“To be
honest with you, it’s such a weight off of my shoulders,”
explains the unpredictably captivating Kevin Max (a.k.a Kmax) when queried
about his first solo adventure away from the confines of the evangelical
platinum act DC Talk. He continues, “Because for so long I’ve
been carrying this burden of ‘I can’t believe I haven’t
done a solo album yet.’ I haven’t been able to do my own thing
and be able sing the verse and the chorus [laughs]. It’s not from
a selfish place where I think I’m better than Mike. It’s just
a mode of self-expression and I haven’t been able to do that in
DC Talk.”
Yes, Kevin Max is an interviewer’s dream. This guy will say exactly
what is on his mind, and he will not sugar-coat it. And for that, he should
be commended. Too often in popular music (secular or sacred, mind you)
musicians play it safe, pander to the media to keep the label happy. After
all a successful record by today_s pop juggernauts yield millions of dollars.
Kevin Max doesn_t even think about playing safe. Actually, that is a lie.
He does think about it. At one point our discussion veers smack dab into
DC Talk. Prior to fully answering a question on the group, he stops himself
and prefaces his response (knowing that it will be titillating or, perhaps
lucky for HM, scandalous) with “I probably will regret saying this.”
Alas, I am getting ahead of myself, and you, our most excellent reader,
will need to wait for the response to be fully fleshed in front of your
eyes (Don’t you dare skip ahead! Please, humor me by actually reading
this whole article).
Kmax should not only be commended for his brutal honesty, but for releasing
a brilliant record. Stereotype Be is the lithium for CCM’s manic
depression. This is the record that the stagnant, plasticine, cookie-cutter
Christian Music Industry has for years needed so very badly. It can be
said that the industry may not be ready to take this pill of hook drenched
90s Brit rock tweaked with psychedelia from a member of the biggest selling
group to come out of the Christian subculture.
For a member of a group whose fan base is comprised mostly of teenagers,
Kmax knows the obscure classics of rock n roll: the 70s glam of Roxy Music’s
Country Life, he correctly cites Revolver as the Beatles’ high water
mark, extols the brilliance of George Harrison’s three record opus
All Things Must Pass, when it comes to Bowie the conversation turns to
Brian Eno’s avant-garde contributions and Lodger. As he speaks of
Bowie’s willingness to experiment and stretch the boundaries of
the pop narcotic, his voice is marked by excitement. He explains the feeling
of being connected to Bowie via a near-legendary guitarist, Adrian Belew.
“When I first started with him [Belew], I was so kind of starstruck
by all the stuff he’s done. Because I’m a huge Bowie fan,
a huge fan of the stuff he did in that period, I’m a pretty big
King Crimson fan [Robert Fripp’s legendary prog-rock outfit]. Not
including all the stuff he did with Zappa and Talking Heads, and the list
goes on and on.” Belew was enlisted as producer, arranger and play
guitar on the record.
Kmax also brought in Crimson alum, bassist Tony Levin, and drummer Matt
Chamberlain (Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, The Wallflowers) to round out the
core of musicians who would provide the music for Stereotype Be. Sounding
half like a cocky son of a gun, half like a kid in a candy store, Kmax
brags, “As far as a band goes, I don’t think you can beat
that trio for what they are. It’s an extremely intriguing band,
and I was on keys and vocals. That’s kind of the heartbeat of the
record, that band: Tony on bass, Matt on drums, Adrian on guitar.”
A cynic would attribute much of the greatness of Stereotype Be to the
elder Belew and Kmax’s formidable band, but that is not the case.
“And to be honest with you, he would even say this in an interview,
he just made my demos sound better. Actually my demos sounded really really
good,” states Kmax matter-of-factly, “So it was my baby. Adrian
came in as an arranger, a producer, a guitar player to bring the music
out of its shell a little bit ya know.”
To say that the sound of the record is a departure from DC Talk is an
understatement. From the record’s opening bizarre Eastern vocalizations
on “Return of the Singer” to the trippiness of “Shaping
Space” or the serious freak-out distorto guitar backing him up on
the spoken word “I Went Over the Edge of the World”, this
is no Nu Thang by some craze Jesus Freak. “I wanted to make a record
embodied a lot of different styles, I just think the Eastern thing turns
it on its ear a little bit. I would personally love to do a whole record
like that at some point in my career, just not now. I just wanted to,
if you will, throw a little curry on the mix. As they say in England [in
faux british accent] ‘a bit of curry’.” One listen and
you, discerning music listener, know that this is not DC Talk. And thank
God.
While Stereotype Be trips through Strawberry Fields, it also sets up on
the corner of Penny Lane and Blackberry Way in Poptown circa 1967. Songs
such as “Deconstructing Venus”, “Shaping Space”,
“Her Game”, “Blind” are saturated with huge choruses
and catchy hooks with enchanting melodies. Stereotype Be is a pop record
with decidedly creative twists and turns that literally transcend the
mundane of MatchboxVerticalFuelLifehouse20Horizon-land.
The middle of the record finds Kmax hitting on all cylinders as he merges
the pysch experimentation with pure pop catchiness on the song “Alycen
and the Secret Circle”. The tune is marked by multiple mind blowing
changes, tripped out swirling keyboards, psychedelic poetic meanderings,
layer upon layer of guitars, strings, harps... ah, pure bliss. Referring
to the song as his “favorite” on the record, he states, grinning
through the phone line, “That [song], to me, is the kind of song
that George Harrison wishes he wrote.” Big words.
Stereotype Be represents a sonic wakeup call with its well-written Beatlesque
tunes, but it isn’t just the music that attracts you, the discerning
music listener. Lyrically, Kmax expresses honest eye-opening personal
thoughts and opinions through his songs and poetry (two spoken word pieces
appear). His words are both in-your-face obvious and mysteriously elegiac,
and at times they are both. His lyrics excel when allows wears his heart
on his sleeve, such as on the song “I Don’t Belong.”
Kmax openly acknowledges that he does not fit into the Christian Music
Industry, at least like his label or he peers would expect of him. Further,
he is arrogant, but in an industry where musicians are to be shiny happy
people, this does not fly.
“I Don’t Belong” is his declaration of sorts, a statement
of his position in his career. “That song is really about being
a misfit too. About not really fitting in to CCM, not really fitting in,
even sometimes, with DC Talk. I think that makes a point. Even from the
beginning, I got caught up into this thing of DC Talk and sometimes I
would just sit back and look at the music we were doing ... It’s
kind of funny, the way God put us together and I really look at it that
way. It’s a band that I would have never put together, personally.”
He continues, “Especially because it’s talking about DC Talk
because it’s pretty biting. I didn’t mean it to offend the
guys, but I meant to be honest about some of my feelings from the past.
The cool thing about us now is we have come full circle. We aren’t
exactly like, we don’t agree all the time, but that’s cool.
That doesn’t mean we can’t still be a band.”
Despite his feelings of alienation or wondering why he is where he’s
at, he insists that he wants to be accepted, “At the end, I’m
saying ‘Say I’m wrong, when I say I don’t belong. Please
say I’m wrong.’ I do want to be accepted even though I’m
not sometimes, I do want to fit in even though I don’t. I think
a lot of people feel like that in life.”
The logical question is where does this lead Kmax? He insists that DC
Talk is not going to break up (that the solo records were a mutual decision),
but he does acknowledge that DC Talk won’t go on forever. “I
am saying that in all humility, I feel like, I feel a bit like... and
please do not take this egotistically one bit and I’ll probably
will regret saying this: But within DC Talk, I kind of feel like I’m
the John Lennon of DC Talk to a degree. I feel like my ideas are off the
cuff, not as heady, it’s more this kind of gut music, and more cosmic.”
He compares his vision with John Lennon’s success as a solo artist
in the 1970s. “The truth is, I like to be challenged. In DC Talk,
to be totally honest with you man, I’m being dead honest with you
at the risk of kind of getting into trouble. I have never like completely
gelled with any DC Talk record completely. Jesus Freak was probably the
closest thing to a record that I was extremely proud of. That’s
because DC Talk is a friendship of three guys from college and we got
caught up in this whirlwind. And I think it’s become successful
because of these three different elements.”
The perfect blends of musicians, songwriting experimentation, lyrical
honesty, and pop sensibility have lead to an exciting record that not
only invigorates the Christian music scene, but also the secular. Perhaps
even more importantly, the record has breathed a renewal in Kmax himself
because he knows that after DC Talk, he has the ability to do music on
his own. He states, “I think me as a solo artist might be a bit
more challenging you know. It might bring music out a little further and
hopefully that can become a career where I can have a couple hits on my
own. That would be great.” |