Introducing Mountain Lions

New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The record is a culmination of songwriting and storytelling by Steven Diaz crafted over the past five years. To date, Diaz is most known as a contributing member of Cleveland indie rock band, The Lighthouse and the Whaler, who have been featured in USA Today, Paste, Consequence of Sound, MTV.com, and NPR, and who toured extensively with Ra Ra Riot, Matt Pond PA, and Jukebox The Ghost.

This year, Diaz shifted focus to his own music, pushing eject on all other projects and reinventing his craft somewhere it could be deeply informed by his favorite sonic themes of nature and technology - Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina. The new creation is Mountain Lions, an indie pop ensemble inspired by murmurings of Moog and marshland alike. The lyrics have at their core, earnest and tangible emotion. Whether it be the joy of a summertime roadtrip, the devastating loss of a friend, or the internal search for worth in the "everyday"... Mountain Lions seeks to bottle these emotions, swirl them gently in the light, and pass them around the circle.

The album was recorded with the help of Relient K's Dave Douglas, and Mountain Lions has begun performing at local venues and regional festivals. A home-recorded EP has been circulating since the fall with B-sides not included on the full-length, giving long-time fans of Lighthouse and new NC neighbors much to anticipate.

It is here, on a woodland homestead with sixty-five free-range chickens, a few minutes from his tech-industry day job, that Steven Diaz becomes Mountain Lions. And it is this summer that Mountain Lions brings us a striking display of fun, colorful pop, woven in and against stark emotional insight.