Me and Max followed each other on Twitter a few months back, and I’ve become very attached to his music, which feels like it comes from a very genuine place. I had to secure an interview to get an insight into his musical and lyrical processes, as well as his collaborative history.
1. Although you don’t have any official albums as of yet, the compilation of loose tracks on your Soundcloud flows incredibly well, and feels like a really strong representation of your sound. How did you decide which songs to feature and in the order they were arranged?
I’ve been making and releasing music since I was in middle school but never really produced my own beats. I wanted to showcase songs in which I used my own sounds to kind of form a cohesive body of work, so I guess it flowed together naturally as the sounds i picked to make the instrumentals were all from similar genres.
2. Your lyrics often tackle topics like mental health and the ways in which you deal with it. What do you think is the best song you’ve written on this subject?
Fuck that’s a tough one, but if i had to pick i’d say “Painted Pictures” as it talks about how my anxiety has stopped me from being independent as an adult and my rocky relationship with my mom due to her having trouble understanding my depression.
3. You have also posted a Youtube video where you have spoken about these same topics very openly. What inspired you to do this?
So the Youtube video was made on one of the shittiest days i’ve ever had (fun fact), and i had really strong suicidal thoughts. I told myself that i wasn’t going to give up on life and gave myself one more chance for something good to happen. I decided to tell people what it’s like being me because I felt so alone in my situation at the time, so I figured i’d post a video talking about what i deal with to see if there was anyone that felt like me online somewhere. I thought if one person living on the other side of the world somewhere went through what I did, then i wouldn’t feel so alone. It ended up getting a lot of positive attention and people messaged me from all over saying how it really helped them, so long story short i didn’t end up offing myself and helped myself and others that day.
4. How long have you been producing for? I really do like the style you’ve used so far.
Thank you! I recently just started producing like in January of this year but since I started making music i’ve always had ideas for beats i wanted to rap over in my head, so i just transitioned that over into my music making program.
5. ‘ATOMSADAM’ is a slightly different vibe to your usual material. Is rapping over production that isn’t your own a different challenge?
Okay so first off shoutout Grimm Doza because he’s a cool dude to do business with and makes original ass beats. Also I do think it’s different since i’m not the one behind the boards I have to find a way to compliment the producers style and be able to carry a song with my own words, so I feel like I REALLY have to stand out, you know? It’s different but I like rapping over other beats as it helps my writing skills get stronger.
6. ‘Stay Out’ is one of my personal favourites from the compilation, I love the thumping beat and the melody of the hook. Any stories on how that one came together?
So I knew I wanted to ironically put those Real Trap Shit mixtape tags on a beat that wasn’t trap at all. I thought the furthest thing from trap would be a house type of drum pattern. So it started out as a playful type of song by mixing industrial drum patterns and house drums but it really ended up being something much more in the end so that was cool.
7. I featured ‘Export’ on my second playlist. That’s easily one of your best rapping performances to me, even though it is short. Is there more in that style on the way?
Of course! More aggressive fast type raps weren’t really abundant on the Volume 1 0 1 0 0 compilation but I do want to start rapping over faster harder beats as I can experiment with some cool flows on them. Plus they’re more accessible.
8. Your recent ‘Poltergeist’ collab with Tony Jupiter is a beautiful piece of work, how did you two come to work together?
So me and Tony actually went to high school together, we shared a mutual interest in music as he had a band called “The Boxheadz” at the time. We quickly became friends and he hit me up one day asking to be on this Tony Jupiter project he was doing. I think our styles really meshed well and people want more collaborations in the future. A cool fact is that he also produced on my tape as “BADFISH” so he does hip hop as well.
9. Do you have plans for a full length project? I’d really love to hear something like that from you.
Yea, definitely more music on the way and more experimentation with different sounds could be expected.
10. Finally, is there anybody you’d like to shout out?
Oh damn this feels like my grammy moment so i’m about to go in, alright shoutout my dog, shout out Angela who was the first to hear “Poltergeist” Jazel, Ariana, Kai and Sulay, Tony of course, Tusk Airline, Joel (Lovekill), Henny God, Sekwence, KPW, Rashad, Jay and 108 Mics for featuring me on here thanks for having me
Check out Max on Soundcloud. Follow him on Twitter at @mxmlln10
108 MICS 