A chat with Diamanté
Originally featured in the 2022 Welcome To Rockville Official Commemorative Guide.
► L I S T E N H E R E ◄
SIGT: Growing up with a Mexican mother and an Italian father, did you absorb multiple languages?
Diamanté: Yes! The hilarious part is, everyone in my household growing up would interchange languages. So we’d start a sentence in Spanish and then it would end in English and we all just understood each other. Growing up, my dad only spoke to me in Italian and I would respond back in English. So because of that, I completely understand Italian, but I don’t speak it. It’s just really weird. Spanish I understand and speak fluently because I had more practice speaking Spanish. The best part is people don’t automatically assume I know Spanish. So I’ll just hear people talking about me or about other things in Spanish. They have no idea I know exactly what they’re saying.
SIGT: You’re coming up now on your ten year anniversary as the artist Diamanté. How do you feel like you’ve evolved as an artist?
Diamanté: Oh, my gosh. In every sense of the word. I feel definitely as a vocalist, as a songwriter, as a performer. I’ve picked up a lot of things along the way, and I’m always constantly trying to be better and learn. I’m like a sponge, especially when I go on tour. I love watching the headline bands and how they perform and how they interact with the crowd and always trying to pick up little things.
SIGT: Is there one little piece of advice that you’ll never forget?
Diamante: Yes, there’s been a lot of those moments. I was at a bar with Lzzy Hale recently, and she was telling me how the first time I go to Europe, which is soon actually, is going to be just absolutely life changing because that’s how it was for them. And then just even watching bands on stage, for example, on the Shinedown tour. I love the way they interact with the crowd. I think it’s so cool. And they make everyone feel like a big family, and they put on such a good show. It’s really inspirational to watch that. Even the way they treat their crew, bands opening for them, they have to be probably the nicest if not one of the nicest bands I’ve ever opened for.
SIGT: Wow! Well, I mean, it just goes back to our heritage, that old Spanish family, welcoming everyone in and cooking dinner for everyone. It does feel wonderful like that.
Diamanté: They literally cooked for me. Zack and Barry made homemade ribs. They knocked on the bus door, and they handed us a platter of smoked ribs. It was incredible.
SIGT: So you’re about halfway through this, and then you’re coming to Rockville. How has this tour with Shinedown been so far?
Diamanté: It’s been a dream. It’s been incredible. It’s been so much fun, surreal, especially because, I say this every night on stage, there was a time where I didn’t know if I could even ever tour again. So getting to do this massive arena tour with two bands that I grew up listening to is crazy.
SIGT: Did you travel a lot growing up?
Diamanté: I did, yeah. So my parents were in the real estate business and we moved houses a lot just in Boston. When I was twelve, we all packed up and moved to LA, so that was a huge move. I lived in Rome when I was two or three years old. I’ve lived in Mexico for a period of time, but we’ve kind of been all over.
SIGT: Wow. So all this traveling and just exploring your heritage, how do you feel like that influenced the type of music that you wanted to write at a young age?
Diamanté: I think it all goes hand in hand with life experience, because all my songs, especially the last album, felt very autobiographical. So everything that I go through that I experience, that I feel that’s what I love putting into songs. So I think everything up until this point has affected and influenced all my songwriting.
SIGT: Very cool. Are you writing in Spanish anymore? I know you have “Lo Siento” one album ago.
Diamanté: Yeah. So on this last album, I took my song “Unlovable” and made a Spanish version of that one because I got so many requests after “Lo Siento” to do another one. I love doing it. It’s a lot of fun.
SIGT: Let’s talk fashion. You have an incredible style both on and off the stage. When you’re styling yourself for the stage, where do you begin?
Diamante: Well, it depends. For this tour specifically, I know that I’m about to go play massive arenas, so my immediate thought is, sparkles, shiny, larger than life. I love dressing that kind of way, because when else do you get to dress like that? Go big or go home. I styled myself on this tour. I just kind of looked online and tried to find the most glittery, sparkliest catsuits I could. I love performing in catsuits because they’re really comfortable, stretchy, and it’s almost like athleisure.
SIGT: I know you changed your hair color. Are you sticking with blonde or coming back with blue?
Diamante: I think I’m going to stick with natural. You know how everyone who has normal hair gets really bored and does a crazy color? I’m at the point where I am bored of crazy colors. I have been coloring and bleaching my hair now for ten years because I started when I was 15 so it feels good to give my hair a break. And it’s a lot of maintenance, especially on tour. I can’t tell you the amount of times I had to dye my hair blue in a venue sink bathroom or hotel. I’ve gotten a charge so many times ruining their towels.
SIGT: Is there anything that you would like to say to the Rockville fans reading this?
Diamante: Just that I am so excited to come. I’m excited to play my new album, ‘American Dream’ and it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Diamante Interview by Mitch Foster.
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