Making lush & distinct alt-pop music from his room in Canada, maxime. self-released his 18-track debut album in December 2019 - featuring him as its sole writer, producer, performer, and engineer.
maxime.'s sophomore album 'cerulean' is an evolution of his emergent sound. In a sense, the album is about the fact it’s not about anything in particular – it’s a sonic statement, a collection of ideas, rather than a linear narrative which sees him take bolder risks and bringing his vocals and songwriting to the fore.
We had a chat with maxime. to find out more...
Where are you from and do you feel it has inspired the sound in any way?
"I am from Ottawa Ontario, Canada. I'd say it has, but not the city itself, just the people i have met here. My friends and music teachers definitely have had huge impacts on my musical tastes and sound."
What’s your earliest musical memory?
"Some of my very first songs I wrote in my parents basement using garageband were simple instrumental guitar tracks. But I remember making really bad EDM before that, when I was like 13 years old. They were mostly really bad deadmau5 rip off songs."
Is there a story behind the name?
"Well my name is Maxime, so that part of the story is pretty easy to guess. The "." on the other hand was simply because it had better search engine optimization on google lol. Also it looks quirky and I like that I guess."
Who are your biggest inspirations musically?
"It's a very long list but here are some: radiohead, bay faction, cage the elephant, funeral suits, boy pablo, gus dapperton, say hi, metric and so many more. I've been really into jazz and samba recently so I'm sure that will somehow come up in my music soon."
How would you sum up your sound in the form of a hashtag?
"#bedroompop"
What’s been your stand out moment so far?
"One time I played a show at a local bar and after my performance two random people came up to me, told them it was their first time ever coming to a show at this particular place and thanked me for making it a good time. That was probably one of the coolest feelings ever so far haha. There's been other "more official" and "exciting" things but that one stands out as really being the most tangible."
You’ve just released your sophomore album ‘cerulean’. One track that stands out to us is ‘read receipts’. Tell us a little about the track?
"Thank you! That one is the most recently written of the album. I recently got out of a pretty long long relationship and was dipping my toes into the dating game again. Being pandemic times, this was tinder. I had met this one girl who was really cool and we were getting along really well, texting back and forth frequently. But for whatever reason I stopped replying to her, and just realized it was because I really just wanted to take a break from relationships, so that explains the chorus pretty much. The verses were written over the course of like 2 months, and like most of my verses, are just kind of me abstractly venting my feelings and thoughts."
How has the reaction been so far to the release?
"So far so good! My mom approves so I'd say that's a pretty big win right there."
Are there any key themes or inspirations within the tracks or lyrics?
"I think too much about girls, it's contrived and stupid, but that is definitely a big theme. Me and my friends' relationship to alcohol and drugs also comes up a lot because that is, for whatever reason, what we tend to focus our hangouts around. I guess it makes sense since we are all in our early 20's and that's what movies and tv-shows tell us is what we're supposed to do lol. Mental health stuff also makes its way in there, though maybe a bit abstractly, since I deal with that stuff."
What are your plans for 2021?
"Graduate school and then hopefully never use my degree lol. Also make some new music! I already have a stupid amount of half finished songs and i cant wait to double that number."
'cerulean' is out now
Listen HERE @maximemusic
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