At only 18 years old, Massad is an accomplished performer whose unique and fresh sound has attracted a large fan base. Critics have described his voice as “having a maturity that belies his age”.
Auckland based Massad’s alt pop style is a combination of the rock, pop, jazz, electronic and musical theatre that he has been exposed to and involved with since an early age.
The last few years have seen Massad juggling school, performing, writing and recording.
Massad is now focussed fulltime on music. 2012 began with the “pre release” of his aptly named EP Overture debuting in the New Zealand Top 40.
In 2009 Massad released his debut album, Long Story Short and made his first appearance at one of New Zealands largest outdoor entertainment events, Christmas in the Park, performing to over 200,000 people.
Massad’s musical journey has seen him share the billing with renowned New Zealand artists including: Dane Rumble, Stan Walker, Opshop, Dave Dobbyn, Peter Urlich, Tim Finn, The Feelers, Elemeno P and many more…
Massad has won multiple song writing and performance awards including the Auckland University Songwriter of the Year (secondary school’s competition), the Playitstrange Christmas song competition, the Lowdown best song award at the national finals of the 2010 Smokefree Rockquest, 2nd place in the 2011 Smokefree Rockquest national finals and the winner of the teenage section of Freshly Squeezed Talent.
Winning these competitions led to Massad spending time recording at York Street Studios working with some of New Zealand’s top musicians including Clint Harris (Opshop), Stephen Small (Autozamm), Scotty (Elemeno P), Peter Urlich, Si Moore (Parachute Band) and Chip Mathews (Opensouls).
At age 16 Massad recorded a duet with Outrageous Fortune’s Antonia Prebble which was released on the charity album -“So This is Christmas” – six weeks in the top 20 album chart achieving gold sales.
In December 2010 Massad became one of the youngest ever recipients of a NZ On Air New Recording Artist grant.
Massad’s first video and single “Tear My Heart Out” was released in August peaking at #3 on the NZ Radio chart and #32 on the national sales chart. His just released second single “Forget About Me” is receiving great airplay on 91ZM, Classic Hits and the Edge radio network. In February both these singles were in the IMNZ top 10 airplay chart.
Massad has been in Sydney on and off writing and recording with Michael Szumowski and Stuart Crichton, two of Australia’s best songwriters. Over the last two decades Michael has written and produced songs for numerous artists globally in Germany, France, Spain and Japan, picking up a host of gold and platinum awards along the way. Stuart has worked with a number of world-renowned artists such as; Kylie Minogue, Delta Goodrem, Guy Sebastian, Vanessa Amorosi, Pet Shop Boys, Brian McFadden, Sugababes and, Dannii Minogue as well as contributing to several top 10 UK and international hits.
Massad’s debut album – due late 2012
