Singer and songwriter Madi Diaz's passionate, searching songs draw on indie rock, country and folk, synth pop, and more while always keeping emotion front and center. After the Pennsylvania native recorded her full-length debut with Berklee classmates (2007's Skin and Bone), she relocated to Los Angeles and landed on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart with 2012's Plastic Moon. Her fifth album, the breakup-inspired History of a Feeling, marked her Anti-/Epitaph debut in 2021. She explored similar emotional territory on 2024's Grammy-nominated Weird Faith, which featured a duet with Kacey Musgraves ("Don't Do Me Good"). Diaz stripped things back and got even more intimate on the next year's Fatal Optimist, the final entry in an unofficial heartbreak trilogy. Madi Diaz spent her formative years in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where she was home-schooled by her Peruvian mother and studied piano with her Danish father, a musician who introduced her to the likes of the Beatles and Fleetwood Mac as she grew up in the '90s. She switched to guitar in her early teens and 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, followed in 2009 and 2011, respectively. In early 2012, Diaz's second album, Plastic Moon, cracked the Top 20 of the Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart, and she peaked at number 48 on the same list with that October's We Threw Our Hearts in the Fire. After signing with Nettwerk, her fourth long-player, the synths-tinged Phantom, arrived in September 2014. In the meantime, her songs were featured on numerous television shows (Nashville, Pretty Little Liars, Army Wives), and she appeared as a backing vocalist on albums by the likes of Miranda Lambert, James Blunt, and Charlie Worsham. After releasing the introspective It's Okay to Be Alone EP in 2018, Diaz signed with Anti-/Epitaph for the still more emotionally raw History of a Feeling. Co-produced with Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Courtney Marie Andrews), it was released in August 2021. Same History, New Feelings, an EP of intimate, reworked songs from History of a Feeling, appeared the following year. 2023 saw Diaz join Harry Styles' band on guitar and backing vocals for the European leg of his Love On Tour. Later that year, she released "Don't Do Me Good" featuring Kacey Musgraves, a highlight from another emotionally candid album, February 2024's Weird Faith. It was co-produced by singer/songwriter Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Emily King) and Konrad Snyder (Noah Kahan, Stephen Sanchez). Diaz released a deluxe version of the album later in the year with several additional tracks including the collaborative single "One Less Question" with Canadian singer Lennon Stella. Soon after, Weird Faith was the recipient of two Grammy nominations, for Best Folk Album and Best Americana Performance for "Don't Do Me Good." Diaz followed the critical acclaim with an album that was even musically stark and emotionally bare. The final chapter in an unofficial trilogy, October 2025's Fatal Optimist was produced by Diaz and Gabe Wax with an aim to reflect isolation through arrangements that frequently featured only two or three instruments in all and focused on voice and acoustic guitar. - Biography by Marcy Donelson