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Exclusive Kevin Max Interview Go to Page 1, 2, 3

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Last week, Kevin Max took the time to sit down with æ.com for a casual interview - the second in our series. (The first was our interview with Tait.) Kevin, quite the gentleman, was extremely gracious and generous, not to mention as honest and interesting as always. As an added bonus, his wife Alayna stopped by and I asked her a couple questions also. Being the total sweetheart that she is, she obliged. So settle in and prepare yourself for the following transcript of our conversations. Also, don't forget to check out Kevin's website this week for the unveiling of the new design!
--Jessica

[As we sit down to talk, Kevin is slightly distracted by an adorable 2-year-old girl who is hitting him with a stuffed lamb. He notices her tennis shoes, which light up when she walks, and mentions that he's always wanted shoes like that. At one point, he gets the lamb from her and they start tossing it back and forth. He comments that he's always wanted someone to play catch with. The fact that it's a stuffed lamb launches him into a humorous story about himself and a friend trying to catch a lamb in Scotland, so he could take a picture with it.]

æ.com: So you were just in Scotland? Were you playing over there or were you on vacation?

Kmax: I was doing shows, yeah. I did a show in Edinburgh and I did a show in Glasgow. I was actually vacationing with my wife too. Actually no, I did a show outside of Edinburgh in the town where my father-in-law lives. He has an old manor house that looks like a castle, it has turrets on it and everything. It's a very old building, so it's all stone and everything, really, really cool. So we go there on vacation every once in awhile. I sang at a church there right up the street from his house. I'm actually doing a show in Edinburgh this summer at a festival called the Edinburgh Festival.

æ.com: Yeah I think you have more shows scheduled in Europe than you do in the U.S.

Kmax: I do.

æ.com: Do you like playing in Europe better than in the U.S.?

Kmax: Much better, yeah, of course.

æ.com: Why is that?

Kmax: Because people will listen. [laughs] In the states everyone's like going to get their gummy bears and moshing and …

æ.com: Do they sit and listen (in Europe)?

Kmax: They sit, they stand, they jump around, but they really appreciate the music for what it is. What I find in Europe that I really love the most is that there's no stereotypes when it comes to the type of performer you are or the music that you're creating or where you're trying to go with it as an experimental person, they like that even more. The more experimental you can get, the better it is for them. Whereas in the States, if you do something that's different, like if you go against the grain, if you do something that's new to people, they just kind of like fold their arms and go "I want the thing I'm familiar with," you know? I think it's part of our culture to want to surround ourselves with familiarity and comfort, you know what I mean? Where I think the Europeans are about comfort in different avenues.

æ.com: Do you think they're dc talk fans or they just know about you or they're just more open to new people?

Kmax: To be honest with you, I'm developing a whole other crowd over there right now. It's about developing a whole new audience and for me that comes from a place where I'm probably playing in front of people who have no clue what I'm about. They probably heard through the grapevine that I'm a singer in dc talk or blah blah blah, which actually does me less good than you would expect. It doesn't [help] the situation.

[His phone rings - the ring tone is the tune of the Hallelujah chorus. He answers and tells the person that he's doing an interview.]

æ.com: You're developing a new crowd … through radio? Through playing over there? Through word of mouth?

Kmax: Through radio, through promoters who know a little bit about dc talk but are not going to push me as one of dc talk. It's more [that] they're pushing me as a brand new artist - 'check out this guy' - they'll put up a picture of me, and they'll hope that people are intrigued enough by the picture or what's happening on radio over there. And right now Furious Records UK is pushing my music and we're trying to figure out which song to enter into the UK general market with. It's gonna be general market radio, it's not gonna be Christian radio, so …

æ.com: Do they have Christian radio over there?

Kmax: They have small stations ... they have this thing called Cross Rhythms. It's a radio station, a big one, it's like one of the biggest ones. And I went #1 with "Return of the Singer" on Cross Rhythms but I told them 'You know what, don't put any more singles out on, kind of, pseudo-crossover,' 'cause they're not all Christian, they're always crossover, because the UK doesn't have a bottom-line gospel marketplace. They'll play, like, Rebecca St. James, but they'll also play, like, Oasis, on the same channel - people that are kind of infiltrating the mainstream.

æ.com: I heard "Existence," by the way, on Lightning 100 (a Nashville radio station that plays 'progressive rock' and also broadcasts over the internet at wrlt.com) and I was so excited.

Kmax: Thank you, yeah, they're actually picking up, I think, "Blind," they're gonna start playing next.

æ.com: And it fits right in with the rest of what they play.

Kmax: Yeah. Like somebody like this, like Rufus Wainwright, (playing through the speakers), his music is better served on a Lightning 100 than it is a pop station too. I wish there were more stations like Lightning 100, you know progressive radio, stations that really go out and do a broad thing - like they'll play U2, and they'll play me, and then they'll play maybe, like, Frank Sinatra.

æ.com: And this is obvious, I'm sure everyone knows it, but your record sounds the most different from dc talk (of all the solo projects) which gives you the most opportunity to attract fans that aren't dc talk fans.

Kmax: Yeah, but it's also a detriment to me in the CCM world because people are wanting the dc talk sound, they're wanting the catch-phrase lyric about being a "Jesus Freak," or they're wanting something to pump 'em up as a believer. But my music is more about parables, more about the subtle inference as opposed to screaming slogans like, "Jesus is still alright with me" and that kind of thing.

æ.com: Not that there's anything wrong with that …

Kmax: There's not anything wrong with it, no, I'm not saying there is anything wrong. But for that marketplace, that's what they're craving, and I'm just not delivering that with this record. So I think, in a way, I've created a record that kind of had a few knocks against it from the beginning.

æ.com: Was that a conscious thing?

Kmax: No.

æ.com: Were you thinking about singles at all when you were choosing tracks for the record?

Kmax: Well, you think about radio now when you make a record regardless because you have to make something that you think will be successful, you don't want to make a project that nobody's going to buy into. So, from that perspective, I had to make a record that yielded some kind of exposure, but I didn't think of it as CCM radio. I thought of it more as a general market radio thing. And that's why I'm amazed that CCM radio picked up "Existence" and played it, and it went to #4 or whatever on the CHR charts. I was very mildly surprised at that, I didn't expect it to. So the fact that people are open to it excites me, but I don't think it's my home, you know?

æ.com: Yeah. So, when you play in the States, are you looking at playing in clubs or ...?

Kmax: Yeah, we're concentrating on smaller venues, general market venues, again, places that are going to listen to me as a brand-new artist, not listen to me because of the dc talk fact. So we're going after clubs, doing some theaters, some general market festivals. But the majority of the shows I'm doing right now are clubs, like I'm playing Exit/In here in Nashville, and playing El Rey …

[phone rings again, he apologizes, answers it, and finally decides to switch it off]

æ.com: I won't mention how much your phone rang ...

Kmax: [laughs] You can if you want to, it doesn't matter to me. I live my life pretty much on my sleeve, I got nothing to hide.

[Editor's note: So I left in the phone stuff just so I could use that quote :) ]

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