About a half-dozen weeks ago I interviewed
MAX TUNDRA, a literal wizard & a huge musical influence, for
SLASH STROKE magazine. I asked him some simple questions & got some interesting answers...
SLASH STROKE: What’s good about the new?
MAX TUNDRA: It doesn’t have to rely on old ideas or things that have gone before…however, try telling that to the new album by The Killers!
BILL POSTERS: How do you come up with your tunes?
MAX: Quite often I wake up in the morning & there’s a musical idea in my head, like almost a fully formed song. It involves me quickly switching all the machines on, before I forget the idea & banging it out-listening to it a few times to check that I haven’t dreamt a song by Cliff Richard that already exists. Once I’ve confirmed that it is my own composition then I’ll take a few months planning the arrangement and what instruments to play & some words for it. But the last album took six years so the next one’s going to be a bit quicker, I think, so I better try & dream faster.
BILL: As far as I know you’ve always been a solo performer. Have you ever played in bands or wanted to play in bands?
MAX: The trouble is I don’t like being told what to play. When I left school I was in crappy bands that I really hated & I’d turn up at rehearsal with this proggy keyboard part that I’d worked out & they’d say, “Oh, it’s a bit weird mate, sorry can you just play” [sings melody] whatever & I just thought, well, that’s really annoying, so I just taught myself a load of instruments. So I would be in bands again so long as I can tell people what to play.
I did a Peel Session & that was me & seven of my friends playing twenty instruments; arrangements of songs from the first two albums. It was the third to last ever Peel Session. Unfortunately Mr. Peel died before it was broadcast so it was left to Rob da Bank to badly read out the press release he was sent & get loads of facts wrong about the session & my name & things like that. Unfortunately he wasn’t quite as into the music as John Peel perhaps was. I don’t even know if Rob da Bank particularly paid attention to the session or likes what he heard because I’ve never been asked to play Bestival.
BILL: How was touring the U.S.? Did you notice any difference between American & British audiences?
MAX: The difference between American gig-goers & British ones is that the Americans are less swayed by trends & good reviews in whatever magazines or blogs. Over here you get quite big bands with extremely erratic attendances at their shows. It can go wildly up & down depending on whoever else is in town that night, but mainly what Lily Allen’s into that week. Whereas in America it seems to be firstly: you can tour the U.S., then you can tour the U.S. again & there’ll be slightly more people at your shows each time because people are genuinely into the music & unpretentious & clearly want to spread the word if they really like it. Even if you’re not that cool & you wear clothes from H&M like I do they’ll still come to the show. Also you get a wider cross section of people from all backgrounds, ages, races, clothes-wearers & sexuality. You just find in America there’s no way of predicting who’s going to be in audience that night. People are genuinely into the music & they ask you really interesting questions at the end of the shows. It really feels like you’re building on something when you go to America, whereas over here you just forget about it. It’s very hard to develop as an artist in London & the U.K.
BILL: What’s next for Max Tundra?
MAX: This autumn I’m touring with a band called Passion Pit, who are a hot, trendy, new, young band who are actually quite good & I got the tour support because I sent them a myspace message saying, “Oi, I like your music can I support you please”. We’re playing Koko & all these big venues in the U.K. When I get the opportunity to play in front of loads of people, they’re quite into it. So I just feel there’s a breakthrough about to happen. 12 years slogging away. It took Animal Collective nine albums: I’ve only done three. We’ll see, ey. So I’m doing this tour & I’m working on the next album, which hopefully won’t take six years!
myspace.com/maxtundra for gigs & everything else
Hear Max Tundra on Resonance FM 104.4 every Saturday 14:30-15:30.
Max Tundra is playing at the Macbeth on September 14th. Buy tickets
here.
Read the whole magazine online
here.
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