Madi Diaz

L.A.-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. A pair of EPs, Ten Gun Salute and Far from the Things That We Know, arrived in 2009 and 2011, respectively, and were followed by a pair of full-lengths, Plastic Moon and We Threw Our Hearts in the Fire, in 2012. Her fourth long-player, Phantom, was released in September 2014. Diaz has had her songs appear in numerous television shows, including Nashville, Pretty Little Liars, and Army Wives. ~ James Christopher Monger