Zachary Cole Smith

Zachary Cole Smith (born November 7, 1984) is an American musician, model and music video director, best known for being the founder, frontman, and principal songwriter of the indie rock band DIIV.

Smith was born in New York City on November 7, 1984.

His father, also named Zachary, is a musician and songwriter.

His mother, Deborah E. MacIntyre, was a fashion editor for Vogue magazine.

Smith had disciplinary problems as a teenager and was often suspended during middle school.

When Smith was a freshman in high school, he and a friend went out looking for cigarettes and eventually smashed truck windows with rocks in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart.

Both boys were arrested, and Smith was expelled from school.

He also began playing the guitar during that time.

After that, he attended six different schools in five years, including St. Luke's School (New Canaan, Connecticut) and The Beekman School (Manhattan, New York), and finally graduated from Wooster School in Danbury, Connecticut.

He first began playing in bands like Soft Black and Beach Fossils after moving to New York City in the late 2000s.

Initially called Dive, the band started as Smith's solo recording project.

In 2004, Smith began attending Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts to study music and film.

Smith's favorite albums include Arthur Russell's Love Is Overtaking Me (2008), Red Krayola's The Parable of Arable Land (1967) and Faust's The Faust Tapes (1973).

The songs on Oshin were influenced by German psychedelic bands such as Kluster, La Düsseldorf, Neu! and Can.

Additionally, Smith cited Nirvana and world music as sources of inspiration.

According to Smith, Is the Is Are was influenced by Elliott Smith and Royal Trux.

After moving to New York City, Smith was introduced to a community of musicians and began playing guitar in Soft Black around 2009.

During that time, he met Dustin Payseur and played drums in Beach Fossils for a short time.

In 2010, he rejoined them as a guitar player and began recording solo material.

Smith began writing songs himself in 2010.

Prior to 2011, Smith had also toured and played guitar with the indie band Darwin Deez.

In the summer of 2011, he booked a show for his project Dive and asked Andrew Bailey, Devin Ruben Perez and Colby Hewitt to join him.

They eventually renamed themselves DIIV, were signed by Captured Tracks and released several singles.

Smith released his debut studio album with DIIV, Oshin, in 2012, which combined elements of krautrock, post-punk and shoegaze.

He has directed music videos for DIIV and Sky Ferreira.

Outside of his work in the music industry, Smith has modeled for Saint Laurent on multiple occasions.

Their debut album, Oshin, was released in 2012.

Smith co-directed the music video for "Doused", which was released in September of that year.

Smith was signed by Re:Quest Model Management in the summer of 2013, and along with Cara Delevingne, was photographed by Hedi Slimane for Saint Laurent's Fall 2013 campaign in May of that year.

In June, he walked in Saint Laurent's spring 2014 menswear fashion show during Paris Fashion Week.

Smith directed the music video for Sky Ferreira's song "Omanko", which was released in December 2014.

On July 9, 2014, DIIV performed as Ferreira's opening act at a concert benefiting the David Lynch Foundation.

The proceeds went to support "Transcendental Meditation (TM) programs for at-risk students; veterans with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) [sic]; women who are survivors of domestic violence; American Indians suffering from diabetes; the homeless and incarcerate."

In May 2015, Smith was featured in an episode of Noisey's "Under the Influence" series detailing the influence of krautrock on contemporary music.

As part of a fundraiser for the "immersive theater performance" Houseworld, DIIV offered to re-enact a donor’s dream in exchange for a donation of $10,000 in October 2015.

DIIV's second studio album, Is the Is Are, was released on February 5, 2016.

Smith walked in Saint Laurent's Spring 2016 menswear runway show in June 2015.

DIIV released their second studio album, Is the Is Are, on February 5, 2016, and then on October 4, 2019, their third album, Deceiver.

Smith's work with DIIV has been described as krautrock, post-punk and shoegaze.

On October 4, 2019, DIIV's third album, Deceiver, was released on Captured Tracks.