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Max Rebel

Season Two: Episode Ten

Ryan talks with Max Rebel from Plainride and Ripple Music about his song selection for the playlist, “On the Road Again” as performed by Nine Below Zero, as well as touring with Corrosion of Conformity, the differences between East and West German audiences, TikTok, and more!

Photography by Stefan Tivodar

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Max: We haven’t been a unified country, historically speaking, like in the last 100 years or something, after World War Two, it was a split thing.

So there’s still definitely differences in just the culture between East Germany and West Germany, even though now it’s a unified republic, right?

For example, I always feel like, and I’m not sure whether that’s a thing, whether it has to do like with the American versus the Russian or it’s Soviet influence or anything, maybe I’m hallucinating a bit there, but I feel like Western German crowds, they like to be entertained more.

They like the more the showmanship and like the haze and the crowd engagement and just like sort of a more extroverted crowd in that sense. And then in Eastern Germany, I always kind of feel like if you want to win people over, it’s better to start off a bit understated first and let the music speak for itself and then try and reel the people in. I feel like the Eastern Germany, there’s just more of a innate skepticism towards- like this authoritarian approach where it’s on stage, you go like, “I want you to clap” or “I want you to sing along” and they go like, “No.” I feel like you have to win them over more first.

Ryan: My guest today is Max Rebel, guitarist and vocalist for the German rock band, Plainride. In addition to Plainride, Max also works A&R for Ripple Music in Europe in addition to coordinating tours and Ripplefests on the continent, which we’ll touch on in our conversation. I think I first became aware of Plainride via TikTok? I could be making that up, but they are solid content creators on that app. They’re also killer musicians.

I know I’ve mentioned Desertfest Berlin to death on this podcast, so you might be rolling your eyes when I bring it up by now. BUT I first saw Plainride at Desertfest Berlin and holy shit did they put on a fun Rock’n’Roll show. If you read the show transcript for this episode at letsmixtape.com, you’ll see that I put the R’s in Rock’n’Roll in all caps because when you listen to, Plainride or see a Plainride show, that’s what you get, Rock’n’Roll in the Rock’n’Roll’est sense of the word. So when we get done here, get in your car or, if you’re already in your car listening to this, crank down the windows, throw on some Plainride, and drive on down the highway. Which is fitting because, for this episode of season two, songs that remind us of home, we’re actually on the road. Let’s make a mixtape.

[Intro Music]

Ryan: Max, thank you so much for joining us here on this season of Let’s Make a Mixtape. We are of course talking homesick, songs that remind us of home, and you selected On the Road Again, not to be confused with the Willie Nelson song, but the Nine Below Zero version of the Canned Heat song, which was a new treatment of the original version by American blues musician Floyd Jones.

Why, why did you pick this song as a song that reminds you of home?

Max: Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure. I was kind of, you know, trying to think of something where, you know, feeling homesick or anything. And honestly, I have to admit, I couldn’t really think of any one particular song that in my mind or memory was super tied to the feeling of like homesickness per-se.

But what I did come up with was that particular one, the Nine Below Zero cover of On The Road Again, because when I was young, when I was in, it must’ve been like elementary school, first grade, second grade, something like that, my dad used to drive me to school.

And there was like a staple of songs, I guess, even before that, maybe when, whenever we’d go grocery shopping or stuff like that. There was like the staple of songs that he had on his- it wasn’t even a tape deck. It was a CD player back then, which was still a fairly new thing to have in your car, a CD player.

And so there were like a bunch of CDs and songs that he’d put on whenever we just sort of like do our little road trips together. And this was just the one that I most vividly remember being maybe the one that we put on most often, is that On The Road Again cover.

And so that’s just a really strong memory connotation my childhood days there. There were a bunch of other ones. I remember there was one, it was Start the Car by Travis Tritt was on there. I don’t even know if it was like separate CDs or if it was like a burnt mixtape situation.

There was After Midnight by Clapton, I believe on the Just One Night‘s live album. It’s just killer live version. So there’s like these couple songs that are so strongly tied to that memory of just sitting in our car with my dad.

Ryan: It’s amazing how informative those, those moments can, can really be.

Would you say that had a strong impact on your musical journey overall?

Max: Yeah, for sure. I’m so massively influenced by my dad’s record collection. I would say my parents in general, but my dad is just like this- classic rock blues, huge [Rolling] Stones fan, and I like to tell a story that apparently legend has it that one of the ways that I started to learn to count was using the CD player and just sort of like memorizing what the numbers meant, like the corresponding tracks and I don’t know what track number “La Grange” is on that ZZ Top album. I believe maybe four or something.

It was just me skipping through the numbers. So I find my favorite ZZ Top track. I’d be lying if I’d say he wasn’t a big part of a big part of the reason why I’m doing the whole music thing now.

Ryan: That’s amazing.

When, when did you first pick up a guitar? What, what was your first instrument?

Max: My first instrument was just singing. I’d never really gotten any classical training whatsoever. When I was younger, I guess there was the recorder in kindergarten, you know, as they do, but that was not like no serious ambitions there.

I only ever remembering just listening to a lot of rock and classic rock and stuff. And then it must’ve been, what was that? Like eight, eighth grade or something like that. So when I was around 15 we had this sort of metalhead drummer guy in our class, Felix Dehmel, he’s actually, it turned out to be like a pro musician too. He’s touring with Krissy Matthews now a lot. And he studied in New York, I think. Massively talented drummer.

And he just came up to me one day in school and was like, “I want to start a band” and I went “Yeah, I’m going to sing” just because I didn’t know any other instrument and I was “like, yeah, but I want to, “I want to get in on this situation and then so that just happened and we threw a couple, like a bunch of dudes together and trying to figure it out, you know, doing the classic Black Sabbath covers and stuff like that.

We had a couple- It was “Jumping Jack Flash” and stuff like that. And eventually starting to write our own songs. So I guess singing was my first instrument. And then my dad actually taught me to play a harmonica, blues harp, a little bit because that’s the one that he knows a little bit, just at least with the basic bends and everything.

I picked up a guitar two years in or something at some time, like 17 or so when I was just trying to convey riff ideas and stuff and be able to actually play them and then explain them instead of just going, “Hey, what if you play it?” Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, you know. Try to explain them verbally.

That’s how that started.

Ryan: What was your first show that you went to?

Max: The first show that I went to was actually, that my dad took me to rather, was also ZZ Top, which I was at least four years old.

Ryan: So you were four years old when you saw ZZ Top?

Max: I was four years old when I saw ZZ Top.

Ryan: Do you have memories from that?

Max: Not really, no. I mean, that’s around the time when you gain consciousness, I guess it must’ve been- maybe that was what brought me into it. I only know as I know the story that I didn’t make it through the entire night because it was a little bit too loud for me.

I don’t know if there was a culture yet of putting headphones on your, any sort of ear protection, but no, I guess I turned out fine. ZZ Top was my first, first show.

Ryan: That’s a good one.

Max: Yeah. Oh, for sure. First concert was actually my- that first gig I ever played with my high school band, which was aptly named Rebel Scrabble, by the way, was at my dad’s 60th birthday party. He rented this- it’s still around actually. It’s the Draft House in Hamburg. Like this live music, they do like karaoke to hell now where you do karaoke with a live band. So that was my first, first gig. There’s a pattern there.

Ryan: Your dad gave you that real love for that blues rock and gave you your first gig.

Max: He channeled all his rockstar ambitions. He just straight up channeled into me.

Ryan: And I assume he’s a big Plainride fan then?

Max: Oh yeah. He’s our biggest supporter. We honestly probably wouldn’t be here anymore if it weren’t for his substantial emotional, but also economic, support.

Ryan: I love that. Just that constant thread. What was the scene like growing up? The local music scene, was there anything going on?

Max: So I’m from Hamburg, which is one of the larger German cities, so there was definitely stuff going on, although it wasn’t until I sort of started my own band and got into this habit or- okay, there’s concerts and there’s like rock shows and I can make a conscious decision to go and say I want to see this band.

And then also it’s like, I don’t, I’m not really sure about the law in Germany, I guess it’s like on a club by club basis where- it has to be because- let me think, because as long as it’s before 10pm, I guess technically you’re allowed to be outside on your own as a minor, right?

I guess it’s just like a club policy on whether you have to be accompanied by a parent or, it’s just like a 16 and upwards kind of situation, but I remember- this must’ve been the world cup 2006 and there was this Nike advert commercial that they were running in cinemas that had “Don’t Speak” by the Eagles of Death Metal as the song. And I remember seeing that commercial and just kind of hit me like, “Oh my God, what’s this song? What’s this band?” And I looked them up and I hugely got into Eagles of Death Metal at the time.

A few months later, I saw that they were playing Hamburg and I was like, “I need to go to that show.” And this was the first time that I remember making that conscious decision going, “I need to go see that band.” Yeah. And I had my dad take me and it was just like a wild thing.

You know, the crowd storming the stage towards the end of the show. Playing an air guitar back to back with Jesse Hughes. It was a rock and roll show, as you know, in every sense of the word. And I was like 15. So that was a formative experience for me.

But then as far as underground concerts and stoner, heavy scene concerts go. I really, truly got into that only after I started Plainride. That was after I’d moved to Cologne and you’d get into organizing shows yourself more and just linking up with other bands.

Ryan: Where is the furthest outside of Germany that you’ve played.

Max: With Plainride? Well, yeah, it’s gotta be Plainride. So furthest outside, let me think that was- so we did Northern Italy in 2019.

We did UK. Just But going by geography, it must have been Paris or Glasgow or something like that. Must have been something on the COC [Corrosion of Conformity] tour that we did last year. It’s like the biggest thing that we’ve done so far.

Ryan: What was that like? That sounded massive.

Max: Yeah, it was nuts. It was our first, there was like a tent at a European tour in 2019, which was just like, I mean, now it’s, I guess that a few years have passed. So I guess it, it doesn’t hurt to say, I can go on record saying that it was a horribly botched situation with the booking and everything.

I’m not going to name any names on record here, but we had a person that was supposed to sort that out and it just fell through because we were supposed to do a tour with Wasted Theory, supporting them, they were supposed to come over from the US and they sort of just broke up and called it quits very shortly before that.

That tour kind of fell apart which then led us to hop onto the European tour that the guys in War Cloud, who are also on Ripple, had planned, and I, because I had earlier hooked them up with Galactic Superlords, which is like a heavy metal band from our band hometown, Cologne, good friends of ours, which was a good fit musically also. So we just kind of hopped in the middle there because they had a longer run planned but Galactic Superlords couldn’t do the entire tour so we just kind of filled in for a few shows in between and then we had these two shows in Northern Italy and it was just like the routing was just-

Well, I’m getting sidetracked. It was a disaster. It was a fun experience, but it was a disaster as far as the logistics, you know, the economics of it. And then the COC tour, that was like the first proper European tour thing that we did last year. And that was just nuts. I think it was like 16 shows or 18 shows in the span of 20 days or something.

We got a tour manager and a driver for that because I wanted it to be safe in that we hadn’t done this amount of- you know, the routing and everything. And I know because it was Banana who also does sound for Elder. And I knew that he knew the guys from COC personally.

I figured we’d be busy just trying our best to play a good show and everything, so I wanted the whole situation around it to gel as much as possible. And, yeah, it was a trip.

Ryan: From all the footage that you’ve posted on TikTok, it looks like you brought the energy throughout that set.

I was blown away when I saw y’all at Desertfest [Berlin]. I mean, you put on a fun-as-hell show. You look you look like you’re having an absolute fucking blast up there.

Max: Thank you so much. So glad to hear that. It’s somewhat new in that we’re used to being a four-piece band and we had this situation because, shortly into the pandemic, our bass player left the band because he wanted to pursue different stuff musically.

And we never really found a lasting replacement on bass in the years to follow. So at some point in 2022, the full tour that we did, we didn’t really have any other option but figure out this set up as a three piece. Which, I think Bob did an insane job on doing the figuring out the bass and guitar split signal Kemper emulation situation.

And so we had played a tour as a three piece before, but not on that scale. And then it was just really nerve wracking at first because there’s just so much more responsibility on every single member to carry the whole thing. But it was such a cool learning experience because before the tour, I remember us seeing other bands that were doing longer tour stretches and playing lots of shows in a row. And you see them and you go, “man, they’re so tight live. How do they do it? It’s just such a well-oiled machine and everything.”

Rehearsing, of course, is one thing, practicing your instruments and everything, but it was interesting going through that experience ourselves and seeing it’s really this thing of playing the show every night and just growing together as a band on stage in a real life concert, gig setting, where you sort of start attaining that live show coherent band mastery thing.

Which isn’t to say that we’ve attained any sort of mastery at all. But you can really tell how it is starting out, even when you’re well rehearsed and then 10 nights in, 15 nights in, the moves, the vibe, the set flows.

Ryan: I like to view it as leveling up. There’s a moment when you’re like, “okay, this clicked. This felt right. This feels like we just took it up one step more than we were before. And that’s the new baseline. That’s where we’re at.” I love that feeling. It’s like, “oh, shit. Okay, cool. We, we jumped up a bit, more XP!”

Max: And it’s never that- it’s never that put in the conscious effort. There’s this result that is like, it’s just as you said, it’s more like this epiphany or whatever, it comes over. You’d be like, “okay, something happened here apparently.”

And the fun and the cool thing about it is the more you can get into that state or achieve that stage or whatever, it’s just becomes all the more fun playing the show and playing the songs because you get to play more in the literal sense. You get to have more fun.

You get to do little jokes and bits with your fellow musicians on stage that most people probably won’t even notice because it’s just you start doing these little jokes and these little bits and get to play around. That’s just the best part about it.

It’s this thing where sometimes you have to be careful that not overdo it because we’re known to be silly lads, so sometimes you have to contain the shenanigans as not to sort of break the illusion. Because you don’t want the crowd to be the butt of the joke, right?

It always has to be within limits. Because at the end of the day, I love the music that we play. I think they’re cool. kick ass songs. I get goosebumps here and there. I want to say there’s a golden balance of antics and actual playing the music.

Ryan: You want to make sure the audience is having a good time. The opposite side of that too, if you’re up there and you’re looking like you’re not having fun, the audience is going to be like, “this seems super lame.”

Max: Right. And I think especially it’s also a question of morale in that sense that, like with the COC tour, honestly, it’s been mostly- I think the audiences have been super appreciative.

There was one show where it really felt like we kind of bombed. I can’t even remember which, I want to say Wolverhampton in the UK, where after the first song, you you could have heard a needle drop. It was just crickets, you know, it was nothing.

And we were like, “all right, show must go on, do the thing.” And we actually ended up having a bit of a discussion after the show, because obviously it’s kind of like, “okay, who’s to blame or whatnot.” And we ended up changing the set list a little bit because we’re opening-

Before then we’d been opening with “Shoe of the Universe,” which is just this really quirky King Gizzard weird, all over the place. But it’s like a rap part in it and everything. And I was like, “maybe it was like a Marty McFly thing that the people aren’t- the COC crowd maybe isn’t ready for that- to have the opener open with that.”

“Let’s do the doom metal sludgy one, and then segue them into the weirder stuff.” And then we just changed the opener. After that, it was pretty much smooth sailing. I don’t even know where it was coming from, but-

Ryan: Adapting to the audience reaction and trying to make sure-

Max: I wanted to say it’s also a question of morale, right? In the sense of that you want to have fun as a band on stage. Because if for whatever reason the spark doesn’t cross over or it doesn’t connect with the audience as well. Or maybe it’s just like a tough crowd. Sometimes I know, especially in like Northern Germany, people can be very reserved.

And it’s like, when they bop their head slightly, that’s like a mosh pit in some places. You just have to take that into account and not let that throw you off balance in your set because the worst thing as you I’m sure will be able to confirm is when you start getting in your own head while playing the show and that’s when when shit starts to go south.

Ryan: Yeah, you gotta shake that off as soon as possible Find some way to deal with it and just move on.

Max: Being able to zone into that. “Okay. Maybe it’s like an open rehearsal now and we’re just having fun on stage and trying trying to just have the best energy we can out here.” So maybe it’ll connect to a few people in the audience if it’s not the entire crowd tonight, because that’ll happen, you know?

Ryan: Yeah. Have you noticed any- you mentioned Northern Germany, the head nod is like the [closest] thing you get to a mosh pit. What are some of the main differences in the different towns that you’ve played? How do you feel like European crowds, as a whole are, in terms of coming out to shows and supporting?

Max: I think it’s very interesting because I, well, first of all, I’m going to say our experience is still limited in that. We’ve only done the one European tour so far. We’ve done a couple of shows in the Netherlands and stuff like that, but we haven’t gotten out of Germany a lot aside from that tour and couple of shows, so I’m not sure I can speak-

It’s also an entirely different situation when you’re the opening act versus, I’m assuming, the headliner when people come just specifically to see you. But there’s definitely a few things. You can’t really generalize it, but I have a few pet theories that I like to cultivate for myself, especially within Germany, because we haven’t been a unified country, historically speaking, like in the last 100 years or something, after World War Two, it was a split thing.

So there’s still definitely differences in just the culture between East Germany and West Germany, even though now it’s a unified republic, right?

For example, I always feel like, and I’m not sure whether that’s a thing, whether it has to do like with the American versus the Russian or it’s Soviet influence or anything, maybe I’m hallucinating a bit there, but I feel like Western German crowds, they like to be entertained more.

They like the more the showmanship and like the haze and the crowd engagement and just like sort of a more extroverted crowd in that sense. And then in Eastern Germany, I always kind of feel like if you want to win people over, it’s better to start off a bit understated first and let the music speak for itself and then try and reel the people in. I feel like the Eastern Germany, there’s just more of a innate skepticism towards- like this authoritarian approach where it’s on stage, you go like, “I want you to clap” or “I want you to sing along” and they go like, “No.” I feel like you have to win them over more first.

Ryan: Has that changed how you approach when you’re crafting your set lists in the different towns?

Max: Maybe not the set list so much. Well, yeah, I guess, that’s a good question actually, because there’s some songs where we have crowd interaction built in, but also it’s just, for me, it’s more about the way I approach the stage banter or everything.

I don’t want to be manipulative, but on the other hand, you have to do it, especially when you’re not the headliner, which, for us, it’s still like most of the time. You’re kind of selling yourself on stage, right?

So you have to present yourself and you have to try and win people over. So I guess for me, it’s just always trying to gauge “what kind of crowd is this? What do they respond to? What works, what doesn’t work?” And adapting and just trying to find the right angle for the right crowd.

I guess that’s just part of it.

[Transition Music]

Ryan: So we were talking a little bit before we started recording and then I realized we probably should be recording. We were talking a little bit about Desertfest and you’re saying it’s kind of a super tight knit community. And I guess, speaking to how you you got involved with playing Desertfest Berlin last year and how did that all come about?

Tell me about a little bit about that tight knit community.

Max: As I mentioned earlier, I think as far as I know, the Berlin edition of Desertfest started around, must’ve been 2011, 2012, something like that. I think I was at the 2012 edition. So even before I started Plainride, and then I’ve sort of been there over the years on and off.

But then there’s Desertfest Berlin. And then there’s a couple right now, there’s so many of these, Sound of Liberation festivals that they have done all over Germany, but then also there’s stuff like Burg Herzberg, which I’ve never went to, which like more of this hippie psychedelic, blues thing.

And then there’s Freak Valley, which is also a big stoner [festival], Stone From the Underground, which I haven’t gone to once, which is kind of a shame actually. So, I’ve been to Desertfest a lot. I’ve been to Freak Valley a lot because I used to work for Lo-Fi Merchandise back in Cologne. The merchandise place that does like a lot of these- Monster Magnet and these stoner/heavy rock bands.

Most years they have a booth there and we used to be selling t-shirts there a lot at Freak Valley, which is always a good time. Yeah, it’s just fun because none of these festivals- I I mean, Freak Valley, I think it’s not more than 4,000 people and Desertfest Berlin also is like around that.

So these festivals aren’t more than 10,000 people, I think. So already that’s a small number and, as you probably also know, with the stoner scene, even like globally speaking, it’s still a small thing. I guess you get to a point quickly when you sort of like get into the whole thing where like, okay, these are the bands, those are the people, there’s these scene hubs, like JJ from The Obelisk, I sometimes feel like he’s sort of like this really central nexus.

That’s sort of like keeping this whole thing-

Ryan: he’s the scene dad.

Max: Oh, he’s the scene dad for sure. I’ve met him at Freak Valley, I think once or twice now. He’s been coming over, which is cool. You just run into the same people over and over again, which is just a fun thing.

I remember a few years back going like, “Oh shit, I hope one day I’ll get to meet this and that person and get to check them out personally.” And now it’s like, you’ve done it. You see them at the show and go “Hey.” You know people, you know?

Ryan: Yeah. We opened for Bongzilla in April, in North Carolina, and then ran into them at Desertfest Berlin and was like, “oh, hey. how’s it goin”

Max: Yeah. Those guys are everywhere.

Ryan: Yeah. They really are, they’re truckin.’

Max: And it’s cool. At some point, two or three years back now, I started getting involved more with Ripple Music, our label, started sort of doing the European representation for them.

It started with a Ripplefest. I think it’s going to be our fifth edition this year in Cologne. The time flies, you know?

Ryan: You say you’re head of A&R for Ripple Europe?

Max: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, that’s the title. It sounds fancier than it is really.

It’s just, we have a bunch of US bands, obviously, but we also have a bunch of bands in Europe and outside of the US. And I just try to be the spokesperson and the guy to talk to in Europe and Berlin here, just being just a point of contact for the bands, trying to check in with them on a regular basis and go “Hey.” I mean, obviously, Ripple is- we’re a small independent label, the resources are limited.

We just try to do everything in our power that we can to put our bands on the road and help them out with- sometimes it’s going to be marketing strategy, but a lot of the times it’s also going to be, “Hey, we have a show here, can you help us hook up some shows in Germany?”

Then also the whole idea of the Ripplefest, which I guess is also kind of like how Desertfest started out, it’s to have these anchor shows. We have two Ripplefests now, Berlin and Cologne. I’m trying to have them on two consecutive Saturdays, so you have these two anchor shows. Our bands are coming over, can book a run of shows, with dates in between and boom, you have a European tour, you know?

That’s just a cool thing. And naturally you just meet a lot more people and it’s always just so cool. And just humbling and it’s lovely getting to meet all the people.

Sometimes you’ll know them from off of the internet, from years before. And sometimes you’ve met them in person before, but it’s like the bands are always so grateful and the atmosphere with the crowd, especially it’s- I feel like it’s always been so very lovely. And it’s just a blast getting to work on that.

Ryan: That’s amazing. Any, any plans to come to Ripplefest Texas?

Max: That’s, of course, way up there on the bucket list. We have a bunch of fans in the US and we actually- there was this plan to do a tour, booked already in 2020 before everything sort of like fell apart.

Buddy Donner from Great Electric Quest and Glory Or Death Records. He hooked us up, because we had an invitation for Maryland Doom Fest and we had an invitation to the Ripplefest anniversary party in San Francisco, and then he planned this whole West->East Coast tour for us.

Looking back, it was still kind of a Hail Mary situation as far as finances go. We had a small grant from the city of Cologne, locked in. Other than that- yeah, I mean, that’s actually a cool thing about Germany. There’s actually a lot of funding opportunities, which is cool.

Ryan: That’s amazing. So the, the German government will actually sponsor bands or musicians?

Max: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. There’s a couple of ones we have, the big one, the federal one is Initiative Music. That’s just the one thing where you can apply for funding for recordings or album production, but they also do tour support, especially if you have a support offer and you need money to be able to afford that, then they can help you out which, I mean we did get some- Perfect example, for the last album we did did, we got a grant for that album production, which was just huge for us because we could afford to get guest musicians and pay Bob, our guitarist, who also produced the whole record himself, properly and everything. So it was a huge help.

And then, sadly, we didn’t get the funding for the Corrosion [of Conformity] tour, because that was just a formality thing where it was too many dates and they couldn’t do it. Only do 14 shows, I guess, like tops.

But, for example, we did get a little bit of help from the Wacken Foundation, too, which is obviously not state funding. So that’s private, but that’s just the Wacken folks. They have this foundation where if you’re playing metal or rock or hard rock, you can go to them and go, “okay, we have this tour coming up. We have the audio production. Can you help us?” And, they gave us a small grant.

Ryan: That’s super cool. That’s nice to see.

Max: I guess you guys in the US- I don’t assume that the funding landscape is nearly as favorable over there as it is here.

Ryan: We use the pandemic stipend that we got to fund In Idle Orbit. But that’s the extent of it. So maybe if we get a couple more pandemics and they give us some money.

Max: Thing is though, for us in Germany, in comparison to other places in Europe, it still feels like, full-blown. Well, maybe not that it’s- I don’t want to make it sound that bad, but if you look at Scandinavia and Sweden or even France or Belgium where they have like these systems in place that truly allow artists-

So if you play shows, and you can prove that you played a certain amount of shows in the past years or whatever, you basically get subsidized by the government if you fill out the paperwork correctly. And that’s actually something that’ll allow artists to make a livable wage in some of these countries, which honestly, in Germany, even some of the more successful bands, they’ll still have side hustles.

So it’s not all milk and honey over here in, Germany as well. If you’re really talking to trying to live off of. Music, right?

Ryan: Most people I’ve encountered here, a music is the side hustle and need full-time work to be able to afford that. But that’s amazing that there’s that supportive infrastructure there. That’s so cool.

Max: Yeah, but honestly, I have huge respect for any band, any artist, that manages to sort of balance a full time job with, and then coming over from the US and doing these- like, if there’s one thing to be said about American artists, you guys are hustlers, you don’t fuck around.

You’re really grinding it out. There’s so many bands also, which, I guess also because there’s maybe more opportunities to play shows because it’s a more vast, bigger country. But I see these bands grinding it out on the road, bands like Howling Giant, who I love.

Ryan: We played our second show with them.

Max: And it’s just like great blokes, love ’em. And the music’s great. And these cats are just grinding it out on the road. Night after night and doing this show- I don’t even want to know the conditions they- I’m hoping like now by now they’re getting proper fees or at least better fees, but it’s just starting out and playing these shows and I don’t want to glamorize or romanticize that because I truly believe that artists should be paid more fairly and there should be more funding for the arts and for culture and for clubs, too because they’re struggling as well.

Ryan: Oh, yeah.

Max: But so this whole system, right, needs to be fixed.

But given that, or that being said, I just- the utmost respect for road warriors like that. Just grinding it out on the road and that’s nuts.

And then sometimes it’s maddening going like, “why is there not more recognition?” A lot of the the time the bands that are really grinding it out on the road and that really put so much time and effort into their extra actual craft, which is what they should be doing, aren’t the ones that are focusing super hard on their marketing efforts, or are the best at that to market their music at scale. And it’s like doing the whole internet shebang and everything, which I get because you only have so much time and only so many capabilities.

I don’t want to talk smack about other artists, but then you see some bedroom producer going viral on the Tok with just the most generic shit and you go like, “Oh, come on, man. There’s just so much better stuff out there.” Just give it that caustic cosmic justice, but justice do its things. Give a slice of that recognition to some of the bands that are just working so hard.

Ryan: It feels like two completely different worlds. You have that bedroom TikToker that explodes and then you have those real road warriors that take time to really build up that audience.

I’m thinking, as you were talking, I was thinking specifically about this band, local in North Carolina, American Aquarium. More on the alt-country side of rock. They’ve made a point over the- oh man, they’ve probably goin’ for 20 years, something along those lines. But they’ve been actively touring constantly, but also trying to make sure that they’re playing some smaller towns and not just playing those smaller towns, but going back to those smaller towns time and time and time again, and really building up that following.

It takes forever, but it really builds a loyal fanbase. I mean, that’s some ground to stand on whereas I feel like with a bedroom TikToker, it might blow up, get a bunch of listens, but is anyone going to come out to the shows if they play?

Max: Oh, for sure.

Or if you’re one of those artists that gets signed out to a major label off of a TikTok hit. Then you suddenly the first show you ever play is in front of 4,000 people and it’s all crickets until you play that one song that one thirty seconds they know. That sounds like a terrible experience to me.

I wouldn’t really want to be in their shoes either. There’s a lot to be said for, for the bread and butter loyal fanbase cult following, staying independent as best you can situation. And I just wish there was maybe a little less hardship and a little bit more money in that.

Ryan: So my perspective is fairly limited, but from what I’ve put together through seeing photos and videos and my, again, very limited firsthand experience at Desertfest, it seems like crowds in Europe broadly, also Germany, seem to be hungry for the music and coming out to shows.

Do you feel like attendance is strong? Do you feel like it’s waned in the past years? How do you feel- I guess the hunger for live music is at the shows that you’ve played or attended?

Max: Generally speaking, I want to say Germany is a huge music market.

So there’s definitely a lot of people that are about the live show also here in Germany. I don’t want to say after the pandemic, but like after the height, the pinnacle, of the pandemic, when shows were starting to happen again, you could tell as soon as it really was like, “okay, so we really get to do this now.”

There was definitely a surge with the bookings and everything, just like the market being massively oversaturated, which I think we’re still sort of recovering from that and still in process of returning to normalcy. I wouldn’t say it’s a- it’s probably this mix between right.

There is a lot of demand and there is a lot of hunger for live music in all sorts of genres. But at the same time, there is just a lot of saturation of the market. Especially in the large cities, obviously, which is cool because there’s a lot of choice and a lot of stuff happening.

That’s one of the things that I really enjoy about Berlin is that you can go to these basement shows and see incredible bands for seven to 10 euros. And there’s like 15 people there and you go, “how is there not more people?”

At the same time, I think there’s still a lot of markets that are not really- that sort of live music, structurally speaking- hasn’t really broken ground as much in that there’s a lot of same thing in a lot of places where the rural areas are pretty weak, structurally, a lot of people just going to the cities and it feels like there might be a bit of a tipping point where the cities are getting so crowded and the rent is unaffordable that people started to move back out of the cities again. And I just feel like there’s just a lot of places still in the countryside, like rural Germany and in like smaller towns and villages, where I think you could do a lot of stuff with little amounts of funding and build up cool clubs and venues and build cool places for live music and culture.

Ryan: Yeah, it’s one of our pet theories too, is that in more rural areas, or cities where bigger acts are skipping on the map, going and playing small club shows in that area, the likelihood of people coming out potentially being higher just because they don’t have as much going on or they’re more frequently ignored.

Well, this was a fantastic chat. Is there anything that we didn’t touch on that you want to talk about or promote?

Max: Not off of the top of my head, I guess. Just, super cool, thanks for having me, Ryan. And it’s been a great chat. If anything, I can say we’re actively working on new music with Plainride right now, and we will have some new stuff out soon.

Other than that, thanks for having me.

Ryan: Awesome. Thank, thanks for joining and helping make this mixtape. And I look forward to hearing the new stuff.

Max: Right on.

Ryan: Massive thanks to Max for taking the time to chat and share h is song selection for the playlist. You can hear all song selections for this season so far, as well as the entire season one playlist on Spotify or YouTube. You can also hear a song from Plainride, right here and right now. Because we talked about it, and because it’s one of my favorites of theirs, here is “S.O.T.U.” AKA “Shoe of the Universe” from their self-titled record.

Ryan: Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts to feed the algorithm gods and help the show get discovered by more people. You can find the full show transcript at letsmixtape.com where I’ve included a bunch of embedded music and video for a lot of what was talked about today. We have two episodes left in this season and next week I’m joined by Juan Alberto Tamayo of the band Vinnum Sabbathi. All show editing is done by me, intro and transition music was written and recorded by Scotty Sandwich.


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