Meet Nick Cardilino
"It's not something I can stop doing," Nick Cardilino says of his singing and songwriting. "Music is one of the main ways I look at the world. My brain just thinks in meloldies. If people wouldn't think I was crazy for breaking into song, I would be just like those characters in Broadway musicals who sing their conversations and their inner thoughts."
Nick's three CDs--Discover the Way, More, and The Workings of Grace are shining examples of that way of thinking, and expose Nick's wide and various musical influences. Shades of the Beatles, James Taylor, Rich Mullins, Steven Curtis Chapman, and Kenny Loggins can be heard in the songs on these CD. Plus, there is some traditional country, Latin folk, techno dance, r&b, and even a novelty song thrown in here and there for good measure.
Not only is there a wide variety of musical styles in Nick's songs, but the lyrics also demonstrate diversity, creativity, and craftsmanship. Some songs tell traditional Christian stories in new ways like "Discover the Way" and "Dancin' on the Water." Others are classic love ballads like "More" and "(Loving You is) A Prayer." Still others take the listener into the heads of interesting characters like the ones in "You Can't Take It With You" and "Mini-van Man."
Although Nick has been involved in music since childhood, he only started writing seriously in college, when he co-wrote two musicals that were produced at his church. After a long hiatus, he got back to studying the craft and writing in 1995. Since then he has released three of his own albums, had songs featured on three songwriter compilation albums, had songs cut on albums by recording artists Teresa Smith, Amplify, and Alisha Lynn, and was part of two teams that won Tunesmith songwriting competitions in Nashville in 2005 and 2006. His biggest success to date is having a song he co-wrote with David Smith called “Discover the Way” chosen to be the theme song of the 2007 National Catholic Youth Conference.
By day, Nick is a Catholic campus minister at the University of Dayton. "A lot of the inspiration for the songs I write comes from the experiences of the college students I work with," he says. He also works part time as a music minister at the Church of the Holy Angels in Dayton and plays occasional church and coffeehouse gigs and wedding ceremonies. He also volunteers as one of the co-coordinators of the Dayton-Cincinnati regional workshop of NSAI (aka the Songwriters Workshop at Southbrook).
Nick and his wife Anne Marie have been blessed with three children they are very proud of: Christopher, Mary Joy and Anne Marie. "My family is a great inspiration for many of my songs," Nick says. "More importantly, they understand when my head is in songwriting mode." Mary Joy is thinking about being a photographer when she grows up; she took all the photos for two of Nick's CDs.
"Although it would be nice if something I wrote made me a lot of money, fame, and recognition, what really matters to me is when people tell me that something I wrote touched them very deeply," Nick says. "If God uses this gift to help someone shed a healing tear or reminds someone to tell a friend, 'I love you,' or encourages someone to see a new aspect of our limitless Creator, then I think I've fulfilled my call."