Mad About Madi Diaz
A fatal optimist finds a home in Nashville
Plucks intimate songs from her journals and shapes them with her friend Steph, who cowrote Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’
Begins every morning with a Blink-182 song
Sinking into a corner chair of Cafe Roze, a longstanding Nashville spot known for avocado toast and quinoa bowls, Madi Diaz is reflecting on her years of touring, which, at this point, feel like a blur. She’s just finished up an 18-show run across the States, and in a few months, she’ll turn back around and head off to Europe. These long tours are a fact of life; Diaz is 39 and shows no sign of slowing down. She orders black coffee and a side of bacon, what she calls her “cowboy breakfast.” Touring reconfigures the body and mind like no other experience. It disconcerts one’s working hours, one’s relationship to travel, one’s understanding of time and place. Days are spent in Sprinter vans, tour buses, or chartered planes; nights are spent waiting in makeshift dressing rooms for a few hours onstage. A physically taxing affair, it becomes nearly impossible to decompress while doing the same routine night after night. In 2023, Diaz received a DM from Harry Styles asking her to join the …