5 Minutes with Max Pope

5 minutes with Max Pope

His debut album, summer shows and how he learnt to play the guitar. Max Pope chatted with us ahead of his intimate headline London show.

Hey Max, thanks for catching up with us! You released your debut album ‘Counting Sheep’ back in July. Tell us a bit about your journey to release it! 

“Some of this album was written a long time ago, some of it more recently. It spans the past 10 years of my life, which has certainly been a journey. Eventually it came about through me and my mate Jordan locking ourselves away in the studio for 3 months. At first, I'd intended it to be more of a Soul record and it was initially much more ‘produced' sounding. We had almost finished it, but it wasn’t feeling right. One day Jordan asked me to play him a song he’d never heard before. I played him a little acoustic song which I’d written very quickly one day but dismissed and we were both kind of like “that’s it, that’s the sound of the album”. That was the day the album journey started to make sense. From then on it was about getting the songs across in their purest form, which is something I’ve always wanted to do.”

From the looks of it, you had a pretty busy summer for shows! What was your favourite gig and why?  

“The residency I had at Spitalfields farm was really special for me. I was fortunate enough to be joined by some incredible artists and the event celebrated my love for nature as well as music. There were foraging tours, gardening workshops and mindfulness sessions etc. It was really sunny, and I had so many nice chats with people who had bought my album. It felt like a true celebration of the work, and we gave it the right send off!”

It’s rare to see you without a guitar in hand. When did you first pick one up?

“I started playing when I was about 10. My Dad taught me some basics at first, but then I just became naturally obsessed with it. When I was a kid, playing guitar was escapism in its purist form, like discovering a doorway into another world. If I was having a hard time at school or troubles at home, I would just sit and play guitar for hours. I was inspired by players like Jimi Hendrix and Nick Drake - incredibly distinctive musicians but also very shy characters, which I identified with.”

If you were able to learn any other instrument to a professional level, what would it be? 

  “Honestly, I think to be able to play piano properly would be so useful. I can bash out some chords but nothing spectacular. That’s my "I’m a songwriter” answer. But the big kid in me would love to play drums because it must be so much fun whacking stuff.”  

 You have a headline show coming up in London at the start of December. What can we expect from the show? 

“It’s at one of my favourite venues in London, St Pancras Old Church. I’ve always wanted to play there because of the intimacy that space has. I might play some of the show unplugged, or on a nylon string guitar. I want it to feel like we’re in my living room, if my living room was a church… I’ll be playing a stripped back set, including songs from the album and possibly the odd new one.”

Grab your tickets to see Max playing St Pancras Old Church on 7th December! Make sure you also link up with him on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with what he’s up to.