About Me
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. 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. 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...). She then had a chance to perform in the song "Etere" on a DEADBURGER's Albumand she also made a special guest appereance with the Italian 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. Back from Singapore, in South East Asia, where she toured from March to June 2001 with an Italian rock band - EPIC - 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 & at the famous CBGB club in New York City. Odette is now back to her solo performances with her show that took her often outside of 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 - will be out worldwide in 2007.
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 forthcoming album (by Disturbance) with "December" co-written with Ugo de Crescenzo.
