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If you have been accused of pouring honey in ears, being a handsome devil and sharp as stack, then life has treated you well. That, or you might be Max McNown, this generation's heartbreaker troubadour, who just released single, "Famous To You,’ another melodic romp that confirms all the platitudes (us writing folks confess to that fact he just attracts superlatives upon interviewing) he's earned so far. If you wanted to bridge the world of romance and superstar ambition, then this song compels further listening. Earnest, ballad in delivery, but full of melodic energy, it’s a song meant for spinning your partner around under the patio lanterns. Needing to learn more about his very healthy, hardworking approach to music, and maybe aura-farming some life-giving energy, Max kindly gave us a thought journey on where he's been, where he's going and what's to come:

OnesToWatch: Why do you do what you do? Being an artist isn’t an easy path – what motivates you to do it? 

Max McNown: What motivates me is repaying what music did for me. I’ve turned to music in a lot of the hardest times of my life. It sounds cocky to say it, but I’ve always been a deep thinker; if I’m on a hike with my family, I'm in the very back picking up sticks and looking at the trees. I've always just been fascinated by the way things work and human emotion. I used to just go on drives solely for the purpose of listening to music that made me feel better in times where I felt alone or scared or hurt. To be able to repay that is the entire goal of what I do. It can be trying at times, but I feel like it's pretty cushy compared to what a lot of people go through.

I'm sure it wasn't always as cushy as it is now. 


No, no, no. But when you find something that you love, playing shows and writing songs has never felt like work. That’s what makes it feel a little better. Even when we were in a minivan with my brother and my first band member, Ethan, I look back at those times and never regret it. It's all been really fun and beautiful to experience, although sometimes it can get overwhelming. 

You'll never appreciate a nice touring bus if you haven't been in a van, right? 


Yes. And I have a great appreciation for touring buses. Being able to use the restroom is a luxury in its own right. 
Waking up in a new city on a bus is a wild feeling after doing minivan tours driving 8 hours during the day to keep up with a bus that we're opening for. It never gets old. It's wild. 

I love that cycle, where you take from music and you give back to it. Don't hear that a lot. So it's beautiful to hear it. Were there any artists that really inspired you specifically?

One of my biggest inspirations and people I listened to the most in my high school years was Jon Bellion. Also, John Foreman from Switchfoot was another big one. I listened to a lot of folk music, too, including Gregory Allen Isakov, Rayland Baxter, Sam Birchfield. Those would be the main ones.Then, in my late high school years, and when I got my independence at 21, that's when I started to really get into the Tyler Childers lyricism and Zach Bryan and the beautiful poetry that describes the human experience, placed over such simple chords. That was the thing that really got me to want to give music a shot, because I always had this dream in the back of my mind. I kind of referred to it as a pipe dream. I thought, “I'm never going to actually pursue this, but it would be really cool if this was my life one day.” 
And then when I heard Zach Bryan and Tyler Childers, I was like, man, If they can write poetry over 4 chord progressions, then maybe I can do it too, you know? That was what motivated me to make the decision to start. So all those names are super influential. 

Would you say you have a writing process, and if so, how do you go about it? What's your most comfortable state of creation? 

I have a very hard time sitting down in a studio and creating a concept that I want to write about. I feel like my process – which is becoming more and more slim as life and career has gotten busier and busier – always starts just as living life. I'll feel something and I'll just write it in my notes page. It could be a verse and a chorus. It could be a sentence of conceptual thinking, it could be a stanza of poetry. It's super eclectic. But it always starts there. And then if there's a melody that is with it, I'll record that in a voice memo, and I'll place that underneath the note. So I basically just have song starters, so that there's a path ahead. I've worked with probably close to 100 writers at this point and finally found my people that I trust and love. We take it into a room and co-write and finish out the thought. It's typically produced by Jamie Kinney, who did the whole Night Diving and Cost of Growing Up albums, and he's doing most of the next one as well. 

Love it. Were you comfortable collaborating from the beginning? 

I wrote my first 3 songs just by myself. The co-writing and collaboration side of music is a slippery slope. I had to learn. I have personal feelings about some of my early co-writes where I don't feel like my heart is connected to them, because when you first start co-writing when you've only written three songs on your own, you don't feel like you have any right or confidence to stand your ground on certain lines or concepts. It took a very long time to build the confidence and find the right people that understand the job of a co-writer is to lift up what the artist wants to say, rather than go into a room with a predetermined, hooky list of things that they think will perform well or whatever and kind of forcing that down the throat of the rest of the writers.
So, it's equally a self-confidence thing, and then also it's finding the right people to write with. It wasn't easy, for sure. 


Let's get into your latest release, “First Born Daughter.”
How did this song come about? What inspired it? 

So I compare “First Born Daughter” most closely with “Better Me for You (Brown Eyes).” And, and the reason I say that is because this song was written based off just how I feel about my wife, and so much of what I love about her most likely comes from her upbringing. There's exceptions to every rule, but there are some consistencies of a firstborn child who has to learn life without an older sibling to lead the way and look up to. I look at my own eldest brother and I see so many of the characteristics, even in a male that I see in my wife that stem from that upbringing. I've had conversations with my wife where she'll feel like some of the type A nature or the fending for herself and there's different things about her that she sees as negative that I believe are the best thing ever. Especially as a compliment to someone as spacey and type B as I am. It's the perfect fit. I wanted to write a song that pays respect and lifts up the characteristics that my wife specifically, and I'm sure many other firstborn children, see as negatives for them. That's where the song was born. It felt so specific to me, but then I posted on social media and a bunch of firstborn daughters were like, this is the song I needed to hear. That's very similar to what happened to Brown Eyes, because I thought it was too specific about my relationship. I actually was thinking of not singling it, back when it was coming out. But then people just take it and make it their own, and it's a beautiful thing to see. 


When you're writing a song about obviously such an intimate subject matter, do you ever have a thought about how it's going to be taken by the audience or is it just expressing yourself?

It's a difficult line to draw. One of my favorite quotes, I think Rick Rubin said it, “The best thing you can do for your fans is to write music for yourself.” From the very beginning, I've been writing from my heart and saying what I want to say, and I haven't really worried about what people may think about it. To me, if they don't resonate, then that's okay. It's not a song that's meant for them if they don't relate at all and they don't feel connected.
But then on the other hand, if it's specific and it's something that I feel is unique, there will be people that feel that same way. Whether it's a characteristic firstborn daughter or something difficult they've gone through that I'm writing about, like night diving or the cost of growing up. The more personal I can get, the more people will connect and the more the song will mean to them. So it gets harder when you're playing shows all the time and fans are what make your career as an artist, so you can't ignore it completely. But the way I see it is that I had written 30 songs before I played a show in my life. And those songs have changed my life. So why change direction? I just want to keep on doing my very best to write music for myself because I feel like that's the best way to help people that listen to it. But it's definitely a battle every time.

Do you have some spousal politics? For songs about your wife, do you share the lyrics first and get household approval? 

No, not really. I mean, my family, even my family back in Oregon, and my wife, they hear every song many times before they hear every iteration of the mixing process of the song. So I don't go to my wife or to my family and be like, hey, do you approve of this? But at the same time, they hear it so many times that if they didn't approve of it, I would know. So I guess I do in a way. I also don't write super, super controversial stuff. 

Love it. I’m gonna pivot to some more fun questions. If for whatever reason, if you couldn’t do music anymore, is there something else that you would have potentially explored, had fate gone another way? 


It depends. Is the question referring to another dream that is very difficult to achieve or more what the more realistic thing was that I was going to do before music? 


I love the thought of both answers.

Okay, answer one, the realistic thing. When I believed that music was pretty much impossible for me to actually succeed in – and that was a self-confidence issue – I was a Starbucks shift supervisor and I was trying my best to work up to a management position so that I could either stay there or jump to management somewhere else. The goal was always to land in a job that I don't despise and someday provide for a family. So in another universe that would be the direction I went. When we talk about the dream side of things, that's less achievable and more difficult. I've been a movie and TV show nut my entire life. I have no idea how to act or what goes into acting lessons or anything, but I would love to be an actor. So that would probably be number two. And who knows? I might try to explore that. If I can get big enough in music, then maybe I'll jump over and dabble. Those would be the 2 things. 

I think you should. If you are at your most Zen, peaceful state, where are you? What are you doing? 

I am on a nature walk with my wife and my dog in Tennessee. 

Beautiful. If you could dream up the ultimate, Max-curated festival, who's on the bill? It can be dead or alive, anyone you want. 


I'm gonna go with Noah Kahan, Gregory Allen Isakov, John Denver, Chris Stapleton. If it’s a three day festival, Sunday will be more country leaning and Friday and Saturday will be a mix of country and folk. John Denver would headline night one, Jim Croce headlines night two, and Chris Stapleton headlines night three. I would be direct support on all three. And then I would bring up all of my friends that I've made in the industry that I've opened for and have opened for me. So, Briscoe, Corey Kent, Michael Marcagi, the 502s, Austin Mackay, Lily Fitz. I would throw all my friends some bones for that festival. 

That’s what friends are for. Last couple of questions. One, I would love a non-music recommendation, and it sounds like you're a TV film buff, so maybe you’ve got some easy ones there. And next one, I would love some music recommendations. 

Okay, all right. I'm going to give a life advice recommendation. Take time and disconnect. It can be difficult, especially when my career revolves around social media and being chronically online. But taking time to just put the phone down and walk in nature and connect with creation, that's such an underrated and highly important thing for humans to do. As far as a movie recommendation goes, Hacksaw Ridge is one of the greatest true stories ever told. It’s the story of Desmond Doss and I think if you watch it, it will change you a little bit. Same goes for the rom-com About Time. It doesn't matter who you are, you will be crying by the end of About Time. It's about love, family, siblings. It's everything. 

How about music? 

My music recommendation… in my opinion, one of the most underrated artists that I've ever come across in my life, I’ve been listening to him for probably 10 years now, his name is Sam Birchfield, and he's been going at it. He's put out just amazing music and he's been grinding it out and he deserves to be bigger than he is. Sam Birchfield, super folky granola guy, makes incredible music. 

Love it. Lastly, I just want to end on your words. 


Well, I'll do some shameless self-promo. Come out to the shows. We're playing lots of shows. You can go to MaxMcKnown.com/tour. Then, the final deep thought to leave everybody off is, something that I always say whenever someone asks me what I wish I could tell my younger self. I spent just about my entire life, especially through late middle school, high school years, even out of high school, determining my value, and determining how I should feel about myself based on what other people think and constantly trying to seek the approval of the people around me. True freedom comes when you figure out that your value is not determined by what others think you are. So that would be my sage advice.

Thank you so much for your time.