Mads
Singer/songwriter New artist indie pop
Jesus is my hope, my love music is my passion, my joy Writing is my world, my medicine
What is my songwriting process?
There is no rhyme or rhythm to how I write songs. There isn’t one blueprint or algorithm I use for the creation process. I notice when I’m really sad or depressed, songwriting is easier and more natural to do because I’m in a space where I have nothing to lose, and all my heart wants to do is express itself through song. In the beginning, I usually came up with a chord progression on guitar or piano and then would experiment with melodies and figure out how to fit the lyrics I’d already written into them. Sometimes a melody with no words will just come into my head, and I'll quickly record it in voice memos on my phone. Lyrics will usually come to me when I’m driving or doing something random. Recently, I’ve found myself able to flow better and come up with more exciting hooks and sentence structures when I’m improvising with an instrumental beat that’s already been created. My job is to put all the pieces together ( melodies, riffs, lyrics, chorus/verse/bridge etc.) and organize them into a finished song. It usually takes a lot of tweaking and subtle changes before I’m satisfied with it. But then again… sometimes you just write a whole song in one day, and that tends to happen more often when you're doing it with other people. When it comes to recording and producing the song in the DAW ( logic), I usually lay down the basic melody/ chord structure first with guitar or piano to a metronome. Then I go in and add drums, layered electric guitar parts, synths, transitions, and other sound effects that bring the song to life. Recording vocals is usually last because I need to feel the excitement and movement of the song in order to capture the right performance.
Why do i make music?
I make music because it's an outlet for me to express myself in the purest, most fulfilling kind of way. I love storytelling and world-building in my songs because they become places I can escape to when the weight of reality becomes too much. Making music is where my burdens and passions collide. Songwriting helps me make sense of the human experience, and reveals to me the things my heart treasures most. Many different kinds of people have come and gone in my life, each inspiring me in a unique way, and I love capturing the memories and romanticising the experience through song. God has blessed me with a voice, an ear, and an intuition for music, and I've always known deep down that I was meant to pursue it for the rest of my life, no matter what.
What type of music do I listen to?
- pop ( Labrinth, Post Malone, Doja Cat, Rihanna, Labrinth, SZA, Lana Del Rey, Miley Cyrus, The Kid LAROI, Adele, )
- indie alternative ( Tame Impala, The 1975, Arctic monkeys, Death Cab for Cutie, Vampire Weekend, Her's, Grizzly Bear, The Head and the Heart, Lawrence Arabia, Matchbox Twenty, Springtime Carnivore, Foster the People, Rex Orange County, Still Woozy, The Strokes, Cage the Elephant, The Symposium, Cigarettes after Sex, Hotel Ugly, Two Feet, AURORA)
- alternative R&B/ Soul ( SZA, Frank Ocean, The Weeknd, Tierra Whack, Daniel Caesar, )
-80s ( Mötley Crüe, Van Halen, AC/DC, Billy Joel, Queen, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, The Clash, Eagles, Guns N' Roses, Blondie, Duran Duran, Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, )
-70s- Gerry Rafferty, Electric Light Orchestra, ABBA, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, Bee Gees, Elton John, The Temptations, Dolly Parton, Player, Journey )
-60s- Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sam Cooke, Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, Aretha Franklin, The Beach Boys, Sam and Dave, The Rolling Stones, Bobby Darin, The Righteous Brothers, Paul Anka)
-Dance/Electronic- Daft Punk, Flume, RL Grime, Hippie Sabotage, WHIPPED CREAM, Pretty Lights, ODESZA
- Hip Hop/ Rap: J. Cole, Tupac, Biggie, Eminem, Future, Ice Cube, 50 cent, 21 Savage, Drake, Kendrick, Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Kid Kudi, A$AP Rocky, Mac Miller, Kanye, Lil Yachty, Juicy J, Akon,Tee Grizzley, Russ, Dr. Dre, A$AP Ferg, Gucci Mane, Ugly god, Juice WRLD, Tyler the Creator, Trippie Red, $uicide Boy$
- Americana/Folk ( Bob Dylan, The Lumineers,)
Who are some of my musical inspirations?
Tame Impala ( Arrangement, style, instrumentation, layering, sound )
Kid Kudi ( rhythm, groove )
Labrinth ( Song structure Diversity
SZA ( Vocal style)
The Weekend ( Production)
Lana Del Rey ( Lyricism, World-Building)
How do I make music from home?
faith story
I gave my life to Jesus when I was 4 years old... but really, God came and found me. I don't have one of those stories where part of my life I didn't know God, and then one day I was saved and my whole life changed. The Lord chose to reveal Himself to me at a young age so I would know Him… because from the beginning of time, He has always known me. But as a young girl who hadn’t read much of her Bible yet, I lacked knowledge in who God really was, and instead of letting Him define me, I was trying to define Him. My conscience was weak and immature, and by that I mean my conscience was over-sensitive and hyper aware of all of my sins, and I started making up things that weren’t even considered sin in the Bible. My understanding of God was very legalistic instead of faith driven, and I relied on my own strength and power to save me. I wrestled with an overactive mind and tried to sort out my thoughts and sin on my own, instead of resting in what Jesus had already accomplished for me in His life and death. Jesus already lived the perfect life that I couldn’t live, and atoned for every sin I would ever commit when He sacrificed Himself on the cross and paid the debt I owed. I was so anxiety ridden because I lived like God's love and saving grace was something I COULD have, something I had to earn, rather than something I already had, something that was a free gift. I clung onto the words of Psalm 3 and prayed every night that God would take away my anxiety and free me from the torment I felt in my head. I wanted God to save me from the world rather than have Him walk with me through it.Living like I had to make myself right with God wasn’t sustainable because it’s unattainable apart from knowing who Christ truly is. If I had continued to read my Bible, I would have gained the knowledge and truth about my salvation, and my soul would have found peace and rest in knowing that I could give my sin to God instead of trying to deal with it on my own. My awareness of my sin was tormenting, and as it began to build up and fester inside of me, I decided I didn’t want to be aware of it anymore. How does one stop being aware of their sin? By giving into it enough times that your conscience becomes seared and desensitized to it. Our conscience is like a window… It helps us acknowledge and see the light, or understand morals in relation to what we deem as our highest power that represents purity and holiness. But when you live in constant sin, the world becomes dark and therefore your conscience becomes inactive… the window becomes useless and ineffective. Near the end of highschool and all throughout college, I gave into my sin and started partying, drinking, abusing drugs, and sleeping around. My plan to escape the torment worked for a while, it really did. I was surrounded by darkness and drenched in so much sin, that there was no light to convict my soul. It’s like when you’re at a party… It's all fun and games until the cops show up and expose all the evil ( or illegal) things that were going on behind closed doors. I wanted to be as far away from God as possible so that I could continue paving my own selfish path, and seeking worldly pleasure without being held accountable. But of course, this way of living did not satisfy me for long. Eventually, my heart was broken, the drugs stopped working like they used to, and I was left empty, broken, and lost. The world can only offer cheap, short-term pleasure and you don’t have to be a christian to know that nothing lasts forever. By the grace of God, He didn’t leave me to my own devices… He came and rescued me from the darkness and from the mess I’d made for myself. No matter how far into the darkness I ran… my Father of light always came back for me, He goes back for His lost sheep. He took away the life I thought I wanted… he took me away from my toxic friend group, from the boy I thought was the love of my life ( who really just perpetuated my addictions), and from the drugs I thought were my cheat code to life. He saved me from myself. Since graduating college, it’s been a slow process of healing my conscience and bringing it back into alignment with God’s standards. I still struggle with wanting to do things my own way instead of surrendering my life and my soul to Christ. I’ve fallen back into my sins many times over, but because of God’s endless mercy and love for His children, He has never, and will never give up on me. I’m thankful that God has brought me to a place of hopelessness… where I've had no friends, no significant other, no stable or fulfilling job, because it’s all so that my stubborn ass would run back to Him… Who is the only one who can truly satisfy my soul perfectly, and completely. He took away what I wanted, so I could gain what I needed. I went searching for love and acceptance through people, who only disappointed me. I went searching for pleasure through drugs, which only lasted a short-time and scrambled my brain. I went searching for purpose through writing/ music, but always hit a dead end with my thoughts because I was left in overwhelming confusion over how to organize them. As I speak now in the present moment, I’m in a season of filling my mind with God Word, and soaking in the Truth. It’s becoming clear to me that I will never find anything worth any value, and I won’t create any kind of meaningful music until I surrender all of it to Christ… even my dreams of being a singer. Finding rest and peace in the Truth of what Christ has done for me is the only way the pressure will be taken off, and my new life can begin. Making music won’t be overwhelming and frustrating when I do it for the glory of Christ, instead of for the purpose of feeding my own ego. I will be able to share the love of Jesus with others and be a true light in this world once I walk in humility instead of using the Word of God to prove a point in an argument. There was never anything special about me that made God choose to lay down His life for me… I’m special BECAUSE the Lord has freed me from my bondage to sin, and will preserve my soul until the end.
music story
Singing is where it all started. From the beginning of when I can remember I was always singing. I used to put on concerts in the living room with those plastic echo microphones when I was little. My mom and dad bought me an actual microphone that amplified through a little speaker, and hearing my voice projecting through the room like that was incredible. I had wii sing-it Disney and would sing along to the Jonas brothers, the High school music soundtrack, Aly and Aj, Hannah Montana etc. I would sing non- stop all day and it would really annoy my brothers sometimes but my family always made it known to me that I had a gift. I told everyone that I was going to be a famous singer one day, and in the 5th grade yearbook, I got made fun of for saying that what I wanted to be when I grew up was a “star on disney channel”. I was unashamed of my wild ambitions at that age. I did piano recitals and voice recitals at the house and was also a part of a couple of church plays in elementary school.
Throughout middle school I was a part of choir and joined a Denver choir called 303 where I sang soprano, although I wanted to be an alto, and we sang with the Denver symphony in 2013. I took a trip to California with my best friend for two weeks over the summer going into sophomore year of highschool, and that’s when I knew I’d move out here one day. I fell in love with the whole vibe, and I guess I was still clinging on to the idea that this is the place where dreams come true. When I got back from that trip, I stopped caring about school and all I wanted to focus on was music. In the fall, I joined the worship team at Red Rocks Church and sang harmony with the band. That was my first time singing on a big stage with an ear piece and everything and I really enjoyed it. I was kind of obsessed with harmonies, and there’s a cool story behind how I got into it. My mom could always sing the low and high harmonies to songs in real time and I asked her one day in 7th grade how to sing them. My mom always puts things very bluntly, so she basically told me that you can’t really teach harmony, you just have to have an ear for it. So I prayed to God asking that He would teach me. I kid you not, about a week later, I was starting to find the high harmonies and eventually the lows and everything else in between. It was cool to see how God used that gift to bring glory to Him in worship.
I was 15 when I started writing songs and playing guitar. I only knew the basic chords… G, A, D, F, Em, Am, so I was writing songs both on the guitar and piano at the time. I’d grown up playing piano and had also learned some music theory from one of the lead vocalists in the worship band, which I think helped build a foundation for my songwriting and composition skills. I did online school second semester of sophomore year to make an album. I recorded it on some basic recording equipment I got for Christmas, and burned the songs onto CD’s. I titled the album “City of Angels” and it was a mix between original songs and covers. I'm pretty sure I was just recording one track with both my vocals and acoustic guitar because I knew nothing about producing. I also started doing open mic nights around town where I’d play guitar and sing my own songs, along with covers. I entered a talent competition both my sophomore and junior year of high school and made it into the top 5 both years, where I got to fly out to Hollywood the second year and perform again in competition. At some point, I started to care more about fitting in with everyone at school than I was about following my dreams. While doing online school at home, I started missing all my friends and felt like I was missing out on the “highschool experience”. I had put all this pressure on myself to become this big pop star by 17, and it made it stop being fun and exciting when things didn’t happen as fast as I had anticipated. It all seemed impossible and kind of hopeless, but trying to fit in with people… well that’s easy because everyone is predictable.
I started getting drunk to help me fit in, and tried to go to all the cool parties. Talking to boys was exciting and being rebellious for the first time was giving me a high that just made me crave more until I’d exhausted the party life. I didn’t want to do it the hard way… I didn’t have the patience to wait out for the greater reward that could have come out of me continuing to pursue my music career with resilience. Instead, I chose the easy, comfortable path, the cheap way to get instant gratification. I was using my own human logic rather than trusting in God’s will and sovereignty over my life. I didn’t really write any songs, or sing that much the rest of highschool besides the singing competitions. I was actually embarrassed to tell people my singing dreams because people had made me feel naive and stupid about it. I just hid who I really was because people seemed to like the fun, crazy, impulsive, “party Mady”. It felt nice to be accepted. Growing up as a christian, and also having a dream to be a singer after the stage of life where it's acceptable to have those kinds of dreams… you kind of feel like an outcast. Not because anyone is particularly mean to you or anything, but because you know that you think differently than other people. Like you’re orbiting around two different centers of gravity and have a completely different view on life.
Freshman year of college, I met someone who changed my life forever. We’ll call him drummer boy. God brought the drummer boy to my floor… he lived 3 doors down from me in the dorms. He was my best friend because he understood me in a way no one else could and he brought out something in me that I loved. My admiration for this boy was the most intense, pure, child-like kind. I know we were only 19 but I truly loved everything about this boy. I adored every little quirky thing about him that made him who he was and I was going to fight to the end for us. I believed with my whole heart that we were meant for each other. It was movie screen love. He got me back into songwriting again. He was the bolt of electricity my heart needed to kickstart it back into writing mode. I started writing on my guitar just for fun in my dorm on the rare chance that I was by myself. Sophomore year I lived in a house with 5 girls and I was living out all the memories and stories I would later write about. The town of Boulder ( the college town) has so many rich memories embedded in its streets and tucked away in the corners of its houses and neighborhoods… I could write endless songs about my experiences there and the people that were a part of my life.
It wasn’t until junior year, after I’d had a falling out with my friend group and drummer boy, that I started taking songwriting more seriously. I lived in an apartment alone, so I had the space to create and also the broken heart to be inspired. There was this house full of musicians which I called “the band house” who lived right down the street from me and I started hanging out with them. They had a full band practice setup in the living room and also a recording booth/ studio in the basement. I worked with the producer of the house and that was my first time ever recording in a studio and hearing my voice a part of a full production song. I wrote a couple songs with the band including “Later Days” which we wrote in a day about COVID and how we felt being locked up. You can only hear that song on Soundcloud but it's a really catchy, vibey song. I played my first 2 hour show with them as a music collective group where we each had our own sets with different styles. I sang a few originals on my guitar and then sang a couple of the hooks for the boys in their rap songs. I don’t remember getting paid, but we got free drinks. I did a couple open mic nights in Boulder to get used to performing again also.
By senior year, I had a list of songs that I wanted to turn into an album, and planned on recording it with the producer at the band house. But we were butting heads and our visions weren't aligning. At the end of the day, if he couldn’t give me what I wanted, I was going to take matters into my own hands and find someone that could ( that person ended up being me).
I went to guitar center and asked them what I needed in order to record music from home. I bought a mic, preamp, and Logic for my computer and recorded all the parts myself. It was mainly an acoustic album with just guitar, electric guitar, and maybe some piano. I found someone who could mix and master the tracks to a standard that I had nothing to compare to. It was definitely not industry level engineering, but as it was my first attempt at a project like this, to me it sounded better than anything I had made before. I ended up naming the album “I Won’t Apologize for My Feelings” because I was unashamed of my love for drummer boy and the stories that made up my life in Boulder. I figured out how to distribute music on streaming platforms, and released the album about a week after graduating from college in the spring of 2021.
I moved to LA about two or three weeks after graduating because I was ready to give the singing dream another chance. I started singing on the Venice boardwalk with my guitar and fell in love with the idea of singing on a big stage all over again. I’d haul my big speaker, mic, amp, guitar, and portable charger out there and sing for the homeless people and the tourists. I also made a connection with someone in the industry who invited me to Warner Bros Chapel studio in LA after hearing my music and voice. I came in with a few new songs I’d been working on and recorded the guitar parts and harmonies. I'd been experimenting with electric guitar layering on my loop pedal more and showcased what I could do as a one man band, and they were impressed and loved my voice. Almost immediately, they were interested in signing me on to their record label. There was all this talk of big plans of how they were going to mold me into this artist and introduce me into the industry. They wanted my demographic to be pre-teens and I had to start writing less dark songs. It was all business talk and nobody was focusing on the actual music side of things or what my sound was going to be. I had to make the hard decision to walk away from the opportunity because I had a bad feeling in my gut. They recommended me to another producer who had more experience working with my style of music, but there was a disconnect there also. None of these producers I had worked with could understand my vision and bring it to life. This is what ultimately led me into taking an online sound engineering program once I moved back home to Colorado when I was 23. I gained extensive knowledge in production, mixing, and mastering which I then applied to creating my second album.
If nobody could give me what I was looking for, I would just have to do it myself. I wanted to learn the whole process from start to finish so that I could have the freedom to make my songs exactly how I wanted them. There has only ever been one producer who I handed my stems off to who gave me back a master that I was shockingly in love with. It was just by God’s provision that he mixed and produced it in a way that I had always envisioned but was apparently never able to communicate. It’s like I was waiting to have someone show me what I’ve been hearing in my head but wasn’t able to translate. After I finished the 8-month music program, I went on to make the album “LA DAZE”, composed of 10 songs I wrote while living in LA. I wrote, sang, played, recorded, composed, arranged, mixed, mastered, and produced every part of the album and I put everything I had into making it the best it could be. I focused on learning how to produce drums, bass, synths etc. while also learning how to mix all the layered electric guitar parts that created these really cool polyphonic textures. When I was finished and listened back through my songs that I’d spent hundreds of hours on, I had tears in my eyes because I couldn’t believe God had brought us to that moment where we had finally created something exactly the way I wanted it to turn out. I could see so much progress that had been made since my first album, "City of Angels". My music had come to fruition in a way I had only dreamed of, and I released "LA DAZE" on all streaming platforms in January 2024.
By April of 2024, I moved back out to California and interned at a recording studio in Santa Monica for a few months. I met the owner of the studio at a "Women in Music" conference I attended to get connected in the industry again. My job at the studio was to help setup the mic's in the performance room, make coffee, and go on food runs. I was able to sit in the control room and observe the engineering process when it came to tracking and mixing. After a while, I realized I'm not meant to be behind the computer, I'm meant to be behind the mic. An old friend from the band in Boulder helped remind me of that.
I’ve released 3 more singles since the “LA DAZE” album that take on a different style then what i’ve previously done. Instead of it being an electric guitar/ synth orchestra like Tame Impala, it’s morphed into records that sound more like “The Weeknd”, with emphasis on the kick and bass driving the rhythm. I have more songs in the works that I plan to keep releasing, and I’m excited to see the quality of my music continue to get better. It’s all about consistency, practice, and never giving up on yourself. My music has been an up and down journey, but it’s all led me to where I’m at now with an established sound, knowledge in sound engineering, and endless material to write about. When I was 15/16, I may have taken the easy route and “given up” on my pursuit of making my dreams come true… but I don’t regret it because I gained so much life experience that inspired me to write all the songs that I have so far. God has a purpose for everything, and what have seemed like obstacles in my way… He has turned into doorways that keep getting me closer to the dream I've had since I was a little girl… being on stage with the microphone in my hand.
Education
I graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2021 with a Bachelor's degree in English/Humanities and a minor in Creative Writing.
In 2023 I completed an 8-month extensive mixing, mastering, and production program called The Reverse Engineer ( TRE) through mastering.com