Madi Diaz had big plans for the vintage blue toilet, sink, and bathtub currently residing in her driveway.
“I snagged them from Facebook Marketplace at 1 AM, probably in a van somewhere in Montana,” the singer-songwriter recounted, relaxing at a picnic table in her yard on a humid late-summer afternoon, dressed casually in a white tank top and jeans. She mused that it might have been Ireland during a tour with Kacey Musgraves, or Italy while performing as part of Harry Styles’s band. The last few years have been a whirlwind, but she always intended to incorporate these unique fixtures into her cream-colored cottage once things settled. For Diaz, there’s always a grand vision, even if it doesn’t quite come to fruition.
This Nashville-based artist has been striving to transform her house into a true home, a challenge given her relentless touring schedule and the demanding process of writing for her latest album, “Fatal Optimist,” which drops this Friday. She’s hardly had time to tend to her own lawn. “I’ll probably just power wash this place and settle in for good,” Diaz joked, taking a sip of coffee from a mug crafted by her mother. “Make it feel a little less like a haunted house.”
While Diaz hasn’t always felt her roots were firmly planted in Nashville, the city has, for more than a decade, embraced her as an essential, unifying musical presence. She effortlessly navigates the intersection of country and pop, captivating audiences without fully conforming to either genre. Her distinctive vocals have graced tracks by artists like Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert, and Charlie Worsham, while her emotionally charged songwriting has been featured by Maren Morris and Kesha. She’s shared stages with a diverse range of acts, including Waxahatchee, My Morning Jacket, and Little Big Town, and her 2024 album, “Weird Faith,” earned two Grammy nominations.
“Madi possesses one of my favorite voices globally, yet her songwriting prowess is equally impressive,” stated Morris, commending Diaz’s “brilliant poetic perspective.”
Following widespread recognition and accolades, Diaz chose a path of profound intimacy and lyrical depth for her new work, opting against grand pop productions. Her album “Fatal Optimist” is remarkably sparse and raw, centered around her powerful yet uniquely gentle voice and acoustic guitar, so transparent that the subtle sounds of her fingers on the strings are clearly audible.
“I could have easily gotten caught up in the pressure, thinking, ‘We really need to put on a show now’,” Diaz admitted, recalling attending the Grammys with Musgraves and later enjoying hot wings in her gown. “But I had already committed to this artistic direction.”
Diaz attributes her determination, or as she calls it, her “relentlessness,” to her upbringing in rural Pennsylvania. Her musical parents home-schooled her, with her father teaching her Alice in Chains songs on guitar, and she developed an affinity for artists like Sheryl Crow and The Chicks. At the age of 15, she was accepted into the Paul Green School of Rock, an institution now recognized for serious allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct made public against Green by former students, including Diaz herself.
“That environment was deeply toxic, and it took me considerable time to truly find my artistic voice,” she explained. “I harbored fears of my own strength and the emotional impact of my lyrics, struggling with the idea that vulnerability isn’t a weakness.”
Diaz enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston, but ultimately withdrew when her scholarship expired. Nevertheless, she forged lasting friendships there, notably with Worsham and Kyle Ryan, who later became Kacey Musgraves’s esteemed bandleader. Diaz and Ryan relocated to Nashville as a musical partnership, and he remains a close neighbor; they even share Christmas cookies.
“Everyone who heard Madi sing was absolutely captivated,” Worsham recollected. “Her songs carried a distinct, poignant ache.”
Initially, Nashville was a good fit for Diaz, but she soon grew restless. “My mother is Peruvian, and I longed to hear Spanish again,” she explained. In 2012, Diaz moved to Los Angeles, but the city didn’t quite live up to her expectations. While she enjoyed a “hot girl moment” as part of the rock duo Riothorse Royale, other aspects of her life stagnated. Her personal life also faced a significant shift when her two-year relationship with songwriter Teddy Geiger concluded. This breakup inspired her 2021 album, “History of a Feeling,” a raw exploration of her emotions following the split with Geiger, who later came out as transgender and transitioned. Diaz’s capacity to express both empathy for Geiger’s journey and validate her own pain was remarkable, leading the indie label Anti- to release her project.
“It’s challenging to articulate pain, and equally so to discuss evolving relationships and love,” Diaz reflected. She eventually returned to Tennessee in 2017, recognizing that Nashville remained her true home and that her deepest musical connection lay within its songwriting community. “It just felt like it was in my DNA, even if it wasn’t always ‘cool’,” she admitted, remembering how she often felt like an outsider among the indie and rock musicians on her label. “They just didn’t get it. They’d ask, ‘What’s a writers’ round?'”
Harry Styles, it seems, understood. He extended an invitation to Diaz via direct message in 2023, asking her to join his Love on Tour band. The unexpected offer was so startling that Diaz’s initial response was simply “HA.” She eventually accepted, and the two artists found common ground discussing music icons like Patty Griffin and Joni Mitchell, as well as their current reads (Styles, at one point, was immersed in the feminist classic “Women Who Run With the Wolves”).
While her career was soaring with an opportunity of a lifetime, Diaz’s personal world was falling apart. She and her partner, with whom she had hoped to build a future, separated. Returning home after the Styles tour proved incredibly difficult. “When I finally stepped into this house and opened my suitcase, I just broke down,” she recounted. “There was no escaping it, and I couldn’t even begin to celebrate the incredible experience I’d just had. It was so huge, and yet everything just felt painful.”
She also came back battling constant physical pain, a result of how she positioned her hip while playing guitar. It took seven grueling months to receive a diagnosis, and the relentless agony pushed her to her limit. “I genuinely thought, ‘If this is what life is, I don’t want any part of it’,” she shared.
Diaz had always championed her optimism, yet she recognized there were boundaries. How could she find a silver lining in such profound suffering? This constant search made her feel conflicted, indecisive, even prompting her to deceive herself in pursuit of a positive outlook. However, this unwavering optimism also possessed a unique beauty, particularly in a world quick to assume the worst. During her tour, she jotted in her journal, “I just feel like I’m fatally optimistic.”
The new album’s songs began to emerge during a songwriting retreat in Nantucket, brought to the forefront by the quiet of solitude. “‘Fatal Optimist’ feels almost like a parental advisory label,” Diaz explained. “It’s a warning: be mindful of what you say to me, because I will believe you, and I will believe the best in you.”
The album’s opening track, “Hope Less,” serves as that cautious appeal: “I hope I can hope less,” she sings, her breathing subtly audible, creating an unsettling echo in the chorus. Diaz masterfully uses silence, and Gabe Wax’s (Fleet Foxes, Zach Bryan) production imbues the songs with the resonance of a mantra and the intimacy of a whispered confession. “Is it truly so wrong to conceal the sorrow?” she ponders in the soft, poignant “Good Liar,” the answer already clear to her.
A full band finally joins in on the album’s powerful closer and title track, offering a path out of the darkness that is both joyful and hard-earned. Diaz, with cautious optimism, believes she will discover love once more. And yes, she fully intends to complete that bathroom renovation, because she’s here to stay.
“I’ve tried simply to play,” Diaz remarked, collecting coffee cups. “And I’ve tried just to sing. But whatever journey I’m on, it has unequivocally demanded that I pour my entire heart into it.” She paused, then added with a chuckle, “Which, honestly, is a bit annoying sometimes!”