Maxx Gawd – Q&A Interview

For the music junkies who don’t know who you are, let them know? Where are you from? How did you become a Hip Hop artist?

I’m from Ukraine. Me and my friends used to get high and freestyle a lot. One day I got really high and performed my first song, Chill Hard, at my school’s talent show. It was about chilling hard with your friends and smoking weed. The crowd loved it and got turnt all the way, but the industry judges were like.., are you serious? So I decided to make music to prove to them that they are idiots who don’t know what art is.

Where does your artist name Maxx Gawd derive from?

My given name is Maksim. I am Max. I believe that I am a God, but I’ve yet to realize my true from so for now the name is Post-Ironic in spelling.

Congrats on your lastest Mixtape release “Nothing Says I Love You Like An Imaginary Relationship”. Feel free to breakdown the creative process of the project. (features, production, etc). Where can people find the project?

So this mixtape is about all the girls I wanted to but never got with. Each song is about a different girl. First song I made when I had the idea for the project was Kitty’s Conditions. I came home one night, drunk af and decided to freestyle and freestyled that entire song. I was really feeling the raw emotions of the hook, Tryna Fuck Ileana. So I decided to write more material in that vein which lead to this mixtape being born. I actually sent the first song, Amy Put Your Phone Away to the girl who inspired it and we went on a date. The song Jesus Girl is about a girl who is super religious and pure, but she sings, and she would do covers of songs like Drunken Love which are very dirty, with the purest tone. Me and Snow Tone thought it was hot when she did it so we wrote that song about her, which is essentially about taking her from Jesus and converting her to the dark side. Pretty much every song is inspired by a specific girl and the specific emotions she evoked in me.

We noticed you have a great music voice when it comes to singing? How do you manage to sing creatively and make dope Hip Hop at the same time? As you know the majority of rappers only have 1 skill under their belt.

These days sing rapping is pretty common but a lot of rappers who sing come from an R&B singing background. I come from a Rock/Post-Hardcore background so that’s why my music has the sound it does. I’ve been singing since I was 16. My biggest influences vocally are bands like The Mars Volta and Pierce the Veil. In terms of Hip Hop, my favorite artists are those who combine rapping and singing and weave them together in interesting ways. Drake, Young Thug and Ty Dolla Sign are my favs right now. So when I write a song, I never approach it from just a singing or just a rapping perspective but just try different things and see what happens, the result is often somewhere in between. That said, my next project will take an even more dynamic turn in this direction. I’m currently in the works for a trap-core/trap-metal project where I combine trap beats with heavy, aggressive and technical guitar riffs. The vocals will be very intense and mix Post-Hardcore singing and Trap-style rapping, which in my opinion are the most aggressive genres out right now. I’m really excited for it.

Being an indie artist, how do you feel about having the power in your hands, not having to rely on a label or company to push your music?

I don’t know what it’s like to have a label so I can’t say. I do everything myself with my close friends, recording, mixing, mastering, etc. So sometimes it would be nice to have an intern to do the annoying stuff for me, like metadata and roll weed, etc.

How does social media play a role in Maxx Gawd? How are fans / supporters helping your movement?
The traditional social media channels, especially for hip hop mixtapes, are very over saturated these days so it’s been hard to get heard there. My brand gets pushed more by my real life rather than my social media. Our place in the city is a hub for music, ratchetness, weed smoking and doing ridiculous crazy shit. We’re planning to hold a martial arts tournament soon actually where we beat the shit out of each other inspired by the Dragon Ball Super tournament currently happening right now. Our music is always playing in our crib so people are constantly exposed to it and it represents the hedonistic pleasure-fueled lifestyle we live.

With this being an underground hip hop site, we always ask this important question. What is your definition of “underground hip hop”?

I don’t like to think about these things too much, but artists who make it without any connections or anything inspire me. Fetty Wap, for example. He’s not underground anymore but he was when he started and now he’s big. That’s kinda the goal for me.

Where can people find your music? Drop all the vital links.

soundcloud.com/maxxgawd
maxxgawd.bandcamp.com for my discography.
@maxxgawd for any social media platform

Lastly, and shout out? (friends, family, management, etc)

My mom raised a legend. Shout out to the family. Eugene, Jakob, Mish, Larissa, Allie, Yuriy, Kevin, Evgeni, Liz. Check out Snow Tone, my other half. Check out Yev Visao, abstract visionary. Check out The Venus De Melos, bloggers have failed the people by not making this Math Rock act famous already. Check out Lucky Luch for a dope commercial hip hop sound. Check out Julzz Granduer for that Yonkers/NY hip hop.