t seem to stretch people too terribly much; I mean, we didn’t jump straight from Ashley Monroe to Mikky Ekko….but generally I think that people came to all the shows just expecting to hear really really great music. Hopefully people were more excited to see the indie surge than surprised. But surprise is pretty awesome too though now that i think about it.

You’re a bona fide Yankee, having grown up in Pennsylvania and then attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. How have you liked living here in Nashville?

It’s so different but I surprise myself more and more by doing things that I didn’t really grow up doing….like talking to a complete stranger at the grocery store for like 20 minutes about nothing or waving at someone that’s a mile down the street, or eating more fried things than I ever thought possible. I even say “ya’ll,” which is straight weird. But I’m loving the community in Nashville. The music scene is so strong and vibrant here. It’s undeniable, which makes it impossible to be unproductive.

Still I miss the northeast like no other though. Can’t beat home.

How long have you been working with [collaborator] Kyle Ryan, and how does the songwriting process work between you?

Kyle and I have been working together for….crap….almost two years now! Time flies. Um, the songwriting process is scattered. Sometimes I show up with an idea that I’ve been messing with or a line that I have hoping around, or we’ll start talking about something that’s been going on with our lives and start from scratch or….it’s always different.

How long have you been writing songs?

Mmmm. I was in a couple of really really shitty high-school bands where we all wrote the songs together, and I definitely wrote one or two songs trying to legit be Sheryl Crow and the Dixie Chicks. But I don’t think I really really experimented writing for me myself ‘til I was in college in my sophmore year.

Who are some of your songwriting heroes?

Oooof. That’s hard. Um, well, Darrell Scott, Thom York, Patty Griffin, Mindy Smith, Of Montreal, Bon Iver, Cathy Dennis, Dr. Luke, Wilco. I could go on forever and ever.

Right now, David Mead, Kyle Andrews and the Silver Seas have been on my daily rotation. So that’s always funny. I’ll see all of them in line at the coffee shop and, I mean, we’re all friends, but I’m always, “Hey, yeah I was just singing your song at the top of my lungs five seconds ago….no big deal…”

I just heard your version of Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again.” Very cool. What drew you to the Snake, if I might ask?

Man, I love hair metal. Let’s be real: those guys are heroes to the masses. And a lot of their songs are just songs that make you wanna drive your car with the windows down at top speed and your fists in the air…so why can’t I? I mean, obviously I can’t scream with the electrics too much… it’d be a little over the top….plus I’d feel downright wrong doin it without leapord-print spandex on.

You’ve got a new EP coming out November 6. What can we expect from it, and do you plan to tour behind the release?

Actually, we’ve decided to go full length, which we start tracking November 1. So ya’ll (I said it yes I did) can probably expect something from us by mid-January, if it all goes right. We’re really excited. We’ve got a very, very special man producing it. And to find that out you’ll just have to stalk us.