Kevin Max: Explosive Creativity
12-18-2007
by Kevan Breitinger

Due to no fault of his own, Kevin Max was completely unaware that we had an interview scheduled when I reached him at his home in December. But he was more than gracious about it and it kicked our interview off with a good laugh.

CMCentral (Kevan Breitinger): Thanks for jumping in. I’ve done the same thing myself, it’s a horrible feeling. But I really want to talk to you about the album, since I love gospel blues, and many of the artists involved with the project. It was a full meal, I really enjoyed it. Did you listen to some of these artists when you were coming up?

Kevin Max: One of the main reasons I wanted to make the project was as a tip of the hat to some of my early influences. Growing up in a Christian home and in the church in the, well, I hate to say it (laughing) but it’s the truth, in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, I was influenced A LOT by gospel music. When I got into junior high school and high school, and started listening to rock ‘n roll, I was really attracted to the more rebellious rock, like ACDC or Led Zeppelin. But the original voices that influenced me were Curtis Mayfield, Mahalia Jackson, and of course my dad was a huge Elvis fan so I heard all the Elvis gospel songs. It kind of left an imprint on me that I couldn’t shake. All these years I’ve wondered when it might be a good time to do a project that would kind of show those influences in a very respectful way without trying to all of a sudden become a blues gospel artist, because I’m not. I’m definitely more of a pop artist. We wanted to do it in a way that was respectful and honest.

That came across. I really like the mix of older artists with the more contemporary. I would never have thought of Prince and Chris Sligh and Blind Willie Johnson and Mahalia Jackson, but it’s a mix that really works. How did you come up with those choices?

As fate would have  it, or if you’re looking at it in a spiritual way, providence, it just came together from being here in Nashville. When I moved back into town, I had been living in Las Vegas and before that, in LA for close to three and a half years, so I was out of the Nashville loop for quite some time. My wife and I decided to move back, and we started reacquainting with people around town. The Amy (Grant) and Vince (Gill) thing happened because I was working with (producer)Owsley and I knew Amy from back in the day, and we thought it would be cool to get her on this. The Joanne Cash thing happened because Brian Mayes had us come together at a B.B.King event, and Joanne and I became really great friends. I loved performing with her and she loved performing with me, so I wanted her on this project. Chris Sligh came to me at last year’s GMA thing when I was doing interviews. He had been a dcTalk fan as a young kid. All of those things kinda happened around the time that we were creating this, so there wasn’t a strategy or a board room meeting, it was more like it just came together.

Like a community thing.

Absolutely. The one person that we went for was Erica from Mary Mary. I wanted her on the record because I love their vocals, and I thought they’d be perfect on a few tracks actually, but we finally got Erica to lend her vocal to “People Get Ready” which was great.

One of the things I dig about your style, Kevin, is that you’re well rounded. I know you write poetry, and I think it’s great that you express yourself in different formats. (Publicist) Brian mentioned to me that you had an interest in doing some poetry for CMCentral and I’m really excited about it.

Yeah, the reason I feel like I’m kinda outside the parameters of what people are usually able to do in this industry is that I went on a journey. I left the Nashville industry behind and purposefully got outside it to create the music I wanted to create without having to worry about the gatekeeper or Christian corporate people saying ‘we really don’t understand that.’ As you know, Christian music has so many rules and regulations to it. I just find it’s killing the soul of great music in the Christian community. So I got outside of it to make music that I was inspired by without having to worry about somebody looking over my shoulder. So when Brian brought the idea to me I thought, let’s do something original, like a column where we really do some creative writing, and hopefully tap into other creative expressions on the internet. Creativity is exploding on the internet now due to YouTube and whatnot. I just wanted to do something a little different, like I do with my music. I wanted to express myself in a way that didn’t have too much of a governor on it.

Yeah, I dig the idea and I get where you’re coming from. I know you’re going to Egypt too with the Mission of Mercy team and I thought maybe you’d like to blog from there as well.

Absolutely. Mission of Mercy came to me and was excited about getting involved with artists, and they don’t want to do the same kind of thing that World Vision is doing. It’s a little bit more of an intimate setting. They’re not a huge organization, though they are big and have a lot of different outreaches. So we’re gonna try to do this Cairo thing the first of January.

What is it you’re going to do there?

We’re gonna visit the Garbage Village that is set up for kids. Mission of Mercy has a shelter set up within the center of the Garbage Village in Cairo. They offer education and medical assistance, and it offers workers the place to get away and get refreshed. When I tour The Blood next year, we’re gonna link up with them and offer a child sponsorship thing. And we also want to raise awareness of the different organizations set up out there. People know World Vision and the ONE Campaign, and a lot of artists have gotten on the Bono band wagon which is great. But I think there are many smaller organizations that people don’t know about and they need to heard as well, because they’re all great. From Blood;Water Mission to Mocha Club to Mission of Mercy, they’re all amazing organizations.

That’s true, and nobody’s thinking about Egypt either, so even better to get that word out.

Their heart is for the Middle East, and Phillip, the A&R guy (laughs), it’s funny to have an A&R guy for an organization like that, but he’s got a real heart for the Middle East. We’re going to Cairo but during that trip we’re also going into Jordan. He wanted to get us into Palestine but I don’t know if my wife would vibe with that.

That’s understandable. Well, that’s very cool, and if you’d like to write from there, we’d love to be a part of spreading that word.

Absolutely, I’d love to do that too.

Thanks, Kevin, for giving me the time, especially so unexpectedly (laughing).

Thank you, it was my pleasure.

Find out more about The Blood at www.theblood.org. You’ll find all the lyrics and some behind the scenes production shots as well as some of the stories behind these great songs.