Get to Know Singer Mike Maimone

LA based Singer Mike Maimone has one of my favorite voices I’ve heard in years. Gritty velvet with unique emotional tones. If Leonard Cohen and Randy Newman had a baby, you would get Mike Maimone‘s voice. Easily recognizable with a story to tell and I’m all ears. Side note, he is one hunk of burning love. That’s why I used a shirtless thumbnail to get you to click the link. I know how your mind works. Come for the fuzzy chest, stay for the music.

Maimone has recently released a new song and video, “Unfollow”, as tribute to his late husband. Watch/hear below. The video was directed by singer/songer writer Tom Goss.

“As I set about re-imagining the song with an added section for a feature, I strummed the song on acoustic guitar. I had written it originally on piano. New emotions emerged, as I played the song slower and in a lower key. So I set out to record not just one new version, but several new versions. I’ve also noticed a trend of releasing slowed tracks – but they’re kind of lazy – just the original track slowed down. I’m hoping that listeners will connect with the song re-recorded in it’s entirety at different tempos as well as in different keys. A breakup typically involves complex and conflicting emotions – especially in the digital age, where it’s all too easy to check up on a past love to see it they’re doing better (or ideally, worse) without us. And so the Unfollow [VERSIONS] EP became my project as a producer to explore all of these emotions.” Maimone

“Unfollow,” which was originally mastered by Chris Gehringer (Miley Cyrus, Young the Giant), is a fun, disco-centric new pop anthem, closing the book on a past love, by hitting unfollow on social media.

Maimone lounges poolside. Photo Credit: Rafael Paiva

“For the Windowns Down version, I enlisted my band back in Nashville to create a breezy Americana track that embodied the freedom one feels after severing the ties from a bad situation. The Campfire version came about because I felt a solo acoustic performance let the story of the song shine through. For the 2AM version, I turned off all the lights and dug out my synths to create a moody late-night vibe, for those introspective moments when the bed feels bigger than it used to. And for the ExFactor version [insert new video link], I went to my friend Jules the Lion, a queer singer/songwriter/comedian/rapper – the perfect combination for a quirky, sexy song. He wrote his verse, brought it over to my studio, and nailed it on the 1st take. Finally, the Perry Twins remix was actually the first new version, which was entirely done by them. I included it on the EP to close it out with an empowering club anthem for moving on.”