Max Frost
Interview by Christina Belles
Photo by Catie Laffoon
Austin, TX based producer and songwriter Max Frost has an eclectic mix of talents. The English major-turned artist combines hip-hop elements with his blues-inspired stylings to produce a sound unlike any other. Max Frost opened up about his experience as an artist, which includes his track “White Lies” being featured in a commercial by Beats Electronics. Check out the full interview below.
Christina Belles: You’re on tour with Fitz & the Tantrums through July; how has it been so far?
Max Frost: We’re just getting started and it has been a blast so far. Fitz and the whole band have been super gracious and I feel like its been a good pairing musically. He’s lent me a lot of advice as songwriter and artist since I met him back during the Grammys.
CB: What do you most look forward to when you’re about to hit the road on tour?
MF: Seeing people react to the music! It all becomes a reality. You get to find out whats working out there and whats not. Feeling the reaction of people to a good song fuels me up about as much as writing one!
CB: How did your relationship with Atlantic Records come about?
MF: Aaron Bay-Schuck reached out to me from Atlantic and had discovered a demo of some music online. He was a real dude and we believed in each other which I’ve come to learn is super important in this business. Craig Kallman and Juli Greenwald were also super welcoming so I knew it would be a good home for me.
CB: You’ve been hard at work performing, doing in-studio sessions, interviews, promoting, and more; do you ever start to feel burnt out? And if so, how do you combat that?
MF: Im a freshman to all this stuff so its all pretty exciting to me. I know there’s a lot more work ahead so I just take it in stride. As long as there are people out there interested in what Im doing its hard for me to imagine it getting old. I had gotten burnt out on being nobody and having nobody care. This has been a breath of fresh air!
CB: You were featured in NPR’s “10 Artists You Should Have Known in 2013”. What was your reaction when you found out you were on the list?
MF: Such an honor! I was super excited about it. Lots of other great acts on that list and I felt humbled by the attention. I hope I prove they were right with a long career!
CB: Beats by Dre also featured your song “White Lies” in one of their commercials. Would you say that feature has opened a lot of doors and gotten you a lot of exposure?
MF: While it was running it was a massive break for me. Mainly the association and blessing by Jimmy Iovine and Dre himself gave me a huge boost of self esteem. It was a huge shock to hear they had picked the song for that campaign. I really couldn’t believe it at first.
CB: You also made an appearance in the commercial yourself. What was that like and have you ever been a part of something like that?
MF: That’s for sure the most intense shoot I’ve ever been on. So many moving pieces. There was an entire massive building just for wardrobe and makeup. I was mainly excited by some of the superstar athletes that were also around for the shoot like Johnny Gomez and Serena Williams. I wasn’t worthy!
CB: What would you say has been the most difficult part of your career for you personally?
MF: Right after SXSW in 2013 I played a show where my computer and hard-drive containing all the music i had been working on for 2 years was stolen. As well as a guitar I had played and cherished since I was 12. It seemed impossible that I could recover and I had just dropped out of school. I was devastated. Luckily I had some blog luck happen soon afterward that really accelerated things for me. Without that, I’m not sure what I would have done.
CB: How did you overcome that struggles?
MF: I realized it was a sort of message from the universe that my best work was in front of me, and that I couldn’t look back if I wanted to move fast enough to succeeded. It taught me that the past can’t be held on to if you’re really going to learn from it.
CB: What has been the ‘highlight’ of your career so far?
MF: Getting the Dre beats add was awesome. Writing with Jeff Tweedy was surreal. But honestly, the highlight so far has just been making music that I love and then getting to meet other people in different places I go who love it too. That’s all it’s really about for me.
CB: What is the one dream the moment at which point you would be able to say, “Yes I’ve achieved this, I’m living my dreams”?
MF: I’d love to write a song to where one day Paul McCartney or Bob Dylan is like “hey, thats a nice one!” Then I’d die pretty happy haha.
