August 4, 2025 • 9 mins
Check out this exclusive Lollapalooza interview with Max McNown!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up. It's Kaylin backstage with Innovations high School with
my new friend Max mixnown McNown.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
You know what I'd take. I go by many names,
not mixed now mick now, but I get Mark mcnone
again now mcverb.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
We were also talking about how people get my name wrong,
and I was like, get his name right, get his
name right.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Ye, you're overthinking it. You're overthinking it.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
You know what, how are you feeling.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm feeling great. I'm really excited.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, excited for Lallapalooza. Yeah yeah, yeah, Well, congrats on
the new album.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Night Driving. What does the parentheses mean though? What is
the cost of growing up?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
The cost of growing up? So night diving in general
is entering into things that are more difficult to talk
about and searching in places that may be metaphorically or
literally dark. It was named after an experience I had
night diving and I was in the Bahamas and I
was scuba diving, and I did five or six daytime dives.
Really beautiful, really cool. Night dive was unlike anything I've
(00:55):
ever experienced in my entire life. You see things that
you would never see in the day, and it exposes
things that are only found in darkness, and so I thought,
what an amazing analogy for my you know, the album
and the music that I want to make. So Night
Diving the first half represents digging into the darker parts
to figure out and learn things about yourself that you
(01:18):
wouldn't be able to find if you just stayed on
the surface, right, And then the cost of growing up
is just the acceptance that the positives and the negatives
of life are going to come positive and negative experiences,
and often life can feel like two steps forward, one
step back, sometimes one step forward two steps back, And
(01:38):
a couple of the lyrics and the cost of growing
up are just that there's consistency between heartbreak and ashes,
scrape knees and tax is one step back for every
two of you gains. So basically, everything good and bad,
small and big, is part of life, and it's the acceptance.
And I feel like that was a really good representation
of the album itself and also the music that I
(01:59):
just want to make for the my life.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So basically, you really keep it surface level to dissect
your feelings.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, I have a really difficult
time putting out gut wrenching songs for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I love I listened to sad girl music all the time,
which is like, you know, for any gender or anything,
and so I love your music like shuffling. I have
a lot of your songs on the chill playlist.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, awesome, I got good chill stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, but a lot more free the single Yes, I
took an out with his name, so I have to
be careful.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I want to make sure I get I mean, the
fact that you're doing with this with no notes is
so impressive.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Oh really do have notes?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Okay, well either is cool. It's cool, but tell me
about that, because that's not the same sad girl element.
It's a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
It's it's hopeful. It's hopeful, it's I had another interview
yesterday and they referred to my music as sad guy rock.
So I guess sad girl music and sad guy rock,
like if those two were people, they would get together
like they need to be in a relationship. But a
lot more free is is. There's definitely sad, sad tones
to it, but there's also a lot of hopefulness. And yeah,
(03:05):
a lot of my songs have a lot of optimism.
So a lot of my songs are Yes, this is
really difficult, and this plays back into the cost of
growing up. Yes, this is really difficult, but as the
old saying goes, this too shall pass, and there's healing
and there's victory and there's freedom on the other side
of escaping the most difficult times of your life. And
so A Lot More Free is kind of that quintessential
(03:26):
song for my discography. It is you know, whether you
were you know, in an unhealthy relationship, got divorced, got
cheated on, got you know, just any non amicable breakup
or losing somebody. I mean, I've heard so many stories
where it's like you don't think that there's hope and
you feel like it's just all darkness, but you don't
(03:47):
see that there's light on the other side. And that's
what a Lot More Free is, and that's what the
cost of growing up is, and that's what night Diving is,
and it's just kind of it's all two sides of
the story, both sides of the blade, you.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Know, Yeah, how do you? And I don't want to
sound like mem over here, but I'm a.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Little no me mod up.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, I think I'm like exactly ten two thousand and
one so I'm nineteen ninety one, But how are you
able to write and speak so eloquently about your feelings
at what I would say as such a young age.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I give that to my parents. I think my parents
and my grandparents how I was raised is just honesty, authenticity.
Those are the chief virtues in my family. And I've
never had a very difficult time just speaking what's all
my heart and on my mind. And so when you
get into a writing room, especially with people that care
about you, if you get with the right producer that
(04:38):
understands you and sees your vision. And my producer, Jamie Kinney,
who is my primary producer for Night Diving The Cost
of Growing Up, he understands me, and he knows and
he cares about me, and he wants what's best for me.
And he also just knows what I would and wouldn't do.
And so when we're writing songs together, I don't have
to be timid, I don't have to be kinda first
(04:59):
me eating hebgb's get them out. You know, it's kind
of just all right, we sit down and we're gonna
write whatever is on our hearts. And uh, that's what
makes the best music. In my opinion.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Do you you feel like an old soul? Do you
identify with the gen Z situation or uh specify like
I don't know, do you feel like you identify with
being in that generation and all the things that people say,
I mean, as a millennial, I know, we.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Like skibbity toilet.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, I mean that's fun. Words are certainly a thing.
But I can ask you what you thought the biggest
misconception was, Like millennials, we kept being told like, you know,
you don't want to work, you don't want to do this,
you don't want to do that, and we were like, damn,
like we can't catch a break from like the older generation.
So I was just wondering if you felt like you
identified with that, because you seem solely.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I'm a middle child, and so I have two I
have two older brothers, one younger brother, and my youngest
sibling is my sister Yea, And so my entire life,
I've been getting along and dealing with both sides of
the coin, right on either side. About a five year
age gap between both sides, and so I mean like
(06:08):
five years oldest and five years from me youngest, right,
And I think that plays a huge role too, as
far as what I relate to and like quit generation.
You know, I take a lot of wisdom from my
great grandfather just passed away. But it's okay. He was
ninety nine years old and he lived an incredible life,
and I will truly remember that and look at that
(06:31):
as an inspiration for how I lived my life for
the rest of my life. And so the impact he
made on the world with the family that he built
is incalcable, calculable. I'm like Michael Scott. I'm like Michael Scott.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
But.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, and we both you know, it just happens. Yeah,
it's hot, all right, but not too hot.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Actually I have to say it's usually hotter.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But anyway, I draw a lot of inspiration from the
wisdom I received from my elders in my life. But
I also I am twenty four years old, and I
have younger siblings and I have younger friends too, and
I think just being a middle child is kind of
the perfect Like you just you hear both sides, and
you observe both sides, and you learn and you just
(07:14):
kind of soak everything up like a sponge and you
decide your path. And I think life for everybody is
figuring out what path you're on. And music is no different,
you know, from the Wandering album to the night Diving release,
to the Cost of Growing Up to the Wilfully Blind ep.
It's all just part of me figuring out who I
am as an artist and who I am as a human.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, one hundred percent. By the way, how scary is
it to have a little sister mine's thirteen years younger.
She turns twenty one next weekend.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, my terrifying. Yeah, my little sister has a wonderful
boyfriend that went through rigorous vetting processes and uh yeah,
and I'm I'm proud of their relationship and I I'm
very just proud of the person she's with and I
wish them nothing but the best. So I see the
(07:59):
crap out of my yeah, my friend. Oh yeah, Well,
thing of having four older brothers, oh yeah, it is
like they're ready to kill somebody.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Truly, I might have the scariness of four older brother Yeah,
when it comes.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Hurt, Okay, I could see that. I could see that.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Before I let you go. I know you have to perform,
but I was really excited to talk to you, not
only because I love your music, but because I think
we have the same music taste based on who you cover. Okay, okay,
so probably Tyler Childers, of course you cover yep.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
He was the beginning. Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan were
the primary reasons I started music, okay.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And then there's Noah Kan, who I got to interview.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
With my favorite artist of all time.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Okay, okay, so you understand that when I had to
interview him a few years ago with a black eye,
I was like, damn, this is my show.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I asked, you have a black eye again? Is that
why you're wearing sung? No? I don't, okay.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I asked my best friend right there if I should
if I should take my son glasses.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
No, no, they're very fashionable, thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
But so I was going to ask you and you
answered it. Who inspired? Because I hear all of them
in your music, But somehow you still don't fall into
a category I think one or the other. So that
was gonna be my last.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
The goal is to do authentically me, you know, like
be myself, and that's one of the best parts of
doing interviews like this, because I haven't built a brand
that isn't me, you know, so like I'm sure talking
to me. Now, I'm probably similar to any interviews you've
seen or the music you know, like I am. I
try to be unapologetically as cliche as that sounds, unapologetically
(09:27):
and authentically myself. And when you do that, you can
enter these interviews and you can write songs and you
don't have to worry about keeping up some sort of facade.
So I try to stay in my own lane. But
I am majorly influenced by Noah Khan.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Okay, yes he's wonderful. You are not like every interview.
You are engaging, and you are wonderful, and so thank
you for taking the time. You know these can be monotonous,
but excited to see you perform and excited to meet you.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Thank you so much. Good meeting you.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
You too,
What's up. It's Kaylin backstage with Innovations high School with
my new friend Max mixnown McNown.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
You know what I'd take. I go by many names,
not mixed now mick now, but I get Mark mcnone
again now mcverb.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
We were also talking about how people get my name wrong,
and I was like, get his name right, get his
name right.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Ye, you're overthinking it. You're overthinking it.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
You know what, how are you feeling.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm feeling great. I'm really excited.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, excited for Lallapalooza. Yeah yeah, yeah, Well, congrats on
the new album.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Night Driving. What does the parentheses mean though? What is
the cost of growing up?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
The cost of growing up? So night diving in general
is entering into things that are more difficult to talk
about and searching in places that may be metaphorically or
literally dark. It was named after an experience I had
night diving and I was in the Bahamas and I
was scuba diving, and I did five or six daytime dives.
Really beautiful, really cool. Night dive was unlike anything I've
(00:55):
ever experienced in my entire life. You see things that
you would never see in the day, and it exposes
things that are only found in darkness, and so I thought,
what an amazing analogy for my you know, the album
and the music that I want to make. So Night
Diving the first half represents digging into the darker parts
to figure out and learn things about yourself that you
(01:18):
wouldn't be able to find if you just stayed on
the surface, right, And then the cost of growing up
is just the acceptance that the positives and the negatives
of life are going to come positive and negative experiences,
and often life can feel like two steps forward, one
step back, sometimes one step forward two steps back, And
(01:38):
a couple of the lyrics and the cost of growing
up are just that there's consistency between heartbreak and ashes,
scrape knees and tax is one step back for every
two of you gains. So basically, everything good and bad,
small and big, is part of life, and it's the acceptance.
And I feel like that was a really good representation
of the album itself and also the music that I
(01:59):
just want to make for the my life.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So basically, you really keep it surface level to dissect
your feelings.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, I have a really difficult
time putting out gut wrenching songs for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I love I listened to sad girl music all the time,
which is like, you know, for any gender or anything,
and so I love your music like shuffling. I have
a lot of your songs on the chill playlist.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, awesome, I got good chill stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, but a lot more free the single Yes, I
took an out with his name, so I have to
be careful.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I want to make sure I get I mean, the
fact that you're doing with this with no notes is
so impressive.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Oh really do have notes?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Okay, well either is cool. It's cool, but tell me
about that, because that's not the same sad girl element.
It's a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
It's it's hopeful. It's hopeful, it's I had another interview
yesterday and they referred to my music as sad guy rock.
So I guess sad girl music and sad guy rock,
like if those two were people, they would get together
like they need to be in a relationship. But a
lot more free is is. There's definitely sad, sad tones
to it, but there's also a lot of hopefulness. And yeah,
(03:05):
a lot of my songs have a lot of optimism.
So a lot of my songs are Yes, this is
really difficult, and this plays back into the cost of
growing up. Yes, this is really difficult, but as the
old saying goes, this too shall pass, and there's healing
and there's victory and there's freedom on the other side
of escaping the most difficult times of your life. And
so A Lot More Free is kind of that quintessential
(03:26):
song for my discography. It is you know, whether you
were you know, in an unhealthy relationship, got divorced, got
cheated on, got you know, just any non amicable breakup
or losing somebody. I mean, I've heard so many stories
where it's like you don't think that there's hope and
you feel like it's just all darkness, but you don't
(03:47):
see that there's light on the other side. And that's
what a Lot More Free is, and that's what the
cost of growing up is, and that's what night Diving is,
and it's just kind of it's all two sides of
the story, both sides of the blade, you.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Know, Yeah, how do you? And I don't want to
sound like mem over here, but I'm a.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Little no me mod up.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, I think I'm like exactly ten two thousand and
one so I'm nineteen ninety one, But how are you
able to write and speak so eloquently about your feelings
at what I would say as such a young age.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I give that to my parents. I think my parents
and my grandparents how I was raised is just honesty, authenticity.
Those are the chief virtues in my family. And I've
never had a very difficult time just speaking what's all
my heart and on my mind. And so when you
get into a writing room, especially with people that care
about you, if you get with the right producer that
(04:38):
understands you and sees your vision. And my producer, Jamie Kinney,
who is my primary producer for Night Diving The Cost
of Growing Up, he understands me, and he knows and
he cares about me, and he wants what's best for me.
And he also just knows what I would and wouldn't do.
And so when we're writing songs together, I don't have
to be timid, I don't have to be kinda first
(04:59):
me eating hebgb's get them out. You know, it's kind
of just all right, we sit down and we're gonna
write whatever is on our hearts. And uh, that's what
makes the best music. In my opinion.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Do you you feel like an old soul? Do you
identify with the gen Z situation or uh specify like
I don't know, do you feel like you identify with
being in that generation and all the things that people say,
I mean, as a millennial, I know, we.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Like skibbity toilet.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, I mean that's fun. Words are certainly a thing.
But I can ask you what you thought the biggest
misconception was, Like millennials, we kept being told like, you know,
you don't want to work, you don't want to do this,
you don't want to do that, and we were like, damn,
like we can't catch a break from like the older generation.
So I was just wondering if you felt like you
identified with that, because you seem solely.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I'm a middle child, and so I have two I
have two older brothers, one younger brother, and my youngest
sibling is my sister Yea, And so my entire life,
I've been getting along and dealing with both sides of
the coin, right on either side. About a five year
age gap between both sides, and so I mean like
(06:08):
five years oldest and five years from me youngest, right,
And I think that plays a huge role too, as
far as what I relate to and like quit generation.
You know, I take a lot of wisdom from my
great grandfather just passed away. But it's okay. He was
ninety nine years old and he lived an incredible life,
and I will truly remember that and look at that
(06:31):
as an inspiration for how I lived my life for
the rest of my life. And so the impact he
made on the world with the family that he built
is incalcable, calculable. I'm like Michael Scott. I'm like Michael Scott.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
But.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, and we both you know, it just happens. Yeah,
it's hot, all right, but not too hot.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Actually I have to say it's usually hotter.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But anyway, I draw a lot of inspiration from the
wisdom I received from my elders in my life. But
I also I am twenty four years old, and I
have younger siblings and I have younger friends too, and
I think just being a middle child is kind of
the perfect Like you just you hear both sides, and
you observe both sides, and you learn and you just
(07:14):
kind of soak everything up like a sponge and you
decide your path. And I think life for everybody is
figuring out what path you're on. And music is no different,
you know, from the Wandering album to the night Diving release,
to the Cost of Growing Up to the Wilfully Blind ep.
It's all just part of me figuring out who I
am as an artist and who I am as a human.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, one hundred percent. By the way, how scary is
it to have a little sister mine's thirteen years younger.
She turns twenty one next weekend.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, my terrifying. Yeah, my little sister has a wonderful
boyfriend that went through rigorous vetting processes and uh yeah,
and I'm I'm proud of their relationship and I I'm
very just proud of the person she's with and I
wish them nothing but the best. So I see the
(07:59):
crap out of my yeah, my friend. Oh yeah, Well,
thing of having four older brothers, oh yeah, it is
like they're ready to kill somebody.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Truly, I might have the scariness of four older brother Yeah,
when it comes.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Hurt, Okay, I could see that. I could see that.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Before I let you go. I know you have to perform,
but I was really excited to talk to you, not
only because I love your music, but because I think
we have the same music taste based on who you cover. Okay, okay,
so probably Tyler Childers, of course you cover yep.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
He was the beginning. Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan were
the primary reasons I started music, okay.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And then there's Noah Kan, who I got to interview.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
With my favorite artist of all time.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Okay, okay, so you understand that when I had to
interview him a few years ago with a black eye,
I was like, damn, this is my show.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I asked, you have a black eye again? Is that
why you're wearing sung? No? I don't, okay.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I asked my best friend right there if I should
if I should take my son glasses.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
No, no, they're very fashionable, thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
But so I was going to ask you and you
answered it. Who inspired? Because I hear all of them
in your music, But somehow you still don't fall into
a category I think one or the other. So that
was gonna be my last.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
The goal is to do authentically me, you know, like
be myself, and that's one of the best parts of
doing interviews like this, because I haven't built a brand
that isn't me, you know, so like I'm sure talking
to me. Now, I'm probably similar to any interviews you've
seen or the music you know, like I am. I
try to be unapologetically as cliche as that sounds, unapologetically
(09:27):
and authentically myself. And when you do that, you can
enter these interviews and you can write songs and you
don't have to worry about keeping up some sort of facade.
So I try to stay in my own lane. But
I am majorly influenced by Noah Khan.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Okay, yes he's wonderful. You are not like every interview.
You are engaging, and you are wonderful, and so thank
you for taking the time. You know these can be monotonous,
but excited to see you perform and excited to meet you.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Thank you so much. Good meeting you.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
You too,
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