Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Kevin Max: Sad Astronauts

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Kevin Max: Sad Astronauts · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

0:24
Rockcast itself found. Maybe today we got Kevin Max with us. Uh yes,
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the Sir Kevin Max. That's where we're gonna call you from now on,
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Kevin. But uh, yeah, we're gonna want to talk about your
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project Sad Astronauts, which obviously a couple of years ago released released an incredible
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album, and you've got new stuff on their heizons around that, and so
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yeah, we want to talk about new Sad Astronauts music. Obviously there's just
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like new music in general coming out of the Kevin Max world. So we
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just want to talk about all of that. But uh, before we get
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into all of that, how are you doing today? I'm doing great.
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I've been I'm kind of like a chauffeur for four teenagers all day along these
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days. What does the Max family drive for two hours a day? What?
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What? What vehicle you guys get? H Tesla? I do not
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drive a Tesla. I can't. I could never do that, not just
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because of the company itself, but just I think those cars are super ugly,
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really interesting. Yeah, really, I'm sorry if either of you have
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one, but I don't. I actually I love the futuristic look. I'm
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sorry, I can't help it. But yeah, that is one of my
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guilty pleasures. I love just like the look of Tesla's. Yeah, the
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truck is. The truck is interesting. And I love all the videos with
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people with you know, the goggle, the headcams on as they're driving.
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I think it's amazing. I drive a very boring Jaguar Sedan. It is
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a Jaguar, so boring people people think, oh, he's got a Jaguar,
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but she is like a twenty seventeen gun metal gray Jaguar. I did
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black the tires out. I do like black tires and rims. And the
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windows themselves aren't tinted, they're normal. And I don't have any stickers on
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the car except for one little sticker in the backs kind of rubbing off and
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it's blur. And at one point I had Blur and Oasis on either side
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of the license plate, but the Oasis rubbed off, so it's just now
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blur. And I think it's great because I drive really fast and I get
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a lot of tickets, and you know, when the cops pull me over,
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they see this sticker, they says blur, and then they look at
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me, and of course I'm already in trouble. You know what I mean.
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But that's when I drive twenty seventeen Jaguar. I think it's an all
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wheel drive thing, but it's just a sedan, kind of a dad car.
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The not the mini van I was expecting. No, I used to
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have. We used to have a minivan because of my painting. Now i'd
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rather have like a sprinter or something that would be ideal. My wife drives
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an suv, but she's very specific about her car. She doesn't like me
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to drive it. Oh are you? Are you like a messy person in
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general? Is that fast and not very careful with cars? I wouldn't have
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guessed that from you. I kind of fancy. I watched race car films
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all the time to really problem. You know, I just watched Ferrari the
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other night, and I was just I loved it because I love all things
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Italian. And then I'm watching this story of Ferrari himself, which is really
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interesting. And then of course I loved Ford versus Ferrari. Yeah, really
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great film. Are you a top Gear fan? Oh? I love top
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Gear? Yes, I've watched about every season. Yeah. Yeah, and
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I actually started watching you know, his farm program. Oh my gosh,
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it's incredible, isn't it isn't that amazing? Watch all the seasons with him
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on the farm, which because I grew up on a farm too, so
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I I understand what a what a farm is actually like because I grew up
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on a farm in Michigan. Now now a farm in the Midlands in the
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UK is completely different, very very different. Yeah. I love his uh.
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I love his tractor is Lamborghini, His Lamborghini tractors. It's way too
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big. I love it. All right, Well, let's talk about new
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sad Astronauts. I will say you sent me and I ended up sending to
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Colin. Sorry I didn't tell you that, but I ended up in and
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I figured you would because you guys are you guys are a duo on this
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thing. Yeah, we're a team. I will say this might be my
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favorite sad Astronauts so far. It is so cool and I and I told
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you, I was like this, this almost sounds like something you'd hear,
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maybe like the Clash, Like there's some sort of eighties punk rock ness they
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love. Yeah, it was that was that the intention, like to have
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that kind of like vibe and soundly intentional. I told Eric, who's my
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compadre and said astronauts. I said, if we're going to do another record,
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every song has to rip your face off and and literally have this kind
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of feeling of spontaneity, not a lot minimalist. I like drums to be
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really in your face and kind of trashy. And so I said, you
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know, somewhere between Brian Jonestown, Massacre and Nirvana, and you know,
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with a little bit of you know, the Melvins and things like that too,
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you know, because I'm I'm a huge fan of punk music, but
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I don't want to ape on punk music either, because so many people have
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done that. So I wanted to be original vibes. But it's you know,
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it's going to be a very very visceral rock record. It's not going
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to have any happy, mid temporary ballady stuff on it like this last one
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did. I mean, Adult Fears was a great record, But it's Eric
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and I doing what we do best, and not as we just get in
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a room and we start writing songs together, because we've written songs together since
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Stereotype, my first solo album, and and so Adult Fears, I mean,
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we're all over the map as writers. We can write ballads we can
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write mid tempos, we can write rock songs. And that was the problem
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with it. I felt like it was just going in too many different directions.
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And so with this record, which I was the working title was Expangelical
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bluest I don't think we're going to use that one. You know, there's
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a couple of funny ones that we're throwing around, like astral campers and things
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like that. You know, I'm really I'm really interested in the idea of
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astral you know, traveling. Do you astro project yourself? No? I
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wish I could astro projecting my dreams because I because I do a lot of
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melotoning before I get to bed. So if you're doing if you're doing a
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lot of melatonin, then you have really crazy dreams. And I think that
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I already am there. But yeah, I've never seen my own body,
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you know, from a floating position or something, so unfortunately, no,
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But Colin, you do you do that when you like lucid dream don't you?
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Yeah? Well, I I do lucid dreaming or I do actual projection.
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But like it's actually way easier than people think if you just like take
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a take a week or so to like really work at it. Look up
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some like guided meditations online. It's it's actually way simpler than people would imagine
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that it is. It's a lot of fun. I'm a David Lynch fan
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and I just got into I'm wanting to take classes on trances and dental meditation
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too. Oh yeah, really interesting. My birth father is very heavy meditator
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and so kind of but he's from more from the Buddhist camp. I'd like
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to do transcendental just to see if what the differences are. But going back
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to what you asked me, sorry about, well, just like the intentionality
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of that, like punk sound, it's just it's so punk. Yeah,
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I mean, who wants to hear a fifty seven year old guy trying to
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be in a punk band? Of course, but that was a no no,
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sorry about that, but it literally we just kind of, you know,
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I said, I'm gonna do it this way, and we went in
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with a couple of new guys that are playing. The drummer was fantastic,
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bass player was fantastic, and our friend Andrew Capra was playing keys, and
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so Eric's on the guitar and I'm on vocal, and we we literally recorded
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it in the studio at the same time, in the same room together kind
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of has that Beatles you know, Abbey Road kind of vibe because we're all
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looking at each other. You know, I've got my lyrics sheet up and
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a microphone, but I'm able to see everybody and they're playing along to each
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other, and it's just that that's that that kind of energy is the best
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for rock music. In my opinion. Rock music shouldn't be isolated into a
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bunch of different booths and you're double doubling on everybody. It's just it doesn't
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It kind of loses something. And so we want to do that for the
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rest of the record. We want to have this feeling of just kind of
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urgency, like we just came up with a rush of ideas and here here
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it is and boom, you know, not thought out, not you know,
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massively produced or contextualized. Yeah, for sure. I'm a big I
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don't know if you know the band at the Drive in Kevin, but I
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was watching this this breakdown video on like on YouTube recently of at the Drive
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In, and uh, who who Colin? Who's that guy that I'm blinking
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anyway, he like does all all these sort of like kind of punk and
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rock breakdowns of like different songs. Anyway, there was this guy that like
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was able to get the individual files of like one of their most most popular
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songs, and at the drive ins like this very like part punk hardcore kind
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of band, and they recorded very similarly to how you guys just recorded,
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and you can hear the bleed through from like if you just like isolate the
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vocal track or just the bass track, you can hear like the symbol crashes,
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or you can hear like the basslines bleed through in each one of those
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individual tracks. And this guy was talking about, like this is just that's
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how punk and hardcore should be, and I totally agree. I mean,
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I'm a huge fan of Public Image Limited their early records. Like I wasn't
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really a sex Pistols fan. I like the sex Pistols, but I really
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love John Lydon and those early Public Image Limited records because they were playing with
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beats too, you know what I mean. So it was kind of like
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they kind of had a little bit of that Manchester vibe going on, like
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Joy Division and New Order kind of thing, but with punk music and really
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heavy guitars, and I felt like that was really cool when they pushed that
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envelope. I was really interested. But for me on this record, I
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don't really want to play with with beats that that kind of sequences. I
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want to have a drummer that's just can play this stuff live too, because
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to me, punk music is best when you can do exactly what you did
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in the studio on stage immediately the same kind of ode. If you can't
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do that, then it's fake and it shouldn't be done. So yeah,
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I can totally feel that, Yeah, there is there intention to to play
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some of this stuff live. I will see. I've been painting more than
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playing music, and I love it because I've become obsessed with painting. I
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started painting in February of twenty twenty three, and I've been NonStop, and
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I've been selling a lot of pain to people doing I've done a couple of
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exhibitions. I'm getting ready to do a third exhibition in town. I'm getting
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ready to do one out of town, possibly in another state soon. And
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it's taken all my energy and my focus to do these paintings. So I'm
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not, really, like I said earlier, I'm not really the kind of
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guy that wants to be on stage as much anymore. I mean, if
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I do, it's a special scenario, it's got to be right. In
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the case of said Astronauts, I'd do it because that kind of energy is
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a lot of fun. We did one show for Adult Fears and we played
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in Nashville at Jars of Clay's studio in front of about one hundred people.
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It was very minimalist and Peter Furler was on the drums and John Paynter was
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on base and Peter Peter played drums on Adult Fears. I don't know if
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he knew that he was, and he's like, a he's like an amazing
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new wave post punk drummer, and nobody knows this because he's you know,
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he's obviously known for that other band, and you know he he basically blew
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my mind like I've been his friend for years. But John was like,
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we need to get Peter to do this because he played on Perfect Foil.
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I don't know if you know the band Perfect Foil with Steve Taylor, but
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Steve Steve Teler. Okay, Okay, yeah, no, maybe I did.
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Taylor did a record called Perfect Foil, and then Danielson from Danielson Family,
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they did a record together, and Peter played drums on both of those,
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and so John had produced the Perfect Foil and all that stuff with Peter
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and said, you need to get Peter on drums. And originally we were
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using a drummer named Lindsay Jamison who plays on a bunch of indie rock stuff.
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If you look at his resume, it's it's sick. But Peter came
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in and just destroyed it and we were like okay, and I mean kind
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of blew my mind. And I'm like he did it in one session,
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like he was he was there for four hours maybe and played the whole record.
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Talked about him. I mean, he had the demos, so he
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knew the songs, but he played him with that kind of urgency where it
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was like he knew what he was doing and it's this kind of disco beat
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but also rock. And it reminded me of the best of Kings of Leon,
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the best of you know, the Strokes, the best of that kind
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of stuff. And I love those kind of bands too, and I was
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just like, this is amazing. So he played that whole record. Now
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on this record, we've got a different guy, and on you know,
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question my religion Qmr. The new drummer is insane. He's probably pound for
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pound as good as Dave Girl, and that's yeah, it is kind of
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intense. I get a little freaked out when watching him because he's so good.
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He doesn't want to be a touring musician and that's fine, but he's
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gonna play on this record. Cool. Yeah, having a career as long
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as yours, that you've had all these other artists playing with you, do
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you feel like you have just like the super a tuned ear to like what
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will work and what won't work from different musicians. I'm so out of what's
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current that probably know, like you, if you play me current music that
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is on the charts or whatever, I wouldn't have a clue. But if
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it's along the lines of the kind of stuff that I listened to, then
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absolutely. You know, being growing up in the nineties and being in DC
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Talk and having to sing all that stuff to take where it was, you
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know, if you messed up, you know, it was very expensive because
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you had to like go back roll, tape, back edit, you know,
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and everybody is angry. I was. I learned how to sing to
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the point where I could put a double down a triple stack and then harmonize
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three or four different parts in less than fifteen twenty minutes and be done with
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it. So that kind of knowledge is great, and that kind of craft
16:18
is great, but for punk music not so much. Because you know,
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if I'm making this record where it's like a single vocal, maybe a stack
16:26
here and there, I'm not going to be worried about those kind of things.
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But when it comes to you know, how good I am in the
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studio with other artists and stuff, it varies, like I would never want
16:37
to be a producer because I just don't have a lot of patience and I
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don't want to. I'm not a good teacher. I'd rather be the guy
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performing it and doing it. I'm happy to give people ideas and thoughts and
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things like that. I like collaborating, but and I've produced a lot of
16:55
my own stuff so that I have done. But it's not an interest in
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mine. Your uh, your your artwork is that was your twenty twenty three
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record from last year? Was that your own artwork as well? I am
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No, my stuff is it's on the QMR single that I've seen. Okay,
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I'm Mason. And then he might have sent you. That's one of
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my paintings. Most of them are on Instagram, so if you wanted to
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see what I do, it's on Instagram. But then I do have it
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on my main page kevinmax dot com. There's a there's a little page there
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for paintings. So, but I'm always painting, so I'm kind of but
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I'm not showing everything either because I'm also kind of experimenting. I'm trying to,
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you know, learn the craft, and so I'm not I'm not going
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to show everybody everything. Have you have you found like a specific medium or
17:45
like technique that you appreciate more than others, that you feel like vibes with
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your with your kind of go to attitude of stuff. Absolutely, Yeah,
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I just start painting. If I like it, then I keep it and
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I put it over the side. I could push this computer over here.
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I can show you, like the line of paintings I've got over here.
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If I don't like it, I paint over it. As simple as that.
18:08
And a lot of these paintings are abstract. But recently I've got into
18:12
figurative painting. I'm starting to paint faces and bodies and things like that.
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So I'm starting to get better at that. There's a lot of people that
18:19
are really intrigued that they don't believe that I just started, and I did
18:25
just start in February. But it's this is something I'm really serious about.
18:29
I'm going to continue doing it and we'll just see where it takes me.
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I find more pleasure in painting than in any other art form right now.
18:37
I'm you know, doing books, poetry, whatever, singing, Yeah,
18:41
okay, it's fun, but painting just kind of I'm in my element and
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I love it. And I think it's because it's an individual art. I
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don't have to deal with other personalities except for all the people in my head.
18:56
In your head, right, yeah, those are a lot of those
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around. It feels like your life is continuing to evolve into a world of
19:04
hermitude. Is that yeah? Is that an accurate thing to say? Yeah?
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I mean I call this Caveman Studios because I feel like a caveman.
19:17
You know. This is a very different workspace than what I had. I
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mean, you can see a bunch of books behind me. I'm basically sitting
19:25
in like a studio filled with books and a big desk, and but I
19:30
paint against the windows. On the opposite side, and it's great. But
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what I had before in Franklin was I have my own actual space above a
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garage, and it was large and I could do whatever I wanted to in
19:45
there, and it was fun. When you start to paint more and more,
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you start to get larger with the amount of canvas as well, and
19:55
so when you're looking at fifty by fifty to sixty by sixty or even you
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know, up to one hundred inches or whatever, then you have to be
20:03
in a real studio space. So it's kind of a bummer when you're in
20:06
when you're in like an office trying to paint large like that, you know
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it's not as it's not you can't do it as well. But yes,
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I mean hermit what did you say, Hermitude? Yeah, Hermitude is something
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I've always loved. I mean, you know, even when I was a
20:22
touring musician. I mean, I'd be the first one back to the tour
20:26
bus in my bunk. I. You know, people, people are great,
20:30
but people scare me, so I don't really enjoy being in a large
20:36
crowds all the time. I do love one on one conversations. I find
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that, you know, when people group group up, they get they get
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really they regress. I So when I'm one on one with somebody or one
20:52
on two, that's fine. But when I'm when it's a group, it
20:56
becomes regressive and people start to become really stupid and they say stu but things,
21:00
and they're because they're insecure and they're trying to make up ways to communicate.
21:06
And so that isn't as interesting to me as the one on one and
21:08
the individual arts of painting. Yeah, is that is that like some maybe
21:17
like light form of a gloraphobia kind of a situation. No, I have
21:22
known a goorphobia. I mean, like I said, I'm taking care of
21:23
four teenagers. I'm out in the world all the time, driving them around.
21:27
It's not that it's just that I'm not apciation. I don't I don't
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know. Yeah, it's not my thing to be in a large room and
21:37
just notice me. I would definitely be the guy in the corner trying to
21:41
find a really great conversation as opposed to you know, hey, the king
21:47
is here, you know, entertain entertaining, which is weird because I'm a
21:51
triple LEO and I guess a lot of people tell me uh, you know,
21:56
August seventeen babies are supposed to be like these really outgoing, you know,
22:03
have to be on stage kind of people like Madonna is August seventeen baby,
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and Robert de niro Is and Sean penn Is and all these, you
22:11
know, but maybe I'm I'm not like a Simba, a more like scar
22:18
from Lion King. I'm in the cave with the toothpick, like you know,
22:27
watching everybody. That's why I like Mason so much, because I like
22:36
his sense of humor. It's it's it's subversive, but it's but it also
22:41
gets people talking, and it gets people. It's reactionary, right, It's
22:45
almost kind of pugilistic. So when I when I'm doing poetry, I call
22:49
myself a pugilistic poet because I tend to write when I'm angry. So when
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I'm angry that I'm writing because I've got thoughts. It doesn't make for a
23:00
lot of good publications when you're writing that kind of stuff. But then I
23:04
kind of soften the edges and I put the Occasional poetry book out there too,
23:10
because I do enjoy poetry. But you know, like I was talking
23:14
about the karaoke thing when the guy got me up on stage is as soon
23:18
as I hit the stage, I'm so used to it that I come alive
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and I do my thing, and it's nobody would ever notice he doesn't like
23:26
this. But that's the thing. It's like, you get to a place
23:30
where you fake it so well that do you continue to fake it and make
23:36
the big dough or do you just realize this is crushing my soul and I've
23:41
got to do something different, you know. So for me, I got
23:45
out because I wanted to be close to my family. I mean, of
23:48
course my deconstruction and all that probably didn't help much within the confines of people
23:56
that know me from the musical past whatever, but that doesn't bother me because
24:02
I've never really been interested in making music for those people anyways. So I'm
24:07
kind of just I've been doing the same thing since two thousand and one.
24:12
I'm just not touring as much. You know. It is one of those
24:18
things where you think about like your music career, and obviously like people knowing
24:23
you for a certain band and everything, but like it really truly since you're
24:27
like solo stuff. It's like one of those things where people that are shocked
24:32
now about where you're at theologically or politically or whatever. It's like, where
24:37
have you been since two thousand and one. It's like you've always sort of
24:41
felt like and maybe you have, certainly I would imagine you have certainly changed
24:45
since two thousand and one, but like, for the most part, it's
24:48
like you have been kind of at the edge of certain you know, spaces
24:52
that you have occupied. You've been at the edge of those since two thousand
24:56
and one. So it's not like a shocked see you where you're at now?
25:00
Yeah, yeah, it's not. And it's not because I'm That's the
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other thing, and people think, oh, he's doing this because he's trying
25:10
to get a reaction or he's trying to get attention. I mean, if
25:12
you go to my bio on iTunes, the first thing it says, and
25:18
I think it was written in two thousand, like when my first solo record
25:21
came up, the attention seeking member of DC Talk, which I felt was
25:26
like a really i kind of thing that I've never been like attention seeking.
25:29
I'm I'm just that's who I am. Like if I I was having to
25:33
struggle with all that stuff even back like a ninety five or ninety six when
25:37
I got up on the double Wards and I said, you know this duves
25:41
for you kind of goofing on the whole bud Bud Budweiser thing. I mean,
25:48
that's that was my that was my sense of humor. And I just
25:52
felt, really, I felt really awkward in all those spaces. So I
25:56
really didn't know how to react, and so a lot of times I just
26:00
said something really stupid that came to my mind because I'm I was. I
26:03
was definitely awkward. I didn't want to be there, you know. And
26:07
so when I made this new record, Stereotype B the first solo album I
26:11
ever did, I kind of said what I wanted to say all in one
26:15
record, and people were just mystified, like, oh my god, he
26:19
didn't do what we thought he was going to do. Toby was going to
26:26
do, Mike was going to do. What's wrong with him? You know?
26:30
And I got all the something wrong with him? Is he on drugs?
26:33
And that For a long time, I saw these things. In the
26:34
early two thousands, when internet stuff started happening, it was like, is
26:41
Kevin Max on drugs? You know? Is Kevin It was all these weird
26:47
rumors about you know, why I was the way I was, And it's
26:49
just simply the fact that I have an imagination and I like to question everything,
26:56
and I don't I've never agreed with all of the answers that everybody gave
27:00
me. So just high on the Holy Spirit, right, yeah, well,
27:04
yeah, I guess I don't know the the universal, primal source,
27:14
whatever you want to call it. I think it might be Aliens. But
27:17
I mean I felt like I was. I was just a misfit in my
27:22
own situation, but definitely believed certain things from my youth and that and that
27:30
carried over for a while, and I was a Jesus follower. I still
27:33
believe that Jesus was amazing, and I still love the teachings that follow the
27:38
teachings and all that. But I mean one could say, even maybe a
27:42
Jesus freak. I was waiting for that. I mean, I was waiting.
27:48
I mean it was low hanging fruit. You can't blame me. I
27:52
mean, here's the thing. Truthfully, like the Jesus thing still mystifies me
27:59
and still to me. And you know, even when I read Richard Rohrer
28:03
for the first time, you know, universal Christ, I was like,
28:06
Okay, yeah, I get all this and I think it's amazing. But
28:11
uh yeah, so I was always a misfit and I didn't like it.
28:14
And I was the guy that was wearing Smith's T shirts, you know,
28:18
at DC Talk photo shoots and people are like, you know, can you
28:22
put something over That's why are you wearing the Smiths. I'm a Smith's fan.
28:26
I love Morrissey and mar you know, and you just make like a
28:30
you know, cross out the Smith's and put like the W's or something.
28:34
Right, that's what they wanted, right or I don't know. Actually,
28:38
by the way, the W's, I didn't know much about them at all,
28:44
but I thought they were really cool guys. I thought they were I
28:47
thought they were a cool act. It was like that they came along in
28:49
a time where it was really rough to be a opening act for DC Talk.
28:53
It was not fun. And I know the label, the management and
28:57
all that probably gave me a hard time or whatever. I thought they were
29:02
cool, and uh there was a lot of alternative bands that I thought were
29:07
cool during that time frame in the nineties, But again, I was so
29:11
much more interested in the stuff that was outside of CCM or Christian music.
29:17
I just didn't get it at all. But here I was in this huge
29:21
vehicle that you know is you know, on the cover of CCM and Brio,
29:29
you know Brio. That brings me back. Yeah, there's some fodder.
29:37
There's some fodder for the pugilism right there. But yeah, yeah,
29:42
no, no, no, I I what what what we what we're talking
29:47
about? I'm I'm I'm interested in in music. I'm interested in the arts.
29:52
I'm interested in pushing the envelope. I'm interested in asking the questions.
29:56
And I feel like this, this planet we live on a so minuscule compared
30:00
to the absolute mystery of what is out there, you know, and that
30:07
always intrigues me. So yeah, I'm kind of like an alien net where
30:11
I'm always wondering, you know, Skinwalker Ranch, like is any of that
30:15
stuff? Like for real? I'm very interested. So I yeah, I
30:19
just watched two thousand and one of Space Obtyssey Again. It's probably like my
30:23
twentieth viewing. Huge fan. I don't know if you are. I assume
30:27
maybe it's I'm a Kubrick maniac. Yeah, yeah, same, same.
30:32
I have to feel like maybe that maybe that movie was like a little bit
30:37
prophetic. Right, maybe there's some black modelists out there that live in a
30:41
in a completely different dimension that or that we can't experience because we can only
30:45
experience like what is it for or whatever in general. Yeah, in inner
30:48
interdimensional sh uh, movements of all sorts of different things that we can't see.
30:55
I I yeah, definitely. Yeah. Maybe maybe maybe there is something
31:00
to that, right, Maybe that is the God that we've been that we've
31:03
been looking at this entire time, or trying to look at this entire time.
31:07
Yeah. I think the more you look at it, the bigger the
31:11
picture gets, and the more interesting it gets in the more mysterious, and
31:18
the larger the scope of things, God gets more and more interesting and more
31:22
mysterious. And you know, you can't put it a title or you know,
31:27
confine it in any way. And that's the beauty of you know,
31:32
not knowing. In my opinion, it's just kind of surrendering to all of
31:36
that, Like, Okay, hey, you believe that, that's cool,
31:38
man, But you know, I'm gonna think it's aliens whatever. Yeah,
31:44
why not. But it's a good reason as any right, we could still
31:47
be friends. Yeah, I'm down for all of that. Yeah, So
31:52
so well, what's interesting about music is that, you know, I feel
31:56
like we've regressed a little bit though, you know, in terms of where
32:02
we're at, and I'm just talking like the whole picture. It's like,
32:07
and I'm not going to start, you know, talking about specific groups or
32:10
Taylor Swift with things like this, but it's like, like music starts to
32:15
sound the same all the time, at least on the on the radio waves,
32:22
yea, you know, and in the popular networks of course it's always
32:24
kind of them like that, but it wasn't in the seventies and eighties.
32:29
In the late sixties as well, you have so much dynamic going on.
32:35
So my problem is also in the fact that everything sounds the same. And
32:39
even my kids, you know, what they're listening to, you know,
32:42
I'm like, what you listen to? And so I listened to what they
32:45
listen to. I'm like, oh my gosh. You know, it's the
32:47
same line repeated over and over and over and over again under the same beats,
32:52
and I'm like, okay, yeah. I mean, I love Billie
32:55
Eilish because I think that Billie Eilish is actually doing something with it that genre
33:00
that's interesting. She's kind of pushing the sound of her voice to be slightly
33:04
different, and the production is different. Her brother is creating something that's really
33:08
interesting. Like I watch I'm a huge fan of True Detective, and I
33:13
love that that they're using the song very Buried Bury me is that is that
33:22
in the new season of True Detective, that's the new season they're using the
33:24
Billie Eilish songs. Very cool and it got me into her music again.
33:30
I was like, you know, she's really doing something interesting. I like
33:31
that, but there's not many in that genre that are doing anything interesting.
33:37
And so the one thing I've noticed with with modern music, at least pop
33:40
music in general, is that it seems to be almost anti melodic. If
33:46
there is a melody, which oftentimes there's actually not even really a melody anymore.
33:51
It's it's usually nursery rhymey, which is fine to a certain extent,
33:54
but I think it I think it kind of takes away something, you know,
33:59
I'm not tally sure what it is, but it does seem to vibe
34:01
with the younger folk, and if that's their bag, I guess that's their
34:05
bag. But it does kind of hurt my soul a little bit, you
34:07
know, they Papa need a brand new bag to show them what's up.
34:12
You know what I mean? We do need we do need a new James
34:14
Brown. I'll give you that much. Yes, there is there was one.
34:19
His name was Prince, but unfortunately passed. And I love all the
34:24
memes about how you know, Prince only did the most amazing you know,
34:30
super Bowl halftime of all time. And it was true. It was like,
34:35
I think it's the only time I watched a Super Bowl halftime is when
34:38
I heard Prince was doing it. I definitely watched the Janet Jackson one.
34:43
I don't know about you guys, but oh wow, when was that?
34:45
What? What game was that? I don't know, it was like two
34:47
thousands, like three two and four. I was the one where like justin
34:52
Timberlake pulled her dress and then yeah, hell broke loose the wardrobe alfunk.
34:59
That's right. Yeah, I didn't watch. Uh yeah. So so you
35:05
know, let's hang out, Mason, come to town. We'll go we'll
35:08
go to a trendy place in East Nashville. Or you can do the opposite.
35:13
Come out here to Arrington and hang out in the suburbs with with your
35:15
pal Kevin Max and we can we can drive fast driving fast car. You're
35:23
me in a fast car. I can put my arm Aroundngine and we can
35:28
we can say let's get out of here fast or whatever. I don't know.
35:30
You gotta be careful with that because Mason's everything to do is just it's
35:36
just lip sync DC talk songs. So if you do that, well,
35:39
man, people people have that, people have fun with all that. But
35:45
it's like it's still a little close to home for me. You know,
35:49
I can, I can. I can laugh at it, for sure,
35:51
but it's like it's also like I know those guys really well because we spend
35:55
so much time together, so I have a limited amount of time. Now.
36:01
I hear people moving and kids moving. Do you want to do this
36:06
cheesy section we were talking about Let's get chees? Yeah, it's perfect timing
36:09
for it. Actually cheese withusy on this one. Let's do it all right.
36:13
Top five most guilty pleasure album or guilty pleasure artists of Kevin Max's Life
36:17
Let's hear him? Yeah. I you know, that's tough because I only
36:24
listen to stuff that I like. But I'd say the most guilty pleasure one
36:29
that I keep coming back to is van Halen really Okay, Okay, that
36:35
that fits. I like it. I like it. Yeah, I mean
36:37
what era of van Halen? Yeah? I love David Lee Roth, Diamond
36:42
Dave. Of course I don't listen to Sammy Hagar. I think he ruined
36:46
it for me. But like everything from Women and Children first up to nineteen
36:51
eighty four, I can listen to that stuff all the time. There was
36:54
something about Eddie van Hallen that was just magical, like you can you can
37:00
hear the joy in his play. It's almost like like literally like a Mozart.
37:05
You're hearing the joy of somebody that can do crazy, ridiculous things on
37:09
an instrument and just and then the songs were great, and Diamond Dave was
37:15
was hilarious and fun. So Van Helen definitely, I would say. The
37:22
second totally opposite picture is Abba. Yeah, yes, Heaven, you're nailing
37:32
this. You're nailing this is the perfect Yeah. Alba is like Tita,
37:37
you know what I mean. You start hearing that voice in the in the
37:43
melody, and it's like it can reduce a furry chested, furry chested man
37:49
to tears especial and or a furry to tears and it runs the gamut,
37:59
right, it doesn't matter who you are, you're you're going to get emotionally
38:02
invested in Abba. Yeah. I totally agree. It's amazing. And I
38:07
feel like their their story of all of them as pupples and they're fighting and
38:13
they're breaking up and then they're switching partners and stuff. All of that's just
38:16
so great as far as the story, you know, adds to all those
38:22
songs, kind of like Fleetwood Mac without all the drama, you know,
38:24
Fleetwood Mac. Yeah, but I think the last one and this one's just
38:30
recently, I don't know why. And this is kind of weird to say,
38:37
I'm really gonna go out there with this one. You're gonna be surprised.
38:40
But I'm not gonna say Carmen, but I'm gonna say wham wam oh
38:50
yeah really yeah. Cheesy eighties pop music for Suream was amazing. Like and
38:58
even like early George Michael, like, I feel like he he had something
39:01
that not many artists had when it came to melody, songcraft, vocals.
39:08
Like he was a white prince in a way, he wanted to be prince
39:14
right, and he just wrote these ridiculously beautiful songs like you can't. I
39:20
mean, so the karaoke thing that I do, one of the ones that
39:22
have to do every time time is Careless Whisper. I have to sing Careless
39:27
Whisper. It's so it's so cheesy, but it's like it's like it's like
39:31
a Frank Sinatra song. It's that good, you know. I think I
39:35
think the only issue is that they were kind of victims of their time.
39:37
Like the music itself was was of its time. If you put like better
39:43
instrumentation with it, it's it's it's an absolute banger all the way through.
39:46
It's not cheesy anymore. Yeah, I mean, I mean they got really
39:51
cheesy towards the end. Is everybody huge popularity Chicago, Like when when you
39:57
know, you think about that guy I watched the documentary Poor Andrew Ridgeley,
40:00
you know what I mean, Like he's hanging out with this guy that can
40:06
write songs like crazy and has this voice that's like nobody else. And so
40:10
when George Michael came out with that first solo thing, you were just like
40:15
a different corner. Was the first real George Michael single, and I was
40:19
a nut for it. I thought it was amazing and that kind of informed.
40:22
A lot of the way that I sang in the nineties actually was was
40:25
George Michael. I can I can kind of pick up on that a little
40:29
bit. Actually, it's cooling to be George Michael, not David Lee Roth
40:32
when it came to singing, and then so then later on it was Frank
40:37
Sinatra and one of one of the biggest and this isn't a guilty pleasure,
40:42
it's one of my favorites is Roxy music and Brian Ferry. What I do
40:47
as a as a singer, I loved Brian Ferry. Well, if we're
40:52
being honest, yeah, it was like Dracula. You know, he's kind
40:58
of the sweat back air, the suit, the immaculate suits, you know,
41:02
and the thin cigarettes as he's singing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah
41:07
he was. I'm as straight as they come, but that that definitely,
41:10
that definitely gets me bothered. Most of my yeah, most of my favorite
41:15
singers were day I mean that, like, like honestly, I don't I
41:19
know, Brian Ferry wasn't, but like there's a lot of them. You
41:22
know. Bowie was like one of one of my early fascinations after the Beatles,
41:27
and I just thought Bowie was the coolest thing ever. And he still
41:30
is, you know. So there's my I was so out of pocket,
41:42
Mason, even just starting to think of like who are the cheesiest like gay
41:45
singers I can think of? And came to I couldn't even tell you what
41:49
Clay ak and has I. I just know him from American Idol. That's
41:53
it. I didn't know and was gay, so I you know, you
41:57
know more than me. I didn't know he was either. I thought that
42:00
was the whole thing about like him on American Idol, was him like kind
42:04
of sort of coming out. I don't know. I don't watch American Idol.
42:07
Mason, Well, I don't either. I remember that. I don't
42:10
watch Veggie Tails either, Mason. There's so many things that you that you're
42:15
harping on all the time. I don't listen to Reliant Kay. I mean
42:19
I like. I like Reliant K. And one of their guys is like
42:23
a good friend of mine, the guitar player. He's awesome oops or Schneck
42:29
Schneck, Yeah, Schneck is great. I love we go back aways.
42:34
He's a good guy. But I can't tell you Reliant K song. But
42:37
I did those guys, I think, how about John Piper. You're related
42:39
to John Piper, right, I don't even know who that is. Oh
42:43
my god, that's amazing. I don't that's incredible. We're one the last
42:50
man. Yeah, he's a he's a popular preacher from Minneapolis. Okay,
42:57
yeah, I do have a My favorite preacher of all time was doctor Jean
43:00
Scott. Oh yeah, Jean Scott. Go look him up, doctor Jean
43:06
Scott. Then you know all about Kevin Max Werner. Herzog did a documentary
43:12
and on him called God's Angry Man. Yeah, Assemblies of God. Well,
43:20
he was in the Egyptology Like he would get up on stage and start
43:23
like talking about ancient Egypt and stuff, and a lot of documentaries about Egypt
43:30
too. Yeah. Well he died. I mean, but he was.
43:32
He was so entertaining. I never liked watching preachers, but and I never
43:37
really got into any of them, but doctor Jean Scott interested me. He
43:40
was week. Yeah you'd like him, Yeah, no, I have.
43:45
I have actually seen a little bit of him. So, hey, are
43:47
you guys in your homes? So Colin looks like he's in an actual home.
43:52
But what's up with the blue screen? This is my little studio space,
44:00
said turn yourself into the devil really quick. What do you mean,
44:02
can you do that? Turn it red? Yeah? When he turns it
44:07
red, he turns it he turns into Satan and Karnate. That's pretty fun.
44:13
Spiky. Oh yeah, that's that's like a Kanye color. Actually think
44:22
a Kanye color. Is that what you said? Yeah, Kanye did the
44:25
whole stage bathed in red for a while. I think he messed with that.
44:30
I thought it was cool. I'm not a fan of Kanye, but
44:32
I do. I do like the whole stage bathed in red. I think
44:36
that's cool. That's that's red at Mason's Alley Primary colors. Mason, you
44:42
should be a painter. Yeah. Yeah, so those I have lots of
44:46
guilty pleasures, but I mean those are probably Van Hallen is the one also
44:52
to kind of like certain types of hard rock. I like, like,
44:55
all of a sudden, start listening to the Scorpions and I'm lying, you
45:01
know what I mean. I'm like, all of a sudden, I I
45:04
have a hankering for yes, yeah, love me yes Yeah, stuff like
45:10
that from the seventies and eighties that was hard rock, but kind of went
45:15
out there a little bit, you know what I mean, I always love
45:19
that stuff, but it is nice to know that at the end of the
45:22
day, even Kevin Max is just another guy pushing his pushing his sixties and
45:28
has the same taste of music as any other guy pushing his sixties. That's
45:30
not true. I'm a new waiver. It's the cure for me. It's
45:35
it's Joy Division, It's Duran, Duran, It's that kind of stuff.
45:37
But uh, yeah, I get trapped in this vortex sometimes of the Who.
45:44
Please don't play the piano and Daddy's still on talking. We'll get We'll
45:49
get you off here soon. Sorry about that. Well that was my Actually
45:51
before we got on, I was giving you a WHO reference. I was
45:53
seeing if you're gonna pick up on it. I love the Who. Yeah,
46:00
it's Quadraphenia is like one of my favorites. But yeah, anyways,
46:05
Yeah, I love hard rock. I love New Waves. I've been listening
46:08
to New Order a lot. That's what I've been jamming tearing my car.
46:12
Even early New Order stuff is really intriguing to me because I think Joy Division
46:15
did it all. They were kind of one of those bands that like paved
46:19
the way for all of this post punk stuff and New Order never gets the
46:24
credit like they kept going after you know, after the singer killed himself.
46:30
The band kept going and they made just amazing work. You know, there's
46:35
nothing better than listening to New Order while the New World Order is happening right
46:38
in front of our eyes? Hasn't it always been happening though? Yeah,
46:45
you're right, You're right, Kevin, What do you want to plug?
46:49
Obviously new music is going to be coming out at some point with that Astronauts.
46:52
Yeah, obviously you got your paintings as well, But yeah, what
46:55
do you want to What do you want to plug? I want to plug
46:59
my art Kevinmax dot com Forward Slash paintings. Go look at what I've put
47:04
up for sale. I've got a lot of stuff that isn't for sale.
47:06
Show a lot of that stuff at exhibitions. You can go on my Instagram
47:09
page and look at those paintings. I am plugging right now. QMR,
47:14
which is the new single of Sad Astronauts coming out, Question My Religion,
47:19
which is a good old fashion rock and roll song about fallen in love,
47:23
man, you know, just finding the right person and fall in love.
47:30
You question your religion, so it's almost the lyrics are almost kind of like
47:37
eighties rock, but I got a little bit weird and through in a word
47:40
like Paladim, which I kind of made up and it's based on a video
47:45
game character. And then you know, I used the word or the phrase
47:52
esoteric rights, which you usually wouldn't be in like a pop metal song,
48:00
but I had some fun with it. I like lyrics that are just kind
48:04
of offhanded, that are like you can sing them real quick and easy,
48:07
you know, I have to think about it too much, you know,
48:09
but they have a deeper, deeper meaning. I can appreciate that. Kevin,
48:15
what else would you like to plug? I would like to plug.
48:19
Let's see. I think, you know, David Lynch's films need to be
48:25
watched. That's a good that's a good point to bring up. And then
48:31
a typically are not watched. You need to be watched more often. Okay,
48:38
he was a genius. I feel like his stuff is amazing. I
48:42
also think his artwork is amazing, and it's a very very you know,
48:46
kind of underrated artist. But yeah, some of the earliest even in London
48:51
Empire. You know, some of the stuff is really it's like Kubrick,
48:53
but it's it's it's it's even more entertaining, you know, Yeah, no,
48:59
I did. I dig hanging with you guys, and I hope we
49:02
can do this again. Thank you for listening to Sad Astronauts. It's cool
49:07
that you that you did, and I think that you really did this record.
49:10
It's it's gonna be a it's gonna be a fun rock and roll thing,
49:15
and I feel like it's the kind of record that you'll be able to
49:17
play loudly in the car while going very fast, yes, hopefully without picking
49:23
up kids from school. When you're picking up kids from school exactly. That's
49:29
when I listened to ABBA and I bring it down unto fifty five. Love
49:34
it well. Thank you so much, Kevin. Thank you guys. Appreciate it.