A. Maietta Photography
Back in February, singer-songwriter Madison Malone released a new song — a beautifully ethereal, soaring, piano-fueled number called “Fragile Heart 1.”
Which, naturally, led her fans to ask a very logical question.
“‘What’s this all about?’ they say,” says Malone, a Portage native who moved to LA in 2016 to pursue her musical dreams. “‘Is there a number 2?”’ There is, but a) It’s not what you think it is, and b) you’ll have to wait for it.
Malone has been in an LA studio for the last several months, recording songs for the eventual release of a five-song EP. The curveball is that the EP will contain two versions of each song — one stripped down, and one featuring a full backing band. Instead of waiting, as some musicians do, to release remixes of songs after the fact, Malone’s doing it all at once.
“I was thinking about what my setup is,” says Malone, who is returning to Madison for a homecoming concert at the High Noon Saloon on June 28 with Seasaw and Paper Holland. “I’m usually at my piano, but I was restless. I love ‘Fragile Heart 1’ — there’s just so much to it. I can’t just record it one way.”
Malone wrote the song on a six-week, cell-phone-free retreat to Montreal, Canada. (She also performed it as part of a PBS/Wisconsin Public Television 30-Minute Music Hour in February) The isolation is what led to the song’s nostalgic, melancholy vibe.
“To be on a technology cleanse is so strange,” she says “Thinking about people I miss who are no longer in my life, What would I tell my grandmothers about the deepest, darkest parts of me?”
Since realizing her childhood dream of establishing herself in LA (‘It’s a city of dreamers,” she says), Malone has become a regular part of the musician/songwriter community that congregates at The Hotel Café and Troubadour, two clubs that serve as springboards for aspiring musicians. She has written music for commercials and other artists, and she handles her own songs and releases herself, eschewing any label affiliations.
Malone has several of her own songs in a music library available for producers to use in television shows, commercials and movies. Recently, she was surprised to learn three of her songs were featured in an episode of General Hospital. In fact, the day Malone watched the episode, she was standing in a line at a coffee shop and recognized a child actor who had appeared in the show that featured her song. “That was kind of surreal,” she says.
It’s all about connecting through music for Malone. At a recent live performance, her music brought an audience member to tears. The man came up and talked to her about it after the show.
“I am automatically put on a high when someone connects with my music like that,” she says. “At the heart of it, we share the same things.”
As evidenced by the upcoming homecoming show, Malone still has a strong connection to Madison. While regular touring and playing large venues are on her list of long-term career goals, so is coming back here and staging her own music festival.
“Without Madison, I wouldn’t have been able to be in Los Angeles,” she says. “Madison gave me every single thing I needed to be prepared to succeed out here — how to perform, how to make your own setlist — all of it.”
