conoscimi

Odette Di Maio's passion for music has been growing since childhood and she started writing and playing songs with her acoustic guitar when she was 16. Born in Naples but raised in Milan where she still lives, she began her music career in 1993 when she returned from a 9-month trip to the U.S.A. (she also had the chance to play in downtown Seattle with a local band, The Hyperlung) and joined SOON, a Milan-based pop band as lead singer and guitarist. SOON became known in Northern Italy thanks to their unique brand of power pop and their rather intense concerts. A record deal with Mercury/Polygram in 1995 and the release of their first album "SCINTILLE" (Sparks) in May 1996, produced by English sound engineer Anjaly Dutt (My Bloody Valentine, Sleeper, Oasis) soon followed. A long and successful tour the following year brought SOON to popularity in the alternative rock circuit and they were nominated as "discovery of the year" for the Italian Music Awards (PIM). The music videos of "Il fiume " and "Settimane" in addition to various TV appearances made the band a leader of It-pop, following the example of British alternative pop trend. 1997 saw SOON's second album release "SPIRALE" produced by Sandro Franchin and Paolo Steffan, an Italian team that allowed the band to better show their improved style and energetic approach to pop. "Abitudini", the lead single and video of the album, was promoted on TV while the best of "Spirale" was performed in live concerts all over Italy including an opening show for Skunk Anansie in Rome in July '97 and the popular TV musical show "San Remo Giovani" in November 1997. On tour in Sardinia in 1997, they also filmed a short movie called "Spirale", directed by Domenico Liggeri, from which the "Libera Dentro" video was extracted. SOON, despite of the production of new material, performed in selected shows during the summer of 1999, broke up at the end of that same year.

Odette Di Maio then pursued her solo project, testing it in a demo with new songs and in "L'America di Odette", a 2 year long unplugged tour in which she performed successful classics from her favourite international artists (Suzanne Vega, Neil Young, Edie Brickell, P.J. Harvey, Nirvana...). In her solo tour she occasionally played with special guests such as the SUPERCOMBO, Italian rockstar Piero Pelu's musicians, and recently performed in the song "Etere" on the new forthcoming album by DEADBURGER, an alternative band from Florence. She also made a special guest appereance with the Italian 'remix' duo (Fred Ventura & Enrico Colombo) BEDROOM ROCKERS on their new Cd ("The Tundra workshop"), with the song "Nothing else matters" released in May 2001 by Universal-Italy, also soundtrack of the TV advertisement for MARTINI, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Just back from Singapore, in South East Asia, where she toured from March to June 2001 with EPIC, an Italian rock band as lead singer, she put up an acoustic folk-pop duo - THE MARCH - with an American young baritone singer, Ben Slavin. After playing in the finals in the "Neapolis Festival" contest The March tour took the duo also to East Coast USA in October 2003, going from Montreal to New York and stopping in Boston, Providence and Saratoga Springs. The tour ended at the famous CBGB club in New York City where many famous artists like The Ramones & The Sex Pistols have performed on their way to rock history. Also relevant was their perfomance at important Rock Festival Arezzo Wave in July 2004, that brought them many good reviews and a good success. Odette is now back to her solo performances with her show that took her often to Belgium and more recently around Northern Italy and new musical different projects, the most important being LORBI, in which she writes and sings lyrics for the beautiful downbeat songs written by Lorenzo Bianchi and whose debut album - Ring - is out now worldwide. Recently she also appeared on PAROV STELAR new album ("Seven and storm" by Etage Noir) as co-writer and singer of the track "Faith" and on PILOT JAZOU's new album (by Disturbance) with "December" co-written with Ugo de Crescenzo.

Odette also created and hosted in 1999 a Radio show, called WEIRDO, on Milanese ROCK FM with her friend from Soon, Davide Rosenholz, and still collaborates on web fanzines such as FREAK OUT and Ciemmedi. In February 2005 she got also involved in organizing a benefit concert at the important milenese rock venue Rolling Stones to raise funds for the South East Asia hit by tsunami, countries that she had visited in 2001.

discography&videos