Mike "Maz" Maher
Mike "Maz" Maher Bio
"I didn't know you sing!", an outburst Mike 'Maz' Maher has become used to hearing. For the past ten years he's been building a repulation as a trumpeter and composer with the Grammy award-winning group Snarky Puppy. Truth is, Maz has been singing and writing songs since he was a teenager and has never lost his passion for it. He released his debut EP, Maz, in 2012 and began opening for Snarky Puppy in venues around the world as well as playing shows in his hometown of Brooklyn, NY. His follow up album, Idealist was released in 2016.
Music
Idealist (2016)
My goal for this album was quite simple: to write great songs. Since the release of my first EP in 2012, I’ve become increasingly enamored with the great singer songwriters of the last century. Writing a great song is no easy task! The discipline is a very fragile combination of technique and inspiration. Over the last four years I spent a lot of time studying the songs of my heroes, practicing writing lyrics, and experimenting with song forms. I wrote lyrics on planes, in cafes and hotel lobbies, in the library, in my bed room, in the park, on the subway. The lyrics to Dream Away were written at Katz’s deli in the Lower East Side. I sat in a quiet section of the deli with nobody near me for all of the afternoon and into the early evening. One pastrami sandwich from Katz’s is two full meals if you cut it in half. Orange flavored Crush sodas can provide essential bursts of creative energy. Katz’s did the trick!
In the end these songs are good reflections of the things I think about. They’re personal. I don’t mind including my sociopolitical point of view in my songs. In fact, those topics inspire me to write. So they’re in there (Bombs Into Wine, Replica, These Words). The overwhelming beauty of nature and the universe made it in there too (Dying Star, The Rain in June).
