When we were rounding out the final lineup for our spring showcase at Brooklyn Night Bazaar last March, the guys in Anamanaguchi highly recommended Maxo. Like them, Maxo comes from the land of chiptune, and while his sound may be heavily electronic and computerized (think: Super Nintendo meets free jazz), it doesn’t fail to wake up some childlike wonder inside us.
Now fast forward to a few months after our party (remember that crowdsurfer with the skateboard?) and Maxo has garnered attention from CMJ as one of their favorite discoveries, a Diplo approval, and tastemaker Ryan Hemsworth dubbed June “the month of Maxo.” Naturally, we wanted to get in on the Maxo lovefest, so Pete Berkman, songwriter and guitar player for Anamanaguchi, agreed to interview him for us (via g-chat).
PETE: It sounds like jazz has a big influence in your music alongside the aesthetic of video games, what is… *the story of maxo*… how far do these influences go (if they are truly there) and where do they come from if so?
MAXO: Awesome question! I grew up around a lot of jazz/fusion and prog rock recordings. My dad is a multi-disciplined musician, and always had a nice supply of cool music to listen to, so I’ve always been about the jazziness! Even when I discovered “rock music” in middle school, I always maintained a steady interest in jazz harmony and composition! The other (probably most obvious) influence for me has been video game music as a whole. Before exploring on my own, I used to play video games with my cousin. That opened me to a huge new musical world that kept me inspired for years to come! To this day I still nerd out over video game music, and it makes me really happy to be able to merge that nerdiness with all of my other forms of nerdiness, especially in the music I write!
PETE: What are the more exciting aspects of it for you? harmony / rhythm? what is the shiiiit where/how did you train ‘your craft’ also??
MAXO: I’m a huge harmony and rhythm nerd! I’m usually the first to yelp/woo when I hear a sweet chord change or catch a cool rhythmic gesture. Any aspect of music that feeds these obsessions (which can really be all aspects) is enough to interest me! That’s a pretty vague answer, but I could literally go on for hours getting into the specifics hehe… In terms of how I hone my craft, I just spend a lot of time listening and writing! Private lessons helped me a good amount starting off, but I can definitely say that I learn better / more efficiently on my own at this point! Sometimes I’ll try and transcribe a tune I really enjoy, or even cover it! You can definitely learn a ton from trying to emulate music you love!
PETE:Truuue n_n so to speak to yr ‘level music’ series a bit … ‘gettin deep’: what makes a song level music??
MAXO: Well, this is actually pretty straightforward. I created Level Music because I wanted to write video game music with all these awesome 16bit-era samples I’d come into possession of, but I didn’t have any video games to write for. Level Music is just a creative outlet for my interest in capturing a vibe / scenario paired with my obsession with video game music. It gives me the perfect space to write in the styles of some of my favorite vgm composers, while providing me the technical limitations to help keep me motivated and prolific!
PETE: Hell yeahhh 🙂 what’re some of your top snes/n64 soundtracks?
MAXO: I have so many favorites.. it’s very hard to choose! I think I’ll just name a few of my favorite video game composers, most if not all of which you can find through a little youtube searching! :3 To name just a few: Kazumi Totaka (Yoshi’s Story, Mario Paint, Luigi’s Mansion…), Jun Ishikawa and Hirokazu Ando (frequent Kirby composers), Go Ichinose (frequent Pokémon composer), Soyo Oka (SimCity, Super Mario Kart, Pilotwings), Naofumi Hataya (assorted Sega games), Tim & Geoff Follin (tons of games), Jun Chikuma (Bomberman games), Motoaki Takenouchi (several 90s games), and finally a recent favorite, Jake Kaufman (goes by ‘virt’ and has done several fantastic soundtracks recently including Mighty Switch Force 1+2, and Double Dragon Neon). I’m always posting youtube videos of video game tunes, so whoever I haven’t named here will probably rear their head in my social media outlets soon!
PETE: How’d you get involved with PC Music? they’re putting out my favorite stuff recently and “snow other” is sooo tight! 🙂
MAXO: Interestingly enough, Tielsie (excellent musician and friend) showed A.G. Cook from PC Music a snippet of Snow Other that I’d posted on my instagram during the writing process, and then A.G. contacted me about releasing it! The crazy part is that not a month before that happened, I didn’t have a smartphone and was debating on whether or not I should get an instagram in the first place! Funny what a 13 second video can do in the world of social media! I’m glad you dig it! PC Music just churns out quality material at all times, so it feels really amazing to be a part of their catalog!
PETE: What are some of your favorite level settings to write for? how vivid are the pictures you get?
MAXO: It all depends! It differs from day to day really.. some days you’re in the mood for a good ice level, other days you could rock a forest level! It’s a little more challenging than that now though. I try not to repeat types of levels too much, but at just over 100 tunes in the series (not counting Level Music Purchase), I’ve found that I’ve had to get a lot more specific lately! In the alphabet series of Level Music volumes, sometimes I’ll dedicate a release to a certain genre of game! Level Music C (and the upcoming Level Music T) are ‘puzzle game’ themed levels, while Level Music P (and the upcoming Level Music G) are ‘sports game’ themed levels! Generally the better the idea of the level I have, the more vivid it is to me, and the more vivid it is, the easier it is for me to write something that captures it! Sometimes I veer a little off-course during the writing process, but by the end, the mediums usually fit together better in my head!
PETE: What do you find appealing about soundfonts and those sounds? what makes you pick one games string sound over the other?
MAXO: I guess that depends too! Using soundfonts is definitely the closest I can get to writing in the style of a certain game, but over time I just grew to love using 16bit sounds in general. They’re very simple and sampled, so i don’t feel compelled to spend a ton of time bogged down on effects + sound processing! The same instruments can vary greatly from game to game and even more greatly from system to system. For example the strings sound for Kirby’s Dream Land 3 is very different than the strings sound for Secret of Mana. So while I might use the KD3 Strings for a thicker backdrop, or even to outline a melody, I might use the SoM string sound for a melody, since it’s a little more expressive!
Interview by Pete Berkman. He tweets @Anamanaguchi <3
Photographed by Cheryl Georgette Arent for Issue #2. She made the gifs too! Follow her on Twitter @bohemianforest
