Diane Gentile
Diane Gentile comes from the fabric of the New York’s Lower East Side music scene, having collaborated with many of the city’s artists." (Paste Magazine). She recently released her 3rd album, The Bad and the Beautiful, with her band Diane & The Gentle Men. The album is a scrapbook of vignettes featuring endearing but poetically flawed protagonists sketched with Diane’s literate flair and doused in classic NYC rock n’ roll swagger. It features a duet with Alejandro Escovedo, an appearance by James Maddock, and a song produced by Jesse Malin. "Gentile’s work is one of the rare examples of songwriting capable of meaning all things to all listeners." (Melody Maker Magazine) Previously, she released The White Sea, which included her Underground Garage hit song "Motorcycle", produced by The Dream Syndicates' Steve Wynn. “There’s always so much more to learn and to do. I guess I’m just like everyone else on The Bad and the Beautiful—nothing is enough,” she says with a good-natured laugh.
Diane Gentile started The Gentle Men, one of two bands in her life, 10 years ago. Midway through recording her first album, Caught in a Wave, with producer/musician Don Diego (Fantastic Cat), she found drummer Colin Brooks, bassist Matt Basile and guitarist Jason Victor, who helped her showcase songs from that first record, and then record another full album titled The White Sea. She had early unexpected support from press on Caught in a Wave, which propelled further nterest in The White Sea, and the Underground Garage “Coolest Song in the World” airplay on Sirius Satellite Radio of “Motorcycle”, the first single from The White Sea, gave her international attention and another round of exposure to a wider audience of both peers and fans. Steve Wynn of The Dream Syndicate was the producer of “Motorcycle”. She had been a long time fan of The Dream Syndicate and world renown Steve Wynn and Jason Victor, were her guitar idols. RolingStone.com debuted her video of “Little Things”, the second single. She says “the newest collection of songs on The Bad and the Beautiful all began from those “vignettes I spoke about on my last record – small scenes like the beginnings of films in my head, that create the basis for the songs. I relate these short visual flashes of incomplete stories to my own experiences, but I am never really conscious of that until the songs are completed. What I write about, at first, is usually just a mystery to me. I hope that, to the listener, the mystery is their own interpretation of the lyric, as it relates to their own experiences.” The new album features the duet with Alejandro Escovedo, plus a song titled “Lace Up Your Sneakers” produced by British born singer songwriter James Maddock. Producer/musician Oscar Albeis Rodriguez produced and played on “Dance ’til Dawn” at Studio G in Brooklyn, and Jesse Malin produced a song titled “Sugarcane” recorded at Flux Studios in the East Village, NYC. The Gentle Men on this record include Colin Brooks, Jason Victor, James Cruz, James Mastro, and Rob Clores with guest musicians Charlie Giordano, Danny Ray, Alfonso Velez, and more. The record is mixed by Geoff Sanoff, engineered and co-produced by Merle Chornuk. During the pandemic, Gentile released a single titled “The World is a Goner”, covered by American Songwriter Magazine. The song is “not a melancholy tale of a very tragic year, but a song towered above hardships.” Diane also co-produced, with producer Jody Porter (Fountains of Wayne) during this time compiling an online Celebratory Memorial to the late, great Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne), still available for viewing on-line. She also
