David Diaz Is An Honest And Important Voice In Music And His New Single “Pay To Be Happy” Is Proof
Samantha Colleran, February 2021
Last Friday I sat down for a virtual interview with singer-songwriter David Diaz to discuss his new single, “Pay To Be Happy”, as well as the importance of mental health! The full interview is below, and links to all of David’s music are included at the bottom of the interview.
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SC: Hello David! How are you?
DD: I’m good, how are you doing?
SC: I’m doing well, thank you. So, Amanda [Do Nascimento, manager] sent me a little bit of information about how you got started, but I figured it would be nice if you could tell my audience about who you are, how you got started, just some basic information like that.
DD: Of course! My name is David Diaz, I’m a singer-songwriter, musician, engineer, producer, all that good stuff. I’m originally from the Bronx in New York, but I moved to Orlando a while ago. I actually didn’t start doing music until the end of high school and beginning of college. Growing up I was always into music but I never pursued it just because of pressure from people around me who would tell me music was stupid so I never really went for it until I was an adult man. I started releasing music in 2019 professionally, before that I posted covers on YouTube. After I posted the covers people would start asking me “When is your original stuff coming?” and I started writing my own music. I released my first EP and then things started going the way they went and now I’m here.
SC: Exciting, exciting! Also, New York born, whoo! I’m from Queens.
DD: Cool!
SC: I know you said you got into music later in life, but when you were listening to music who were some of your inspirations or people you looked up to that inspired or influenced the music you started to make as you got older?
DD: When I was younger, my inspirations were mainly Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson. Growing up in New York, my parents would always put records on in the morning and the first thing I would hear would be jazz or 80s pop or R&B. It was great. When I started growing up and coming into my own music I began listening to Sam Smith, Daft Punk, so many people. I still listen to a lot of Diana Ross. It’s hard to pick a particular influence because I have so many. I would say right now my inspirations would be Sam Smith based on the way I sing and do certain musical things, and Julia Michaels lyrically. I would say Will Young, he’s not as well known in the US, he’s a UK artist but he’s really, really, really good, really talented, and he’s a huge inspiration of mine.
SC: All amazing people! The reason we’re actually here is to talk about your new single “Pay To Be Happy” which is set to release next week! I listened to it and I thought it was really really great. This is sort of a similar question to the last one, but what specifically inspired this song coming together and what was the process like, from writing the lyrics to production and recording?
DD: For this song specifically, I knew I wanted to go in the direction of my last song, I got bit by an 80s bug so I’ve been really influenced by 80s movies and pop culture and literature. One thing I’ve loved doing since I started writing my own music is singing about serious subject matters in a way that’s easy for people to listen to and digest. If I’m going to write a song about sadness or something, I don’t want it to sound depressing, I would rather it sound like something people can listen to in their car.
With this song, I wanted to sing about happiness but specifically the way I see it in modern society because I feel like, at least in recent years, social media has become a place where people project this false image of happiness and it’s become the normal things to do, but when someone decides to be authentic people will say “Oh, we don’t want to see that” or it comes off as inauthentic because we’re so used to seeing the ‘happy go lucky’ version of someone. That’s what the song is about for me. It’s called “Pay To Be Happy” because I feel like everyone gives up something to be happy; whether it’s something small like time, or something big like a person or a relationship. For example, when I wanted to become an artist I had to sacrifice some relationships and time with people that I love to do the thing that I love.
It’s just… everything comes with a sacrifice, including happiness, and that was the lyrical inspiration. With the production, I wanted an 80s sounding song– which is funny because I decided I wanted to go into that 80s sound after I finished my EP but while I was writing, The Weeknd came out with his stuff that was also 80s themed and so did Dua Lipa, and I thought “Oh my God people are going to think I’m copying them!”, but I decided to not pay it any mind and keep the sound anyway.
SC: Are there any specific pieces of literature or movies you think have made you want to tap into this specific sound?
DD: For sure, I listen to a lot of 80s music. Movies specifically… Tron, Back To The Future but only 1 and 2 I didn’t really like 3, Star Wars, I just love all of them! It’s the nostalgia factor, I’m obsessed with it, and I wanted to find a way to incorporate it into my music so when people are listening they think “That sounds fresh, but it sounds like something I’ve heard before”. Just 80s pop culture in general and sci-fi, synth wave sounds have been inspiring to me. I love the futuristic sound from the 80s, it’s so cool.
SC: We’re major Star Wars fans in my house so it’s much appreciated to see people tapping into that more! Is there a specific message you want people to take away from the song, or is there a certain emotion you want them to feel. I know you mentioned people maybe feeling nostalgic because of the sound, but are there any other emotions you want people to feel when listening?
DD: I would say a sense of, I don’t want to say this to sound ‘woke’, but I’d love for people to have a sort of awakening, or even find it relatable. In the song lyrically I talk about how it’s hard to, you know… the song isn’t sung from my point of view, it’s sung from the point of view of a character I created who is the embodiment of the people I see on a daily basis, whether it’s on social media or in person, who feel like they need to live this fake lifestyle while behind the scenes their life is falling apart, but they have to make sure everyone else thinks that everything’s fine, because that makes them happy. The main thing I hope people take away from this is that if they do see those habits within themselves that this song will help them realize “Wow, maybe I do that and I’m not being as transparent as I thought I was” or “Maybe I’m giving up the wrong things to get the results I want”. I want people to look into themselves when they hear this song and either realize people are like that or they themselves are like that and they can start thinking about how to change for the better.
SC: I love the message behind the song. I feel like talking to you I can feel a lot of emotion you put into the lyrics.
DD: Thank you!
SC: Is there a certain lyric you feel was harder to write than others, or did some parts of the song come easier to you than others?
DD: Yeah, it’s so funny because when I write my songs, it’s so random the way it happens. When I record a song I just press record and the song will just pour out of me. This one took me about a year to write, and it wasn’t completely done until two or three months ago. I would say the part that took me the longest was the verses. The chorus came right away, I knew I wanted to sing about happiness but not in a typical skipping through a meadow type of way. The verses were so hard, like how do I talk bad about happiness? I tried to think of myself, and I thought about if there was ever a time where happiness was a negative thing for me. I remembered back in middle school where I tried to completely change who I was to become popular, and the sad thing was that it actually worked. When I stopped, I lost everything. I gave up who I was to be someone I’m not. The verses all reflect that feeling, but I can’t think of a single line that was harder than the others because they were all challenging since I had to dig and analyze myself and other people.
SC: Right, that does sound hard. Obviously with the world being the way it is due to COVID you’ve had the time to actually sit and think back to those times and look deeper into yourself. And speaking oc COVID, the most unavoidable topic right now, has COVID and being in quarantine and not really living life the way we used to changed the way that you approach music or think about writing or recording? Do you think any of these methods that have changed for you are things you’ll take with you in the future once COVID starts to phase out a little more?
DD: That’s a really good question, because one thing I feel like a lot of fans of artists don’t see is the recording process and the creating process of songs. To a large degree it has changed, not for me as much because I do have my own studio. You can’t see it because it’s in front of me, not behind me, but when I have people over I do make sure to clean everything and I thankfully haven’t had COVID because I managed to swerve away from people right before they got it so I was lucky. It’s been different with recording sessions because some people have to get tested beforehand. Recently I had my first virtual songwriting session which was crazy because I’ve never written a song with someone where we come up with the verses together, I’m more used to coming up with my part and the other person coming up with their part. It’s definitely something I would carry on with me, doing virtual sessions with songwriters like that because I don’t have to travel. One person I wrote with was from Germany and the other was from London, so I saved myself a ton of money just by doing a simple Zoom call.
It kind of sucks because although COVID is a terrible thing, it was almost a blessing in disguise for me to realize there’s different ways for me to do things. As for songwriting, the only thing that’s been different is going out to places and finding inspiration. A lot of the times I find inspiration in places that are really busy, ever since I was little I’ve been a master at zoning out in places I shouldn’t. I’ll go to City Walk over at Universal Studios which is really close to me and I’ll just sit there on a bench and there will be thousands of people walking by and I’ll zone out and start thinking of song lyrics or ideas, and next thing I know I’m going back to my house and recording something. Other than that, everything is generally the same for me.
SC: When you zone out will you find a random person and take inspiration from them, or do you kind of take inspiration from things around you? There’s one song I know and I can’t think of it right now but the artist was talking about it and said something like “I just saw this girl sitting alone in a coffee shop and the waiter came by and took her order and walked away and I got really inspired by that small interaction”.
DD: I get what you’re saying, I know a bunch of songs that start out like that! There’s a meme that reminds me of what you just said where there’s a songwriter in the corner of a room and everyone in the room is partying and the songwriter says “If only they knew I’m writing a song about them right now”! It’s totally true! I’d never done that before until recently where I wrote about a past memory. When I am sitting and zoning out, I’m not paying attention to what’s going on. In chaos it’s easier for me to fold in on myself and self analyze. If I’m alone it’s harder for me to focus, it’s probably my ADD. When there’s a thousand things going on, it’s easy for me to shut it out and focus on and internalize my feelings.
SC: Interesting! So with “Pay To Be Happy”, I don’t know if you’re working on any songs now, but if you are, do you think they’ll fit a similar theme of trying to learn more about yourself and learning to be happy without changing who you are. Do you think those themes would come full circle into an EP or an album?
DD: Ooh… I don’t know! I’ve been thinking about doing an EP, an album is too scary, so probably not an album for a while. I thought about making an EP talking about similar subject matters, like “Pay To Be Happy” or one of my other songs “Only I Get Sad”, because lately I’ve been really passionate singing about mental health and the human condition and suffering and sadness and happiness and loss and hope. All those topics are so interesting to me and hardly anyone sings about those things. I’m not attacking other artists, but all I hear are songs about love or partying or doing drugs, and obviously they can do what they want but no one sings about how people feel all the time. I thought if no one else was doing it, I would. A lot of the songs I’m writing are really heavy; some are about depression, some are about anxiety, some are about things that people relate to.
Without giving too much away, one of my songs I have coming out soon is about that person you can’t stand because they’re not being real. Just things like that. I’m so excited for the stuff I’m working on now because it all sounds so good, and some of the songs are collaborations!
SC: That’s so exciting! I think mental health is something so important to talk about, especially in music. So many people listen to music, whether it’s rap or pop or rock, people are always listening to music, and if you can get your message across in a way people can relate to then that’s something really special. “Pay To Be Happy” definitely does that.
DD: Thank you! Lately I’ve been so into mental health. Before, I was part of the group of people who stigmatized it. I don’t know why, but I thought mental health was like this new wave hippie trend. It was so stupid of me to think that. I started to look into it more though and I realized it’s literally just caring about yourself.
I got diagnosed with anxiety a month or two ago and I had sworn that I had never had any symptoms of it before. I told my doctor during a check up that I was crying a lot and sometimes I start breathing really heavy, but I insisted I was fine and that I didn’t have anxiety, or bipolar disorder, or depression, or any mental health related issues. I was so surprised when my doctor told me I actually had all three! My doctor told me my blood tests showed signs of anxiety and they wanted to diagnose me years ago but wanted to wait until I was ready to talk about it. Ever since then I’ve been encouraging people to take better care of their mental health. First I’d say don’t self diagnose because that will lead you down a rabbit hole, and secondly it’s better to know what you have because it’ll explain what’s going on in your life.
When I had anxiety attacks when I was younger, I thought everyone got them and that they were normal. I used to call it my ‘breathing thing’. I used to sweat and breathe really heavily and forget what was going on and I thought, “This is normal, everyone goes through this”, but when I started to look into mental health I thought “Hmm I don’t have that but those are the exact things that happen to me during my breathing thing”. I went to my doctor not thinking I would be diagnosed with any of those mental health related things but I’m glad it happened, because now I look back on episodes that I’ve had in the past and I can think to myself “Okay that was my anxiety and that was my bipolar disorder”. It’s good to be diagnosed to know what you’re dealing with so you aren’t going through life thinking you’re a freak for feeling the way you do.
SC: I can totally relate to that. People never really believed me until they saw it for themselves but during elementary and middle, and some of high school, I had so much trouble writing papers. Like if I didn’t get what I was writing down on the paper perfect on the first try I would freak out and start crying and have full on meltdowns. My parents would have to calm me down, it’s happened in school before. I had a practice exam and I started freaking out during the writing portion and my teacher had to pull me outside and help me calm down. It got to the point where I ended up seeing someone to figure out what was happening and thankfully I got answers. During that time where it got really intense, I always gravitated towards music and found so much inspiration and a reason to push through everything that was happening because I found my music. I think it’s super important to sing what you’re singing about and talk so openly about mental health the way we are right now. I interviewed another artist named Saturn Lane a while back and we had a similar conversation, and it was so refreshing to have that talk because nobody really has these conversations, it’s such a taboo subject.
DD: For sure. I feel bad that I used to be like that for so long, where I felt like the subject shouldn’t be touched upon. We should be talking about it because it’s all about protecting your brain and mind and heart, and making sure everyone’s okay and safe and comfortable.
SC: This conversation has been wonderful, and I just want to say thank you so much for sitting down and talking with me. Can you tell everyone where they can find you on social media, where they can stream your music?
DD: Thank you so much for having me, I love doing interviews! My Instagram is @daviddiazmusic, my YouTube is also daviddiazmusic. I was on Twitter for a little while but I can’t stand it so I’m not on there anymore, but it may come back later. My Facebook is David Diaz Official because David Diaz Music was taken. You can also stream my music on Spotify and Apple Music!
SC: Thank you so much again David!
DD: Thank you Sam!
“Pay To Be Happy” is available to stream as of today! You can listen below, and be sure to stream it on your preferred streaming service! Thank you to David for such a wonderful interview, and congratulations on the release!