Rising Canadian star maxime harmoniously brings forth experimental pulsations and alluring vocals, marrying many different inspirations and experiences into an explosion of enticing sound. But after speaking with the self-taught musician, it became evident that the person behind the craft is equally as interesting. maxime discovered his passion in early adulthood and continues to use it as a medium through which he documents the journey of life. The singer-songwriter’s latest EP, “Mile End (kiss ur friends)” speaks to late summer nights spent cruising around with the top down, belly-laughing from a blissfully dumb joke, and the kiss of the sun’s rays on a shoulder that could’ve used a bit more sunscreen. It is a love letter to all of the experiences shared with cherished company that have shaped him to this point.

PhotoBook caught up with him just a few weeks after the EP’s release to reminisce on tender moments with friends, discuss early musical inspirations, and look to what is ahead.

I know you were born in Ottawa and you recently moved. Tell me about how that setting shaped you and your path.
I spent my whole life in Ottawa, which is kind of an interesting place to grow up. It's really great when you're a kid, but there's only so much to see there. But the art scene there, I’ve seen some people doing some really cool stuff there. It definitely isn't as far along as Montreal is and I've always been attracted to that about Montreal. The city's so pretty; there's so much green around and I feel like it's not as often to have so many trees in downtown Ottawa. Whereas in Montreal, you do have that. Anyway, I always wanted to live here. My grandma has always lived here ever since she moved from Poland 30 or 40 years ago. I already knew the city a bit and, finally, I was just about to graduate from university so I decided ‘I'm gonna go--I moved. Thankfully one of my friends joined me because otherwise, I wouldn't know anyone except for my grandma. Which, I love you Grandma if you're reading, but I'm happy to have friends here too. It was fun to just bite the bullet and finally make the move. I moved to Mile End, which is a little borough and that's kind of where I learned Montreal. So, that's why I named the EP after that because that neighborhood means a lot to me.

I read that your dad showed you Deadmau5 as a teen and then that kind of inspired you to want to make music for a living. I wanted to hear a little bit more about that. I think it's really interesting hearing artists' origin stories because they're all so different. What about that moment that piqued your interest in music?
I don't know if my dad showing me Deadmau5 flipped a switch immediately, but that definitely started everything. He just popped in “Strobe” by Deadmau5 and I was like, “Okay, this is cool.” I totally had pushed away electronic music for many years. So, for the first 12 years of my life, I didn't believe in electronic music, but this opened my eyes. When I got home I did a little Googling on Deadmau5 and what he used to make music and that's how I got into the whole world of making stuff rather than just listening. I'd been taking guitar lessons for a little bit by then, but I never tried making anything myself other than little riffs. But my dad was always showing me music when I was a kid. We had these mixtape CDs that we'd pop into the car when we'd go down to Montreal for Thanksgiving. I love those mixtapes. There were some really good songs on there. I need to find them! From then on I was making electronic music and slowly getting better at it. I was on SoundCloud and I met some cool people there. Later on, I was really getting into more indie music with my friends and I said, “ey, I'm just gonna try and make it myself.” At that point, I had never tried singing and I had never really made any guitar-based music before. It worked out pretty well. And that was my first album, which was two or three years ago now. I had made things on Garage Band or experimented on my own but I never thought this was something I'd actually do as a career.

You mentioned growing in the genres that you were interested in and expanding your tastes. On that note, what other artists led you to the music that you're making now? Did you have any other people growing up that heavily influenced you?
Yeah, I think probably the biggest was Cage the Elephant. I really, really liked Cage the Elephant and I still do. I was listening to them 24/7 and that was my first foray into that genre of music. I listened to a lot of Radiohead too when I was growing up. That was the first kind of "thinky" music I experienced — cool polyrhythms and stuff like that. I think that's what got me a little excited about some of this stuff too — they were doing cool stuff with sound design and even just lyrically, I remember thinking “What is he talking about?” That's such a cool thing. It doesn't have to be a story or something obvious. The Maccabees were this British indie rock group that I loved as well.

So many different parts of your life came together to create the new project, and it was self-engineered, written, and mixed. Why did you choose to take on that authority in your process? Is that something that's important to you in the music-making process?
I'm a little picky. With COVID, I started getting into writing this way with the guitar. I really just didn't have a lot of opportunities to collaborate back then. I just was never really attracted to the idea of someone else engineering or writing for me. It can also be expensive, you know? Everything I've released at this point, pretty much, I've done by myself except for one song on the “Mile End” EP, "Vacation." I worked with someone named Franco; we did a Zoom session and he's such a cool guy. That was the first time that that's ever worked for me; it was my first successful collaboration over the Internet. He helped write some of the lyrics and that was super helpful because that song wouldn't have existed without him. I'm really happy with that song. But yeah, for the most part, I'm just too stubborn with the decision-making that I don't want generally to work with other people. Although I do really enjoy collaborating.

That’s interesting, one experience led you to think, “Okay, I do enjoy collaboration,” but I also understand the flip side of it because I'm stubborn about my personal creative process as well. What is your creative process like? What are some of the unconventional bits of it that people might not know about?
It's weird. I write differently than most people, but I don't really know what most people write like since I don't really write with a lot of people. But anyway, I'll normally noodle on the bass or the guitar first and come up with some chords, then I'll throw on some drums, and finally, I'll spend a good hour or two just yelling gibberish trying to come up with a vocal melody. The last part of that process is coming up with lyrics and finding out what that song means. I rarely go into writing being like, “Oh, I want to convey this,” or, “'I want to get this specific thing off my chest.” I go and sit down in this room and then I say, “Okay, I wanna write something for sure. I just don't know what yet.” I just start to write. Because of that, a lot of my lyrics end up having the same format in a way. I'm talking about different stuff mostly, but it's just whatever's going on in my life at the moment that I write.

I think there's a cool emotionality to that. Based on my experience with artists that I've spoken to, I think a lot of people lead with the lyrics. But you're letting how you feel in that moment lead to what happens next. You mentioned having all these different inspirations. It all comes together to bring about something really unique. What are the biggest differences between where you grew up and where you are now in “Mile End,” and how has that move shaped your lifestyle and the music that you make?
That's a good question. Well, what's different I guess is the people I'm around. My family stayed back in Ottawa at first, but they actually just moved to Montreal. Over the last two years, a lot of my friends ended up in Montreal as well. So, that's been nice for me. But for the first year, it was really just me and two other friends who would see each other. I was also in a semi-long-distance relationship back then. There was a whole lot at once. That’s kind of what happens when you move away. I was spending a lot of time alone, which was not bad. I was given a lot of time to think and just kind of explore who I am and how I work and maybe work on myself a little bit. Everyone's got a little something wrong with them. I made some good progress while I'm here and I don't know if I can attribute that to the city or just growing up. Probably more the latter.

On the note of growing up, much of “Mile End (kiss ur friends)” is about your coming-of-age experiences and navigating adulthood. What are some fond coming-of-age experiences that you tackle on the EP?
It's pretty much just about like, 'Hey, I'm moving and you can come if you want. But it's okay if you don't.' It was a goodbye to some stuff — not even just people — but also to things I was doing. When COVID hit, my friends and I were just being absolutely delinquent. We were just getting really rowdy and drinking way too much, so it was something that I was like, “You know, I got that out of my system. I'm saying goodbye to that. I'm moving to a new city to figure out what I'm doing now.” And in "Wedgie," the song that just dropped, I have a line where I say, “Brand new city. No more hickeys,” Because no one gets hickeys anymore. You kind of grow up out of that stuff and it's like saying goodbye to those silly, but really youthful things. Not to say I'm old now, but I've grown a lot.

As someone who's at that point in time, early adulthood I guess you could call it, what is some advice that looking back you would give your younger self from your current perspective?
Probably just, don't worry about it too much. That could have served me well. I would just overthink too many things. I would tell my past self to take advantage of the situation that you're in, around my friends, and to just hang out with them as much as possible. Because friends are good.

I second that advice. I think everyone's younger self could benefit from hearing that. The EP shows off really experimental vocals, kind of a blending or a meshing of different sounds or inspirations. I wanted to know if that's intentional. Do you prefer to occupy many genres with your music as opposed to remaining in one distinct box or is that something that you see evolving in the future, as you perfect your sound?
I hope that I don't ever box myself into a certain sound or genre. Because I listen to a lot of different music and I make whatever I want to hear. I listen to a lot of my own music, like I'll be on my own SoundCloud on private tracks pretty frequently because I like making what I want to hear. I was listening to some Bossa Nova the other day while I was cooking — it was amazing. I love Bossa Nova. I want to try working some Bossa Nova into a song because why not? I don't want to just be making glitchy, bedroom hyper-pop for the rest of my life. I'd love to go into edgy, emo stuff or just happy-go-lucky folk music. I want to be able to do all of that because it's all fun.

That's a really cool perspective because, especially nowadays, with TikTok and social media at our disposal, those platforms end up curating an artist's persona or sound. But TikTok in relation to music is a double-edged sword because there is the notion of accessibility and visibility for all these people who would not have been able to have that before. I feel like it also has pushed artists into this era where they're not really making — at least from my vantage point — a lot of people aren't making music that they want to hear anymore. They're making music that they think other people want to hear. So, it's really interesting to hear someone who's headstrong about their own vision.
The funny part of it is that if you're trying to over-engineer and think, “Alright, how do I make music that people want to hear?” Then the easiest way to do that is to make music that you like yourself. There's no point in trying to cater to others — just cater to yourself. There are a lot of people out there who are probably like you.

It connects back to what you said earlier: your advice to your younger self. Just don't worry about it too much. It is a good mindset to have with your craft. I know that along with the EP you will get to perform some of these tracks live. What are you most excited for fans to hear and react to live?
I'm really excited to, first off, just be in these cities that I've never been to. That's going to be cool. But I have a bunch of unreleased songs, so I'm going to try and work some of that into the set too. Anyone who comes to the shows is going to get a little taste of what's to come too, which I love doing.

Article by Kayla Curtis-Evans, Contributing Sustainable Editor PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Alexa Dyer, Graphic Designer, PhotoBook Magazine
RADAR Created by Ayoka Lucas
Photos taken by Lucas Kuhl

RADAR: maxime. Pens a Love Letter to Adolescence with Latest EP mile end (kiss ur friends)