Persistence Is the Creative Advantage (MADiSON ViOLETT)
Post-hardcore artist MADiSON ViOLETT discusses how she was able to drop seven singles in a year without burning out. We also talk about her latest release, “Bleed for Me,” and how she landed Kellin Quinn from Sleeping with Sirens as a featured artist.
Key Takeaways
Persistence is the foundation of Madison’s creative momentum. Whether she’s releasing singles, dealing with writer’s block, or building her audience, she keeps coming back to the idea of staying consistent and remembering why she started.
Artists today have to think beyond just releasing songs. Madison talks about the reality of also creating short-form content, showing personality, sharing live clips, and giving people a reason to connect with you beyond the music.
Creative blocks are part of the process, not a sign to stop. Madison’s approach is to keep writing, even when it feels bad at first, then refine it later instead of waiting for the perfect idea.
Going solo gave Madison more creative freedom, but also more responsibility. After leaving her band, she had to take on more of the decisions, promotion, and direction herself.
Taking the shot matters. Madison landed Kellin Quinn from Sleeping With Sirens on “Bleed for Me” by simply reaching out, proving that sometimes the biggest opportunities come from asking, even when it feels like a long shot.
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Why This Matters
Madison’s story is a good reminder that momentum usually comes from doing the unglamorous parts consistently. Releasing music, making content, booking shows, building an audience, and staying visible all sound exciting from the outside, but they require a lot of repetition behind the scenes.
What stands out is that she is not treating her music like one big perfect reveal. She is building in public, refining her sound with each release, and learning how to bring people along through personality, live clips, visuals, and community.
And sometimes the opportunity is closer than it seems. Reaching out to Kellin Quinn could have easily gone nowhere, but she took the shot anyway. That mindset is usually where the real growth starts.
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Transcript:
Mike: Hey, Madison, how’s it going?
Madison: Hi, I’m doing good. How about you?
Mike: I’m doing fantastic. Thank you so much for asking, and I really appreciate you being on the show.
It’s so exciting because I really liked your newest single that just dropped, and we’re definitely going to talk a lot more about that. But I do like to start with a general question.
One of the things that I’ve noticed is that you release, not even just release, I’ll say you’ve been doing a lot in your career, and you just started in 2025. From this recording, about a year or so ago, maybe one to two years ago at this point in time, you’ve done so much.
The word that came to my mind was speed and how quickly you were able to do these things. So I just want to ask you what that means to you, the speed of what you’re doing with your career already, as well as the hustle and the drive behind it.
Madison: Yeah. So 100%, being an artist in general, especially in today’s day and age with social media, attention spans are everywhere. You kind of have to put yourself out there.
What’s really important if you’re going to be putting your art out there and you want your art to be successful is persistence.
I think it’s really important for me to just keep the hustle, keep the drive, and not lose sight of my goals. That’s why I’m really consistent with my work. I mean, it’s not easy at all. It is not easy.
Especially as an artist who creates substantial art, it’s very easy to get caught in ruts with creative blocks and writer’s block. I have experienced that before, and it’s not very fun.
But my main thing is persistence, keeping my eyes on the prize. What did I start this all for? I keep reminding myself of that, and just keep on pushing, keep putting myself out there, and trying to get as many eyes as possible.
All of this boils down to my love of creating music and creating art, and how I want to share that with the world. So you just have to keep on going and keep the ball rolling.
Mike: When you do get writer’s block, what do you normally do in that situation? Do you go and take a walk? Do you just push through it?
Some people will say, “I’m just going to keep writing things down, even if it’s the worst ideas imaginable. I’m just going to try to push through it.” Other people are going to take a step away and maybe distract themselves, do some other things, and revisit it.
How do you usually handle writer’s block?
Madison: Mainly for me, writer’s block typically comes after a long bout of creativity. Sometimes it just feels like you’ve drained all of your creative power out.
But what really helps me is, like you said, just writing, no matter how crappy it is. If you’re not happy with it, just keep on going.
I actually saw this one thing online, and they said, words are bad words. Just put them out there. You can refine them later.
That also applies to creative writing, because I also do a little bit of creative writing here and there in addition to lyricism. You just have to keep doing it. It hurts. It’s hard. But just putting it down, writing it out, and keeping your eyes on the prize has been really helpful for me.
Writer’s block is debilitating. It can last for a really long time. Musically, away from lyrics, I also listen to a lot of songs and artists that inspire me.
Like, “Oh, this cool guitar riff in this one song that I really like, I’m going to figure out something that inspires me based off of that.” Or, “Oh, this live show of this one artist. I want to be up there on that stage doing that same thing.”
So it’s drawing inspiration from different corners of your mind and reminding yourself, “Hey, what did I start this for?” Kind of like that.
Mike: I like the fact that you mentioned purpose and asking, “What am I doing this for?” Sometimes that can give you the drive in itself. This is my purpose, this is my reason, this is why I’m doing this.
Without that, where is that drive going to come from if you are not reminding yourself of the purpose of why you want to do this to begin with? So I really appreciate that you mentioned that.
I also appreciate the fact that you mentioned there is no such thing as a bad word as far as writing things down. Because that’s how everybody creates, right? You create something and its first iteration is most likely going to be garbage, or at least okay. Then you go back and refine it.
Sometimes you strike gold, but many times you don’t, and that’s okay. That’s the whole point, right? You go back to it and refine it and so forth.
Are you the type of songwriter that will write down an idea, and then come back to it later once you’re done? Or are you a completionist, where if you start writing a song, it’s going to get finished in that one run?
Madison: That actually depends.
A lot of times, if I’m inspired by something, I always have my Notes app ready to go, and I just jot things down. I sit on it for a couple days, but if I’m really feeling like I have to get this done, I really want to start working on this, I flesh it out instantly.
It honestly depends on the project. There’s no method for me. Some of my best songs came to me instantly. Some of them took months. Some of them that did take months, I wasn’t fully happy with.
So it really depends on my headspace and where I want the project to go, because I don’t want to force anything. Forcing things kind of makes it worse.
That’s kind of my method, honestly. Whenever it comes to me, it comes to me, and I let it unfold naturally.
Mike: How long have you been songwriting for?
Madison: I’ve been doing music in general since I was like three or four, but I didn’t really start seriously writing until I was like 11 or 12.
I mean, I wrote stupid little songs when I was seven, but I think all of us did. I didn’t really start planning out, “Hey, I want an album, I want an EP,” until I was around 11 or 12.
In the beginning, I was actually really into singer-songwriter stuff, and then I kind of went into the metal path as my artist identity developed.
Mike: Were you listening to that kind of music around that time as well when you were transforming? Was that the kind of music that you really liked, or did you like different types of music when you were younger?
Madison: Singer-songwriter or metal?
Mike: Both.
Madison: When I was younger, I was exposed to a lot of different types of music. None of my family are musicians, honestly. I think one cousin is a musician.
But my parents made a point to expose me to all these different types of music and all these different types of genres. My mom actually was a huge hardcore punk fan in high school in the 2000s. She really likes Rancid. That’s one of her favorite bands. So we went to see them open for Green Day.
Mike: Nice.
Madison: Ivy. Let’s see, what are some other ones? Kind of like the ska bands of the ’90s. It was really cool because I grew up with a lot of alternative genres.
Also my dad, I grew up with a lot of nu metal too. He really liked nu metal. One of my earliest memories in elementary school is that he used to drive us every single day to school with a new album.
I remember one day listening to Linkin Park. I think it was Meteora. He played the album in the car, and I was like, “Oh my God, this is so good.”
Mike: That’s one of my favorite albums.
Madison: It’s so good. I have a poster right here, but you can’t see it.
Mike: Oh, hell yeah.
Madison: I’ve been on a kick lately. I’ve been streaming the heck out of their stuff.
When I first started writing music, I was leaning toward a bedroom pop, singer-songwriter kind of thing. Even though I was exposed to all those different genres, I wasn’t fully metal and alternative like I was after. I really got into it when I went to my music studio, which I will get into later.
A lot of my early writing inspirations were Clairo, if you know her. I listened to a lot of Joji. He used to be a YouTuber, and then he started doing this indie thing.
Mike: It could be coffee kind of thing, very...
Madison: Very artsy.
Let’s see, what are some other artists? Wallows I also really liked. What’s her name? Oh, Beach Bunny was one of my favorite bands that kind of got me. They’re indie also, but they were more alternative than the other things I was listening to at the time.
Then there’s one more that I was just about to say, and I’m forgetting. Yeah. Kind of bands in those...
Oh yeah, MXM, I don’t know. She’s also an indie artist. But that was the stuff that inspired me as a writer when I was younger. Honestly, I feel like a lot of that stuff was trending on TikTok at that time, so that was another factor.
Then I started getting into heavier genres when I was like, “Hey, I want to learn how to play guitar.” I picked up guitar when I was like 9 or 10 because I wanted to start learning how to write my own singer-songwriter kind of stuff.
But my music studio was very rock affiliated. There was this program called Jam Corps, where a bunch of random students would come together and play songs. I’d say 90% of the time they were rock songs, metal songs.
That direct exposure helped me get into the genre itself and be like, “Wait, I remember listening to this stuff as a little kid. I remember being exposed to this kind of stuff. I remember listening to Meteora in the car with my dad, Floyd, and all that.”
So I started exploring it on my own, and that was really when I was like, “Wow, I really like this genre.”
I started off with a lot of pop punk, ’90s, 2000s. I was really into Blink-182 and Green Day. Then as I explored those alternative genres, I got into a lot of post-hardcore.
Mike: Post-hardcore.
Madison: A lot of them were affiliated with post-hardcore. Let’s see, Pierce the Veil, Sleeping With Sirens, 100%, Hawthorne Heights, all those bands. I loved that. I got heavier and heavier and heavier.
Then from post-hardcore, I got into a lot of modern metalcore. One of my favorite bands of all time is Spiritbox, and I have seen them four or five times. I don’t know.
I can’t go without saying that Evanescence, Amy Lee, is 100% one of the reasons why I’m still doing this today. Also Hayley Williams from Paramore, huge inspiration. Kellin Quinn from Sleeping With Sirens, which I will get into later, is one of the reasons I’m still singing.
That’s kind of a rundown of how I got to where I am generically. I could go on, but I don’t want to because I will talk the whole time.
Mike: We can nerd out all day long about those kinds of bands. Those definitely are up my alley as well.
But you mentioned a music studio. So was that like a music program that you went to?
Madison: Yeah. It was like a music school after school. I first started learning guitar, and then I started getting...
Well, I’ve been doing vocal lessons since I was a little kid, since three. I think I started when I was three. Then I did a lot of dance music recitals, musical theater, a lot of that when I was little.
But this music studio was a flip from what I was used to because it was instruments and vocals. That got me directly into playing the heavier genres, or quote unquote “heavier.” Alternative, that’s a good word.
I started out like, “I want to learn how to play acoustic guitar.” Then I was like, “Wait a second, electric guitar is pretty cool too.” That’s really how it went.
Mike: So you found the type of music that you were really liking, and you were going to this music school, this music program, with your fellow classmates and learning how to play and so forth.
Then you eventually lead into fronting a pop punk band.
Madison: Yeah, so we actually all met through this music studio. It was through that program I talked about, Jam Corps, which was random students being put together to play music.
There was also this other program called Pro Band, where it was basically a permanent band. A bunch of little kids who wanted to get together, and then there’s a coach that you can pay for. He’s like your personal coach.
One of these bands needed a new vocalist because they were all around 11 or 12, hitting that spot in their lives where they couldn’t sing as well as they could before.
So I knew these kids through the studio, and they were like, “Hey Madison, you want to join?” That led to me becoming a permanent member of the band.
We started off solely as a cover band, learning how to play. Then we were like, “Hey, let’s start doing originals.” That led to us looking to do an EP. Then a producer spotted us, and we started really seriously being like, “Hey, we all have the same goal of wanting to give a good experience, wanting to go on tour, wanting to create music, and wanting to do the things we love the most, all together.”
We all had similar goals, and that led to us performing two to three times a week.
Mike: Wow.
Madison: It was very intense. I loved it, but it was very intense.
We were like, “We have to do this. We have to keep going, keep grinding.” Like what I talked about before, keeping your eyes on the prize.
I stayed with this band for years. I joined when I was 12. It was right when COVID hit. I think I was 12 when COVID hit? 12 or 13. I joined in 2019.
Then I stayed until mid-2024. Members came and left, and goals and visions changed. Things didn’t really work out for me. We all had different directions we were going.
This was still my love for music, and I was like, “I have to go.” The minute I decided to leave the band, it was like, “Right, I have to keep on going.”
Mike: It’s interesting because I’ve discovered that many artists and many bands, I’ll say bands specifically, go through three stages about their relationship with music and specifically with the music industry.
One is once you graduate high school, right around that timeframe, because that’s when people sometimes move because of college. They’re thinking about their careers post-high school, right? They’re thinking about these things.
Some are deciding whether they want to continue to pursue music or not. Or logistically, they now have to move across the country, and it’s a little bit more challenging to keep the band together. So there’s that.
Then there’s graduating college, because at that point in time, they might be moving again because of their job, or they’re also making life decisions. They might want to start a family, or whatever the case is. Again, life goals are changing at that point.
Then there’s one other time I notice, and that’s when you hit your 30s. Once you hit 30, it’s amazing. People are like, “Do I want to continue this or not?” It becomes the profound question.
Usually after that point, anybody that I know that is still doing it and is now past 30, they’re in it for life. They’re going to always continue to have music in their lives in some form or fashion.
So when you mention that right around graduating high school, everyone started to disperse a little bit, it makes a lot of sense.
Madison: Yeah. I 100% wanted to continue academics also during that time, when we were having different ideas and things were starting to change.
I wanted to 100% pursue academics alongside my music. I feel like that’s really important. I go to UCLA, and around that time was when I committed 100% to college. I left the band during my senior year of high school.
I feel like being educated is equally as important as my art. My education is also in the vein of my art. I’m doing a lot of pre-law and music industry type stuff right now.
That’s also very important to me, academics, and I feel like that was a little disagreement in the band. But yeah, I’m not really going to speak more on that.
Mike: Academics are important. I graduated with a degree that has nothing to do with the music industry or anything for that matter. But I was very grateful that I went through that experience because not only did it give me the honor of having a degree, but it also gave me the tools on how to learn and how to work with others at an adult level.
I’m very, very grateful for that, and I learned so much from that experience.
Everyone’s different on how they learn. Some people prefer academia and the classroom to learn. Some people cannot learn like that at all, and they have to be completely hands-on. That’s how they learn.
Some people are in the middle. I’m the kind of person that’s in the middle. I like to learn in the classroom, but I also like to go and try things out. I like to say I like to fail a lot because that’s how I learn.
I appreciate the fact that you wanted to continue your academics and continue to learn. Especially the fact that you’re doing pre-law as well as the music industry. Having that duality is going to be such a powerful tool for you.
Madison: Yeah.
Mike: So let’s talk about your solo project.
Now you’re off on your own, where before you had members of the band that helped out with promotion and all these different things. Now you’re on your own at this point in time.
Madison: Everything falls on you.
Mike: Everything falls on you. Can you talk about that more? Were there things that you learned the hard way starting off? Like, “Okay, yeah, I didn’t realize that I had to do this.” Was there anything like that that you had to get going?
Madison: 100%. It was the realization like, “Oh crap, everything falls on me.”
Right when I started the project, it was a rush of, “I have to do this, this, this, and this.” I had a list of things I needed to get done. Then they all stacked on top of each other because I didn’t have three other people to help me out with it.
Fortunately, I have very, very supportive parents who support me with whatever I want to do, and my parents helped me with that burden. A lot of the promotion, a lot of the booking, and yeah, I honestly couldn’t be where I am without their help. They practically did a lot of the things that my fellow band members did. They helped me a lot when kickstarting the project.
But it’s very different when you’re in a band setting compared to doing a solo project, when the creative vision is completely from you and streamlined from you.
That was both very exciting and also very terrifying, because everything falls on me. But at the same time, I can decide where I want to go. I can decide what this sound wants to sound like. I can decide the artistic parts of it and the different styles we’re incorporating into the music.
It’s very exciting, but it is a very tedious task.
Mike: I’m sure. But like you said, it’s very empowering too, because now all the decision-making is left to yourself.
There are pros and cons, right? There are pros when you’re off on your own and making all the decisions, but then everything is on you. Then when you have a team, there are a little bit more cooks in the kitchen, if you will, but you also are spreading out the tasks and responsibilities that are involved with the project.
Madison: Yeah, exactly.
Mike: So let’s talk about your singles, because you released seven singles in about a year’s timeframe, which is crazy. Congratulations.
We were talking before about that momentum, so I want to know more about that. Did you produce all seven singles before releasing a single one, or did you release as you were recording and producing the next ones?
Madison: My first three, I had been writing even while I was in the band. I did a lot of personal side writing. Those came out of some little projects I was working on for fun on the side, and I developed them a little bit more.
Those three, I already had to kick me off. I worked with the same producer I did with the other band. I showed it to him, and he was like, “Okay, we can get these out like that.”
In the meantime, a very important piece of advice I had from him, and he’s given me so much great advice on the music industry and all that, was, “Just keep on writing no matter what.”
Again, that pertains to the writer’s block issue. Just keep on writing. That’s what I did.
Through the production of those first three singles, I opened with “Circling” in January of 2025 when I was 17. Then “Bury Me Alive” was next, and then “Fall From Grace.” Those were my three introductory singles.
After that, I kept writing. As time went on, my vision as an artist kind of developed itself. As I explored different styles of writing, as I went through different bouts of writer’s block and inspirations, and discovered bands that inspired me or rediscovered bands that just helped me, I just kept writing.
Again, you kind of have to if you want to put yourself out there and keep that momentum and keep those eyes on you. You have to go one after the other and keep that momentum.
Honestly, if you listen to my music chronologically, you can definitely tell, I am a baby artist. I literally just started. There’s a progression of the sound, and these upcoming singles and these past couple singles have really helped me define my sound as an artist.
A lot of it is just natural time. You can’t snap your fingers and instantly have a sound you love. Of course, as artists, especially as me, I’m a freaking perfectionist. It’s terrible. It’s good and bad.
There’s going to be art you’re not happy with, and you can’t say, “Oh, this is garbage. I’m going to throw it out.” You kind of have to use that as another brick in the wall to help build your identity up.
That’s how I’m looking at my progression as an artist. Like, “Hey, I may not be happy with this past project, but it was a stepping stone for me, and I will continue to use those stepping stones to curate my sound.”
Mike: Absolutely.
I appreciate the fact that you mentioned that you released a couple songs and then refined your sound and voice, and how you wanted to present yourself as an artist, and then started releasing other singles.
I’m also curious about the promotion behind them, because again, that’s a whole other undertaking on itself, the actual promotion of it.
Like you said, you mentioned momentum, but there’s more to that than just dropping those singles, right? You still have to keep people’s attention so they’re going to want to come back, and also progress along the way.
I’ve seen this all the time, and I’m sure you’ve seen this as well with other artists. They’ll drop a single and you’ll see a little blip in activity, and then it just goes down again. Then it flatlines for a while until the next single comes out, and they get a little blip, then it flatlines for a while.
Madison: Like, “Where did you go?”
Mike: Yeah, right. It’s like, “Where did you go?” But there’s no growth, right?
That’s what you want to see. You want to see growth where one single gets people interested, and then the next single gets those people and more people interested. It keeps building off from there.
Can you talk a little bit more about the promotion behind it, and how you put those songs out there and released them?
Madison: Yeah. I don’t know if this is considered a piece of advice, but I watched a talk on music promotion, and one of the guys said that basically in today’s age of social media, you have to be an influencer on top of being an artist.
We live in an era of short-form content. MTV was showing all the music videos, long-form music videos and all that. But now we kind of make a name for ourselves through social media.
A lot of it is that influencer part. You have to promote, promote, promote. At the same time, build a personality for yourself. Show people who you are as an artist.
People will gravitate toward that. If you hide behind your music, if you’re like, “Oh, here’s the song. Boom, that’s it. Silence,” it’s different than if someone is like, “Hey, here’s the song. By the way, here’s a meme. Here’s a cool behind-the-scenes clip. Here’s this, here’s that.”
A lot of it is being 100% yourself. But it is very exhausting on social media. It is very hard to constantly come up with content, and especially new content instead of recycling content. You can’t really recycle content.
Again, it’s like you have to keep the ball rolling. My mentality is just that you have to keep going because there are always going to be new eyes on your stuff. You have to post knowing that there is going to be someone out there who may want to join your audience.
Mike: I’m glad that you brought that up.
Are you the kind of person that will make up content on the spot, where it’s like, “Oh, I’m going to do content, so let me see what I can think about that might be interesting”? Or are you the type that will say, “Okay, this is content day. I’m just going to knock out content, content, content”? Or do you spread it out?
It’s kind of the same concept as songwriting, I guess. Do you approach it in the same way?
Madison: I 100% do both.
Whenever I have a new single, I have a designated content day where I just knock out a bunch of reels. I have worked with an amazing videographer, Christopher Scheibe. He helped me. I have music videos also, so I use a lot of the content from those music videos on reels and come up with new content regarding those.
Media days, 100%, I knock out a bunch of content all at once.
But at the same time, personality is showing your audience that you’re human and you have fun stuff going on. That is also a huge part. So I do a lot of personality content on the spot, like memes and stuff like that.
Another big thing is live performance clips. We perform a lot. I have an amazing live band. Showing people that you exist beyond the Spotify recordings is also another great way to communicate with your audience that I’ve noticed.
The big three are personality content, song content, like performing the song in a staged environment through a music video or band practice, and then live content. That’s kind of the main three things that build up my content.
Mike: Which is brilliant because that gives variety.
One of the other things too is, I like to say that people like to see people do cool things. It’s really that simple. It’s simple but complex at the same time. That’s what people want to see. They just want to see you doing cool stuff.
If you’re out there killing it on stage, or they’re really liking your song, whatever the case is, they’re going to want to see more of that from you. Like you said, it goes back to the consistency aspect of it.
If you’re consistent about releasing that kind of content and showing your art, showing your performance, and essentially going, “This is who I am. If you like this stuff too, come and join me. You can stream my music, come to see a show, or hopefully buy some merch,” whatever the case is, this is how you can support so I can continue doing this craft.
I did want to also mention what you were talking about with influencer, which is getting this ugly term these days. But honestly, being an artist is being an influencer.
Madison: Yeah.
Mike: It’s one and the same.
It kind of got separated out a little bit because there are now people who are more overall influencers or content creators in general. But being an artist, you’re influencing people.
You’re getting people’s attention on whatever you’re doing, and that’s what you’re doing as an artist. You want people to pay attention to your original works, and that’s never changed.
Pre-social media, that was always the case. You still had radio. You mentioned MTV, right? That changed everything in music, because before that, there was the occasional music video that came out. But when MTV exploded, every single artist had to do a music video.
Madison: You can put a face to the music.
Mike: Right.
I guarantee you there are a bunch of artists that did not want to do music videos back then, but felt coerced into doing them because it’s like, if you want to get known, you need to go on MTV, because that’s where everyone is right now.
It’s crazy to think about, but that’s what it was.
The same thing is true with YouTube, right? When YouTube really hit its peak, every single song was dropping a music video. Nowadays, you have even more options. You can do not just music videos. I like to call them video vignettes, where they’re certain types of vibes that can go well with Spotify Canvas.
You could also do short-form content, where you can do these quick little setups and get a whole bunch of content there. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a full-blown music video, but people can get the vibe of what you are about.
Madison: I’ve seen a lot of popularity rise with visualizers. They don’t label it as a music video, they label it as a visualizer. I’ve seen a lot of those and lyric videos explode in popularity because it’s good for that short-form content. It’s good for attention spans and all that.
It’s very social-media-fronted. I don’t know.
Mike: That’s true.
I know people who will put on playlists on YouTube in comparison to Spotify. Spotify obviously has been doubling down hard on video, so they like the fact that you’re having video, and visualizers will certainly show up there of course.
But then people will just have it on YouTube. Obviously, that’s a video format, so having some sort of visual element on the screen is only going to help you.
Madison: Yeah.
Mike: Which is crazy to think about. But again, as an artist, you have to be thinking about all these different elements.
It is the music, but being an artist is everything involved in creating that art piece. The medium happens to be music, but it’s everything else surrounding it too, and why people want to pay attention to you.
It’s the performance. It’s your branding. It’s what your logo looks like. It’s what your social media pages look like. It’s your outfits. It’s everything.
Madison: 100%, I totally agree.
Like I said, you have to be the influencer. I’ve been seeing that it’s very discouraging to a lot of newer artists. But honestly, you just have to do it.
Mike: You heard it here. Madison just says go do it. There you go.
Madison: Just do it. I’m Nike.
Mike: Speaking of content, I noticed that you recently launched a podcast called The Spiderweb. Congratulations on that. That’s awesome. What made you decide to launch a podcast?
Madison: I have always been a fan of fun little conversational podcasts. I talked about it in my first episode.
I like listening to podcasts because it feels like you’re having a fun little conversation with a friend, if it’s a good quality podcast and it’s a good, funny quality podcast. If you put it on in the background, if you’re in the car, if you’re writing, drawing, making music, whatever, it feels like you’re having a fun conversation with a friend.
That’s kind of the vibe I wanted to go with for my podcast.
I’d say two of my favorite podcasts are Very Really Good with Kurtis Conner. He’s a YouTuber, but he also launched a podcast where he literally just goes on tangents for an hour-long episode about funny stuff on social media or funny trends online.
Then there’s also The Broski Report with Brittany Broski, very similar vibe, very helpful, just talking about funny things that made them laugh this week. It’s so casual, so simple, and so much fun. I wanted to implement that vision musically.
I wanted to create a fun little conversational podcast where I talk about cool things happening in music or funny things that I saw this week on social media regarding music.
I also love supporting independent artists, and I love supporting artists who need a voice. I have a feature at the end where I find three independent artists that I discovered through social media, Spotify Radio, or somewhere random, and I talk about them.
It’s been a lot of fun. I’m really glad I started it because I’d been saying I wanted to start a podcast forever, but I just didn’t know what. My only real point of reference for podcasts were those funny little conversational ones. I was like, “Hey, what if I combine my love of music with those little funny podcasts?”
That’s kind of how The Spiderweb came to be.
Mike: That’s awesome. Congratulations again. That’s truly amazing.
It’s funny because for this podcast, I don’t think I can carry a conversation on my own for an hour. That’s just impossible. I’ll lose people. So that’s why I like doing the interview format, because fortunately for me, I don’t have to talk as much. I can have my guest talk as much as possible, and that can create an hour-long episode or whatever the case might be.
More than half the load is on the guest, not on myself talking. I found what my groove is. Again, it really just depends on what kind of personality you have, and what you ultimately want to get out of it.
Madison: Yeah.
Mike: I will say that what’s great about the podcast as well is it’s essentially built-in content for yourself, right?
Now you have a steady schedule of when you’re releasing your episodes, and now you can take clips from them or do whatever you want. Going back to the consistency aspect of it, that’s a great way to make sure that you have consistent content coming out.
I know for myself, this is a weekly podcast. At the very least, I’m having one piece of content coming out a week. I usually do much more than that, but I know I’m guaranteed once a week something’s going out.
Doing a podcast is just fantastic, and I really do appreciate the fact that you are using it as a platform for your fellow artists to get their music out there too, which is really amazing.
Madison: 100%. It’s geared to other listeners who are not only music lovers, but artists themselves.
Basically, every other episode I feature an interview. I interview people in the music industry, other bands, and other artists.
For example, I recently did one with my videographer, and he had a completely different point of view of the music industry than someone who just does music would. He’s also an artist, so he has really great ideas and really great perspectives that a budding artist, or an artist who wants to make it, might want to hear.
In addition to that, it’s also really fun to interview other musicians and see their perspective on the industry, things that are helping them, things that they failed at, things that they succeeded at, and generally giving advice to other artists and making that community of independent artists.
Mike: Yeah. It makes you feel good too, right? You get to connect with artists in that particular way, which is always fantastic too.
So I do want to talk about your single. I mentioned before how much I love it. “Bleed for Me.” Talk more about it. Talk about the single and how it all came about.
Madison: Awesome.
My most recent single I just dropped is called “Bleed for Me,” featuring Kellin Quinn of Sleeping With Sirens, who I did talk about earlier.
It’s a great, awesome track. One of my most favorite pieces of art I’ve ever created in my life. Very MADiSON ViOLETT. I feel like this is very on track with my identity as an artist.
It was absolutely incredible to work with one of the artists who inspired me vocally, as an artist, and musically. He’s very kind. He’s very kind-hearted, very sweet, and it was very cool to work with him and be with that one person who I could say, “Hey dude, you were the one who inspired my vocal technique.”
It’s really cool. I’m honestly still in shock. I had lots of fun. I’m glad everyone else is loving it. I’m getting some really great engagement and great interest in the song, so I’m really happy everybody is liking it just as much as I do.
Mike: How did you get connected with Kellin to begin with? How did that come about?
Madison: I honestly just reached out to him.
Mike: Good for you. I don’t clap on my podcast, but good for you. That’s awesome.
Madison: He also appreciates a lot of independent art and smaller artists, and so I was like, “Hey, it might be a long shot, but I will reach out to him.”
I heard back from him, and he was like, “Hey Madison, your stuff is sick. Let’s hop on a track together.” It was literally the day after.
Mike: That’s so cool.
Madison: I reached out to him at IKEA because I went and got those shelves from IKEA, and I was literally typing the email out in the car. Then I woke up the next morning, and it was a notification from Kellin Quinn. I was like, “Oh.”
Mike: That’s really cool.
Madison: Yeah. It was great to work with him. Very talented, amazing.
Speaking of Sleeping With Sirens, they are coming out with their own album very, very soon. I’m very excited for it, Ending in Itself. They’ve released three singles so far, and they’re all bangers all the way through.
It’s a really cool combination of their 2000s post-hardcore, like Let’s Cheers to This and With Ears to See and Eyes to Hear, kind of that vibe. But with their last album, sorry, I’m kind of a Sleeping With Sirens nerd, their last album Complete Collapse was very metalcore. It was very modern metalcore.
What I’m hearing from their newer stuff is it’s a cool combination of both those things. It’s in-your-face Sleeping With Sirens. I’m really enjoying that.
Mike: That’s awesome.
Good for you, because you never know, right? Sometimes it takes that one moment and just reaching out to somebody on a whim. That is the power of social media. There are benefits. That is definitely a big benefit, the fact that truly no one is really out of your reach now.
You can pretty much contact anybody. Whether they respond or not is a different question, but the ability to even have a chance is truly remarkable.
Kudos to you for taking that initiative and just trying, because again, you never know. You just never know. So that’s very, very cool.
Congratulations again on the new single. It sounds amazing.
Madison: Thank you.
Mike: We can end things on a couple of fun questions.
The first fun question I have for you is: what was the very first concert that you ever went to?
Madison: This is hilarious.
My very first real concert, I’ve got to say, was for my friend’s birthday in 2016. Taylor Swift. Completely not my genre at all now, but that was my first show.
I knew her popular stuff, obviously. It was for the Reputation tour, which Reputation was her comeback album, I think. That was her bad girl era. The performance was insane. It was really cool. She’s a great live performer.
There was an A stage, B stage, and then I think there was a cable from one to the other, and she would go across. I forgot, but that was my first ever concert that I went to.
It is really funny because I’m an avid concert-goer. I love going to concerts and shows, all that kind of stuff. My first ever exposure to live music was this big stadium tour. It was at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
Now I go to a lot of shows that are more intimate, I guess. My favorite venue is House of Blues in Anaheim. It’s very different from my first exposure to what I do now.
Mike: Yeah, that venue is really cool. I’ve been there once or twice myself.
Next question for you, and I’ll put a caveat to this: do you have a go-to artist that you’re listening to right now? But it can’t be Sleeping With Sirens, because we gave them a lot of love. So another band besides Sleeping With Sirens.
Madison: Okay.
I actually do this on my podcast. Every week, I have a segment called What’s on Madison’s Airbuds? Airbuds is an app that tracks your Spotify history. I can actually look it up right now on my Airbuds.
I’ve kind of been going insane. Oh, wow. I’ve been going insane these past couple weeks with my listening habits. I have been listening to like 3,000 minutes every week. I don’t know why. I’ve just been on a huge music kick.
Let’s see what my number one artist is this week.
Oh, okay. This week it’s Spiritbox.
Mike: Nice. Okay. You mentioned them before.
Madison: They are hopefully coming out with new stuff soon. They’re about to go on tour with Evanescence, which I’m really excited about because I’m most likely going to that one.
Great vocals by Courtney LaPlante. Amazing female-fronted metal band. They’re really cool. It’s djenty, lots of deathcore, lots of metalcore. They have a very unique sound. It’s very electronic inspired. Their music is addictive.
I first heard of them when I went to see them at House of Blues because I went to see Erra, which is another metal band. E-R-R-A, Erra. Spiritbox was the headliner, Erra was the opener, and I was like, “Wow, this is insane.”
Their music is very unique. It’s very cool, very innovative, and the vocals are insane. Courtney LaPlante is also one of my major vocal inspirations. She has some crazy cleans and also harsh vocal techniques. She has a lot of deathcore inspiration with her vocals.
It’s really cool to see, especially a woman, because the heavier you get, it’s more and more male-dominated. It’s cool to see a woman powering through in the scene.
I believe they’ve been nominated for a Grammy three years in a row, so I’m hoping next year with their tentative new release, which I hope they are going to release something soon, is going to be their Grammy that they finally get.
I am also a huge Spiritbox nerd. My favorite album from them, the one I’ve been listening to like crazy this week, is Eternal Blue, which is 2021. I believe that’s their second project. They don’t have very many releases out.
That was before they got really, really popular. I think they got popular with The Void, which was a little EP that they released, and then they kind of exploded in popularity after that. That’s when they got nominated for a Grammy and all that.
Eternal Blue is a solid album. They also have a lot of prog inspiration. I love prog. It’s a great album for anyone who wants to hear a completely innovative genre.
Spiritbox kind of has their own genre, and I love that so much about them. That’s who I’ve been fixated on.
Mike: Awesome.
All right, last question for you. If you were only able to give one piece of advice, what would that one piece of advice be?
Madison: To an artist, do you think?
Mike: Yeah, let’s say to an artist.
Madison: This is going to sound really, really cliche, but don’t give up. Don’t let anyone get in your way. Don’t let anybody tell you not to chase your dreams.
100% that. Don’t let anybody tell you that your dreams aren’t valid. Don’t look at anything as impossible. That’s a big thing for me because anything is possible at this point, like you said.
With social media, there are pros and cons. It’s exhausting, but at the same time, our windows are open. There are boundless opportunities. It’s 100% possible. Your dreams are possible.
So just keep on going. Obviously, again, I am still a baby artist, so same with that mentality, just keep on going.
Also, it’s very important to not let anybody else bring you down and invalidate you. Because what we do as musicians is creating art, and it’s straight from our heart. So just keep on going. Just do it.
This is not sponsored by Nike. Just my advice.
Mike: No, it is not. But I couldn’t agree with you more.
Thank you so much again for being on the show. We’ll definitely make sure that we have all the links to this new single in our show notes. Thank you again so much. This was a blast.
Madison: Of course. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
I love all the support you’re showing to independent artists.
Mike: Oh, thank you.
Madison: You’re doing great things for the industry. You’re doing great things for music, because music and art are just so important to be protected right now.
Mike: Thank you. I really appreciate that too.
Madison: Of course.