Maddie Moon is an incredible singer and songwriter born in Merida, Venezuela in the late 90’s. She grew up in a very musical family, as they used to play a lot of traditional music in holidays and birthday parties, so she developed the love for the music playing since she was born, basically. At the age of 13, her father gave her his guitar, then she took it home and began to learn how to play her favorite songs from Aerosmith, Guns n’ Roses and many more bands that her dad used to listen to and love. At 16 years old, she got admitted and studied in a music school for two years, after realizing that piano was definitely her instrument.

 It was also there that she met her husband (and current co-producer/mix engineer) who is her partner in this wonderful journey . Due to the economic situation in Venezuela and with the help of her wonderful mother, she had to emigrate to Spain late in 2018, where she worked hard with her husband to help their family in Venezuela and look for a better future.

 At the end of 2020, the pop artist Melanie Martinez hosted a cover competition, and that was my main motivation to start writing my own music. From that point I started focusing on learning music production, and developing my skills on guitar/piano. During the year 2021, I have been focused on writing my own music, but beside the many obstacles, people who told me that I would never make it, and economic limits, I keep fighting and learning every day to be the artist and person that she  wants to become.

In her recent EP “a place of emotional humans” she expressed her undying love for music.

Watch “a place emotional humans” on youtube:

 

Hi there, welcome to Honkmagazine. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Maddie Moon –  Music has always been a huge part of my life and becoming a well established artist has been one of my biggest dreams. Since my arrival to Spain, I have worked in many things such as model, make-up artist, graphic designer and even as an epoxy resin artist, and although I had luck in every job, I was suffering a lot from panic attacks, caused by depression and anxiety. One night while I was sleeping, I had a dream about being in the middle of a hall where there were so many well-dressed people, including me. I thought it was an event like any else but the screen was clearly showing little snippets of me being in interviews and shows. From that day I started to dream very often with anything related to music, and realized that it was a message from God that was telling me that it was time already to start developing myself as a music artist. Finally taking that decision and being plenty connected with God, helped me to overcome all my mental health issues without any medication.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?

Maddie Moon –  One of the most interesting things that have happened to me since I started was when I had my first original idea: I was outside taking a walk, and after watching some kids playing in the park, I had many memories from my childhood (that I consider the best time of my life). I took my notebook which is always with me, and started writing a poem about being a kid and enjoying life without any worries. Immediately I had these very clear sound ideas with synths and effects. When I came back home, I sat down and started creating the song, which was my first self-produced song ever.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Maddie Moon – One of the funniest mistakes I’ve made was when we were shooting the music video for my song ‘begging for love’. The lack of preparation we had, and deciding to do the things at the last moment led us to a chain of unfortunate events that day: First of all we decided to shoot in a park near my city. We brought everything we needed to shoot the video, and while we were planning the shots, I started to hit the crash from the mini-drum set we had, and suddenly heard a weird sound in the grass. After searching I realized that it was a snake, maybe intrigued by the horrible crash sound, so we had to run in case she wanted to eat us (lol). Later that day while we were shooting my takes, I was really nervous and out of character, and couldn’t make the shots look interesting. Suddenly my husband told me to think about myself being walked by ants and insects, and I started to laugh very hard and moved with more energy, making the shoot look as they were meant to be. Basically what I learned about this day was that is always important to carefully check the location where you will be working at, as you never know what kind of dangers you can encounter, and also to have a solid plan weeks before the shooting so you and your team are more tuned in about the general idea of the video, and last but not least, that is always a good idea to imagine yourself being walked by ants so you get the best of your mood during the shootings. 😉

 What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

Maddie Moon – I’m really excited and happy for what next year will bring to my music and projects! Right now I’m waiting impatiently about the release of my EP ‘a place for emotional humans’, out on Jan 7th, we are working in the script for the next music videos and overall planning the concept of my next debut album, that will be released hopefully later next year, and will have more interesting elements for sure. On the other hand, I’m now developing my online store where I will be offering merch, vinyls and more interesting stuff to my fans!

Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with? What was that like? Do you have any stories?

Maddie Moon –  As I introduced myself into the music world, I was able to reconnect with an old friend of mine. He is a musician as well because his dad is a professional sax player and music professor. One day, when I was composing ‘empatía’ from my upcoming EP, I posted on Facebook looking for people who could play a saxo line for the song. Right after I got a message which leaded me to connect with Prof. Freddy Waldrof, who was able to record and give life to what I had visualized for the song, and even adding a few more improvised lines that fitted into the track perfectly, giving it a perfect touch. This gave me such joy, to feel that even when I’m starting I’m already able to work with such a professional musician, and is also gratifying to know that he loved the song when it was finished. I can’t wait to keep working with him and equally professional people in the upcoming projects!

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Maddie Moon –  When I am songwriting and I feel exhausted or anxious, I choose to take a couple of minutes or even an hour of rest. Going for a walk, playing inspiring videogames, eating something or playing with my cat. It is very important to know how to recognize when we need to stop and take a break. It often happens to me that when I feel the need to rest and I don’t, I end up having panic attacks or stressing out to the point that I don’t want to make music for days and even having the thought to stop making music at all. ‘Take your time’, as I repeat myself, the key for a good song is not to overthink about it in my opinion. It needs to flow without any stress! On the other hand, ‘less is more’. If the song is ready and you feel it doesn’t fit, and if you feel that it needs more fixing over and over again, then you probably just have to let it go and move on with another fresh idea while clearing your mind. Spending a couple of days without listening to the song you are working on, can also help to bring you more ideas when going back to it.

You have been blessed with success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?

Maddie Moon –  Everything is possible if we go hand in hand with God, and have discipline to forge a solid knowledge base. No matter what we have, where we are from or what our dreams are, we are capable of achieving everything we declare with our words. The key is to always declare positive things and despite frustration, never let the fact of being imperfect discourage us. If you fall, cry, unburden yourself, then clean your knees and get up. Being depressed one day is fine, but two is too much and maybe there is someone in the world who needs your voice and your music to move on, so never distrust your ability to make things happen, if failure doesn’t happen then we are unable to learn from them and move on!

Can you share with our readers any self-care routines, practices, or treatments that you do to help your body, mind, or heart to thrive? Kindly share a story or an example for each.

Maddie Moon –   

1. Connect with God every morning: taking my time to connect to God is one of the most important things in my morning routine. Doing a small prayer to give thanks for all the things I have and don’t have, entrusting my day to him.
2. Taking a walk: I love taking a walk where I enjoy and breathe the presence of nature, feeling fully charged with positive energy after walking for more than 30 minutes.
3. Playing the piano: when I feel overwhelmed, I tend to sit down on my upright piano and just play whatever I have in mind. After a couple of minutes playing I feel relieved of all negative thoughts and energies.
4. Doing Yoga: working out and doing yoga after working, makes me renew energies and my body feels happy and untensioned, as I mostly work sitting and it helps me to overcome muscular pain.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

Maddie Moon –  

1. It won’t happen overnight. Being anxious and impatient myself makes it difficult for me to advise this one, but definitely after working to fix that this year, I can say that patience is key. As we say in our country ‘to run you have to start by crawling’.
2. Trust in yourself and your given talent. I judge myself a lot. Before finishing the EP I totally hated my voice and almost all the tracks, I felt uncomfortable with it mostly because of what people used to tell me about it when I was younger. Now I realize that everyone has it’s own voice and talent, and it’s on you to start practicing and developing it. This EP changed my perception of myself and what I’m capable of, giving me that boost of confidence I needed to keep working on new exciting projects. 
3. Trust your team My co-producer (husband) is a crazy perfectionist and sometimes we fight over little things that he advised me to change, and that I find impossible to change. In the end I always end up doing what he advises me to do and it turns out to be the best decision. So keep in mind any external advice when you are working on your music.
4. Let things go. Let’s be honest, not all the songs we write are specially good. When we are starting we always stick to the first songs as if we were not capable of creating new ones. It’s all about seeing these ideas as small improvements to achieve better compositions and ideas in the future. Fail and learn. It is better to take your time and produce/release the best ideas you can make in a year than force yourself to release everything and having quantity over quality in your catalog. 
5. Study non-stop. Studying and learning new things is key to get the best version of yourself. It saves you time, energy and get the best out of your ideas. Focus on learning music theory and your tools available from A to Z can help you to overcome creative blocks and get the best out of your time in the studio.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Maddie Moon –  ‘’Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 This is the bible passage that my mother wrote on the blackboard in my studio when I was going through depression during 2020. Repeating this phrase throughout my learning time helped me not to get discouraged and give up, and so far I believe I have been brave and strong enough to overcome all these problems!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Maddie Moon –  God and my family are my main support and I am grateful for that every day of my life, but I think that, especially without the help of my husband and my mother, I could not have done all this. My husband has been my mentor, my guide and my unconditional supporter from day one. Every time I wanted to give up, he was there to pick me up, he has believed in me from the very beginning. Many times I would come from a long day in the studio to our room crying and saying that I could never make the music I wanted and that it was useless to keep trying hard, and he would encourage me and make me feel there was a hope for something. On the other hand my mother has been my spiritual guide, always praying with me and for me, giving me the strength I needed to move forward, being as well a big part of the production of the videos and press photos. Going from transportation to being a chef.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Maddie Moon –  I want to create a foundation to help artists in development. A center to which people from all over the world and of any musical genre can assist. Talented people who want to get ahead in music but unfortunately do not have the funds to do so, I would love to offer them from professional help to psychological and spiritual help. Hopefully someday I will achieve that dream by contributing a grain of sand to the artistic medium. This idea was born in my mind some time ago, while I was thinking about how unfair the industry sometimes is with artists starting off. In my case, for example, I had no clue about where to start, if it wasn’t for my husband (who has been working in the industry for quite a long time) I would be lost in an industry with plenty of scams and difficulties to get started. I think amateur artists need more support even though I admit that nowadays it is easier to get your music heard if you work hard on the quality and release/promotion strategy! 

 We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might see this. 🙂

Maddie Moon –  I admire many wonderful people in the industry, across many genres as well, but if I need to choose someone to meet first of all would be Dayglow. He has been a massive influence to my music and helped me to go through all my hard times in the past year. Maybe also we can have a chat to release my next album with his record label, who knows haha 😉 On the other hand I would say Robert Smith, as The Cure is a band that has touched my heart for a very long time and it would be wonderful to meet him someday and be able to talk about music! And to finally get to meet Steven Taylor would be a huge dream, as he represents a lot of my childhood and his vocal technique still blows me away these days! Also my mom would definitely attend this meeting for sure haha 🙂 

How can our readers follow you online?

Maddie Moon – You can follow me on Instagram as @maddieemoon. 

 My music is on all digital platforms, on Spotify as Maddie Moon.