Today we’d like to introduce you to Max Cohen, aka “Mr. Max”.
Hi Max, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
The seeds of the Mr. Max project were planted while I was growing up in Los Angeles’s South Bay. I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember (classic rock was my first love) and I picked up a guitar at age 11. In High School, I was exposed to the music of South Bay punk bands from the 70’s and 80’s like The Descendents, Black Flag and the Circle Jerks. Like many teenagers, I was angsty, unhinged and I hated school and authority figures of any kind. I felt like an outsider and Punk music gave me something to relate to and was an outlet for my anger and frustration as a teenager. Despite hating High School, I managed to do well and I attended USC as a history major. No one in my family has pursued music as a career path, so I didn’t see that as a viable option until I met music majors at USC. I ended up rooming with music majors because any other roommates would complain that I played guitar too much.
By my junior year, I had decided I wanted to pursue music as a career, so I took as many music electives as I could – guitar lessons, songwriting courses, vocal lessons, etc. and landed an internship with Riptide Music in Culver City. I also formed Funk/Punk band Atomic Walrus with some musicians I met at a UCLA party and a friend from High School. After graduating in 2014, I got a job with Riptide Music, a music publisher specializing in Sync (music for TV, Film and Ads) and pursued Atomic Walrus. I cut my teeth with AW playing hundreds of shows, rehearsing constantly, writing and recording. I took it upon myself to learn how to produce and mix during this time, and in addition to mixing some of the AW releases, I produced jingles and music beds for TV and Ads. I got music placed on every major TV network and in a few national commercials. When Atomic Walrus broke up in 2018, I had already released music as “Mr. Max,” which began as a solo side project. I played around with different sounds in my early releases – experimenting with Funk, Indie Rock and Bedroom Pop, but ultimately decided to return to my Punk roots.
I loved some newer punk/garage bands like FIDLAR and The Frights and wanted to fuse these newer sounds with old school punk to create something new and different. I’ve always been a genre-bender, so I also wanted to incorporate influences from other styles of music I love – Psych, Surf, and Grunge to name a few. Because I was such a big fan of FIDLAR, I sought out Rob Schnapf, who produced the first FIDLAR record (along w/ Elliot Smith, Beck and a ton of other dope records) to produce my first Punk single “Let’s Get Cucked Up”. I loved how that came out, so I continued writing in that style for my debut EP “High Intellect, Low Income” (Produced by Mike Pepe). I had since stopped working at Riptide Music and find myself driving for Lyft and barely making ends meet. My experiences during this period inspired the songs on that EP.
Prior to COVID-19, I had formed a four-piece band that consisted of amazing players – Diego Patino (from It’s Butter) on drums, Arion Salazar (formerly of Third Eye Blind) on Bass, and Joanna Ceja (Long Beach Opera) on backing vocals – but we had to stop playing shows due to the shutdown. As a result, I shifted my focus and decided to make a music video for our song “Roses” and release a single version. The single version of “Roses” landed on an Official Spotify Playlist, as well as on KROQ Locals Only on 106.7 (which gave us a good boost in our fanbase.) The music video premiered in New Noise magazine in September and also made some waves. Most recently, we finished recording six new songs (again with Mike Pepe at Barefoot Recording) that we are going to release as a series of singles throughout 2021. Aside from Mr. Max, I run a guitar teaching company called Mr. Max Guitar, that has grown and expanded substantially in recent months.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has definitely not been a smooth road… The Music Industry is going through a prolonged rough patch (at least from my vantage point) and at times, it has been very difficult to make a living pursuing music. People who don’t work in the industry will often have this unrealistic, antiquated vision of musicians – either we are seen as rockstars who have labels pay for us while we party and live it up… or we are slackers who live in la-la land happily creating art and living in our Mother’s basement. Quite the contrary. In order to have any success as a musician, I’ve had to completely clean up my act and adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. In addition to making music, I had to learn producing, mixing, social media marketing, how to book shows, etc. before any manager or producer would consider working with me. This took years of grinding and it was exponentially harder for me than earning a college degree or working a desk job. Furthermore, money issues, band in-fighting, alcohol, mental health issues and girl-problems have also made the road pretty bumpy for me. My song “Roses” does a pretty good job of documenting all of this… haha.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I founded/play guitar and sing in LA Indie Rock/Punk Band “Mr. Max”. The band specializes in writing and performing high-energy, introspective and relatable music. I’m most proud of the amazing people I’ve gotten the opportunity to work with, and I’m also very proud to have had my music on the radio and on an Official Spotify playlist. What sets me apart – being a self-starter and building my career from scratch, also being unfiltered and unadulterated in my songwriting and personality. I’m also known for having been YouTube guitar teacher Marty Schwartz’s assistant and for starting my own guitar teaching company “Mr. Max Guitar”.
What’s next?
My most notable plans for the future are to release the new music I’ve just completed. There’s a chance the songs will be signed and released on a record label, but I’m still figuring out if that’s the right course of action. In the meantime, I’m going to continue writing songs, releasing content, and doing live performances on Instagram and Twitch.
Pricing:
- $10 + Shipping for T-Shirts
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://www.mrmaxmusic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrmaxmusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrmaxmusicofficial
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/mr_max_music
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4BatqCKyrbqXe0QuT0qPlg?view_as=subscriber
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/mrmaxmusic
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4laks2a8FFBHbLUcS5Eli5?si=npd1A4Q7RM-WvU9kQ4PH9Q
Image Credits
Sara Miller Sam Kellman Melina Cohen Nadia Bent
