Photo credit: Radek Nowicki Facebook.com/rnstarlight
Who is answering the questions?
I’m Twister – singer and lyricist. +
Can you tell us about the formation of Maxdmyz?
So it was around 2000. The guy I started the band with – well both of us had been involved in long-term projects that had come to an end, and we were looking for something new. A bass player and drummer followed soon after.
How did you get to the band name Maxdmyz, and what does it mean to you?
So, my fellow founding member just came up with it one day and said, “this is the name of the band” – I’d spent enough of my life sitting round thinking up dumb band names, so I said, you know what, fine. And what it means to me? Well, I guess it’s like someone else christened my bastard offspring – whom I’ve since learned to embrace and love.
Photo credit: David Newbold Facebook.com/dnewbold2
To an unfamiliar reader, how would you describe your sound?
It’s heavy metal, with a mass of influences from classic rock and death – it also still incorporates elements of dance and electronica – our output tends to be quite varied, and of course not every tune, or every album, quotes from all these genres. In general, our music is melodic, passionate, elegiac but hard and brutal too. It’ll tug on your heart strings and on your brain and balls.
What bands have influenced you over the years, and why?
When all’s said and done, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Motorhead, The Beachboys and Velvet Underground. The other guys influences range from the Beatles and Anathema, to Thelonius Monk, Type O, Squarepusher and the Cardiacs – but I’ll leave them to speak for themselves. AC/DC just because of the sheer adrenaline, joy and catchiness of the songs. It conveys emotions, and connects at the gut level. Wasn’t there some German jazz pianist who called their music the most shamanic he’d ever heard – yeah, now I remember, his name’s Jens Thomas and he did an album called Speed of Grace as a tribute to the band. Sabbath, because it’s so dark and committed – Motorhead because it’s relentless and uncompromising – Velvets because it was at once wistful and twisted and deeply sexual – and The Beachboys – sheer songmanship, innovation, melody and harmony. With that weird insane edge that they had. Did I say The Doors?
Photo credit: Radek Nowicki Facebook.com/rnstarlight
How did you get to the album title ‘The Hate Plane’, and what does it mean to you?
I’m not religious – but it’s one of the Buddhist planes of existence – and I like to think it’s this one, the one we’re on now, I mean – I can’t tell you any more as I haven’t googled it. It’s a fallen world – not that there ever was a fall or for that matter a world before it. If there were a cosmic elevator then the hate plane would be the basement – if I keep meditating I’m hoping to hit the ground floor soon.
Can you elaborate on some of the other main themes and influences that run throughout ‘The Hate Plane’?
The songs at some level are an acting out of the human condition, or at least my condition. If you think of the voice on The Hate Plane as coming from someone who is unreliable, fractured, deranged even. Don’t conflate the singer with the song, though, or the singer necessarily with me. I think of a song sometimes as a short poetic drama – that’s why I can on occasion change style in the middle of a tune or modulate my voice – but sometimes the transitions are less about conveying character and more about mood or point of view. The album’s overarching theme I guess is just about how difficult it is sometimes to be alive,and finding, as Leonard Cohen says in Anthem, the cracks where the light gets in – and the main influence, well, my own experience of loss, joy on the one hand and of mental – I won’t call it illness – but anguish, along with the joy and anguish of others. There’s also the implicit recognition through everything that the most important event of anyone’s life is their death, that the eternal is less precious than the ephemeral precisely because it’ll always be there – but hey I tend to be quite upbeat most of the time – honest.
Photo credit: David Newbold Facebook.com/dnewbold2
What can you tell us about the recording process for ‘The Hate Plane’?
We recorded it at Berry St Studio in London, Then we did some additional recording at Ays Kura’s studio in Notting Hill – he also produced the album. I’ve always found recording a buzz – it’s like you want to get the definitive version of a song, or what seems definitive to you at the time. It’s just a question of capturing what’s in your head on the day. We usually put down drums and bass first, then overdub – it’s a pretty simple process really.
What song means the most to you from ‘The Hate Plane’ at the moment, and why?
For me it’s Side with Satan – every band worth its salt probably has at least one Sympathy for the Devil in their set and this is ours. I remember reading Paradise Lost as a boy – Milton describes the poem as an explanation of the ways of god to man – it’s actually Satan who emerges as a sympathetic figure, flawed but all too human. His road was paved with good intentions – we can relate to him.
Photo credit: David Newbold Facebook.com/dnewbold2
What songs are you really enjoying playing live from ‘The Hate Plane’ at the moment, and why?
Grieve, because it’s a show stopper, Side with Satan, because I can just pour my soul into the vocal, and Cyanide, because it’s got some great bravura passages in it and reconnects me with my adolescent self. These tunes give the greatest opportunity for physical and vocal self-expression. They’re full of points of humour, tension and drama. And that’s grist to the mill. I love it when a performance lets loose the shaman in me, or puts you in touch with cosmic energy or the universal mind – whichever metaphor takes your fancy.
What was the hardest part about putting ‘The Hate Plane’ together for you guys, and why?
Listening to the mixes over and over again till they were right – we didn’t snarl at each other that much – it’s intense and exhausting, but incredibly satisfying when you get it just how you want it. It’s not about getting your own way – in the end if five people are looking at you and honestly saying that your idea or whatever isn’t any good, they’re probably right.
How did the artwork for ‘The Hate Plane’ come together, and what does it mean to you?
The artwork on the inside sleeve of the album is a filtered version of Vortex’s (our keys player’s) original artwork, which he calls The Nether God Awakens. The original was pastels on black drawing paper. The theme is of a demon god made of black light awakening over an ocean in hell. He’s a fine artist in his own right and like me loves the work of Giger and Bosch Giger.
Are you working on any new material just yet? If so, how’s it coming along, and what can fans expect?
Yes, it’s going well. We’re in the studio this month, to record an EP, again with Ays, that’ll be out later this year. This is the first recording and writing with our guitarist Roger Kirchner – and already his joining has changed the chemistry of the band and how and what we’re writing. It’s not exactly a new direction, but it’s a little different from what we have been doing. The plan is for a new album in the spring or early summer of 2017. I’m really excited about it – the new tunes I’d say are among the best Maxdmyz has ever produced.
Touring wise, can you give us a couple of personal highlights from your time on the road?
I don’t want to reinforce any stereotypes but having my clothes ripped off by a couple of stage dancers dressed as nuns and almost losing my head to a chainsaw, which was part of the show back in the day – accidental I hasten to say, or at least I hope it was. Seriously though, the great moments are when you meet people who are inspiring – it could be another band, a respectful promoter, or a particularly engaged sound engineer – and when you connect with the people who come to see you, either as an audience or as individuals, that’s why I do it – just to create intense and special human connection. I remember once in Sweden, a girl coming up to me and saying that listening to a couple of our tunes was the only thing that kept her from wanting to kill her mother. I hope the songs were able to give voice to or express something that was going on inside her that she couldn’t access herself at the time. Maxdmyz as therapy and self-therapy of course – good!
Photo credit: David Newbold Facebook.com/dnewbold2
How would you say the sound of Maxdmyz has grown/progressed over the years?
At the beginning, we were really open about the direction we would go in – our early sound combined electronic and house, with metal and drum ‘n’ bass. Technically, technology and modern amplification helps achieve better results, quicker and cheaper, both live and on record – although it can be a good servant but a bad master – so our sound has improved from that perspective. Over time, we’ve probably got heavier, less dancey and electronic, and we no longer rely on backing tracks for additional instrumentation – which we did for a long time – having live keys playing the samples or synth lines, as we do now, has made a huge difference for the better in terms of energy and sound.
What sets you apart from any other band out there right now?
I think the tendency for a lot of bands is that they find a narrow furrow, then stick to it. We’re a little more open than that. I think what sets us apart is that we reflect more fully in our music the sum of our influences – I have albums in my basement ranging from folk to soul to black metal and why not! I hope we offer maybe a more rounded experience to the listener, where we’re not rigorously trying to censor our output – is it heavy enough, is it aggressive enough or whatever, because we’re trying to match some idea of what a metal band should be. I used to be in a band years ago with a guy who used to get quite anxious as to whether his guitar lines sounded “too pussy sometimes” – we’re beyond that.
What is the music scene like in London, UK?
I’m always struck by the passion of the fans in London, and that there are so so many talented musicians, performers and writers everywhere you look. At a time, when music is so much a commodity, and there are so many choices when it comes to entertainment and all the other things there might be to do on a Saturday night, I’m amazed at how many people manage to make it through the rain to a metal night somewhere with a London postcode.
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