Max Bennett Kelly is “Superinlove” with Los Angeles in His Latest Single
Recreating the grunge, emo sounds of our youth, LA based singer Max Bennet Kelly is making “an authentic 90s album in the 2020s.” Filled with grainy guitar pieces and fiery vocals of emo bands past Max Bennet Kelly is reviving the authentic soundscape and ironic lyrcism.
The singer is gearing up for the release of his debut EP, Junk Male which details a “tumultuous odyssey of a relationship, which spanned across the city of Los Angeles.” Kelly views his first year of residence in LA as a melancholy romantic comedy facing the trials and tribulations of being a twenty something lost in a sea of other twenty somethings. Detailing heartbreak, hardships and personal growth, Kelly explores all the best (and worst) parts of early adulthood.
Curating the perfect soundtrack to a melancholy yet humorous rom com the singer-songwriter sat down with Unpublished to discuss adulthood, authenticity and what being a ‘junk male’ means.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How would you define your sound?
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: It's aggressively honest. That's how I describe the stuff on the EP. It's full of stuff that you feel like you shouldn't say on record, but I do anyway. And it's emo adjacent and y2k inspired pop music.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Is there something about lyricism that brings that honesty out in you?
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: Definitely, I feel like it's really hard for me to be honest about my feelings, unless it's in a lyrical form. But as soon as it has notes in it, or rhythm, I can say what I actually want. If I'm in a conversation and you asked me how I feel, I can articulate it, but I feel like it's more honest when it's in a song.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You mentioned you take inspiration from pop punk, what aspects, sonically or aesthetically from that era that inspire you?
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: All of it. When I say y2k, I mean ‘99, pre 2000, right before the computers were supposed to mess up. When I was making the songs, we recorded them in a more modern way. I did them on Ableton and demoed them out myself. And then we started playing them live and we did it without any kind of backing tracks as a four piece band. And I was like, ‘Shit, this is so dope, let's make the sound vintage.’ That's the stuff I grew up listening to. And I thought it'd be really cool to try to recreate that feeling in the present day. There’s a lot of post emo, pop punk stuff coming out now but it just feels [different] texturally. [...] I went on old forums from 2001 about what gear people would use back in the day, to try to recreate those sounds. I was like ‘let's make this feel authentic.’
[UNPUBLISHED]: While recording live was there a stand out of that really unique experience?
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: I had no idea what I was doing. It was really fun. You'll hear, especially in the upcoming stuff, there's so many sounds of people yelling and talking and just the sound of the studio. That was the most fun. When we got to record I was like “guys if you mess up, you can say fuck, just keep your mistake in there. Say the sounds in real life and record them [...] make this thing sound like it's a live band in your ears. So there's a bunch of videos of us in the studio, just getting into it, playing our instruments or screaming and yelling nonsense. [...] It just felt the same way it felt when I would jam out my band in my basement at 13, just yelling and experimenting and figuring shit out.
[UNPUBLISHED]: It goes back to that authenticity that you were talking about and it sounds like you really value that as an artist.
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: I definitely do, but it kind of ends up biting me in the ass sometimes. Because then the song comes out and I'm like, ‘shit, do I actually want these thoughts and feelings to be out in the world, but I'm like, I guess I committed to it.’ Because when I'm writing it, I’m like ‘I have to get this feeling out.’ [...] But I guess when the song first comes out, it feels really vulnerable and I'm saying something that is super true. I think a lot of artists will sublimate what they want to say through a really beautiful metaphor but, especially with this EP, I really went into this with the mindset of no metaphors, just say it. It doesn't even have to rhyme, let's just say exactly what it's supposed to be. It just feels really raw and unfiltered.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Is there a particular song or lyric you felt you were too honest and worried about the reception of it?
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: I have that with all of my songs. In “Happy, Healthy, Well-Adjusted” I'm talking about all my friends and it’s all true, at the time my friend Logan was working as a bass player, I wrote this about my friends dating each other. I never expected that song to blow up or anything and I didn't tell these people that their names are in the song. Then when it comes out, and it starts doing well on Tik Tok and people are like, ‘are you talking about me in the song?’ [...] It’s funny because in “Superinlove (Roll Credits)” I sing “Of all the sidewalks in the world you caught me in West Hollywood.” So what that's referring to is when COVID was in full swing, I had first moved to LA. So I was like, How are you supposed to meet people in LA? And so me and my roommate bought these eight foot tall signs of our faces, and just put them around town and stood by them and just met people. I met so many people that I still hang out with to this day. […] I met 1000s of people doing this so sometimes people think that I'm talking about that encounter with them on the street. […] Even when something is so specific with no metaphor, people still will find their own interpretation for it, you know? And I think that is cool […] because I guess I don't have control over that once it's out.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Were there any reactions that stand out to you from someone you wrote about or the general public?
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: When “Happy, Healthy, Well-Adjusted” first came out, people would make TikToks and use the chorus to flex. [There’s a lyric] about having casual sex wearing my grandma's necklace so there'll be people talking about their grandma's necklace and holding it up. But to me, that is supposed to be the most embarrassing thing ever. [...] It's purposely supposed to be cringy and embarrassing to admit. So that was surprising to me.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Your lyricism is very tongue and cheek and full of irony, In “Superinlove (Roll Credits) you sing “The world's not ending, you're just depressed” what makes you have that more humorous on an experience?
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: I guess that’s the whole song. If you read the lyrics out it could be a sad song. It's all past tense, about a relationship ending and coming out on the other side of it. [...] When I was thinking about that line, it was ‘the cloud clearing up kind of moment.’ When something ends, it feels like the world is ending around you [...] but when you start coming out of it, you're like, ‘Ah, that was just my perception of the moment.’ You know this breakup has absolutely nothing to do with my credit card getting declined. *laughs* It just takes a little bit to come out of it to see the humor in the misery.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Why attach the (Roll Credits) to the end of the song title?
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: Alright, this is all part of the master plan. “Superinlove” is the last song on the EP. And so I thought it'd be interesting to put that one as the first single. It's like when you're a kid and you're reading a book and you read the last page or something before you started. I feel like that's kind of the idea, start with the end and you get spoiled, you know? I envision this whole EP, as this Rom-Com. [...] It was this idea of my first year in LA, being a rom com? And this song is gonna be the ending credits of that. But it’s kind of cheesy in a cool way. It's the double irony thing, right? [...] It's an inverse of the first song on the EP, so those two are two [sides] of the same coin, except the first one is really angry and bitter.
[UNPUBLISHED]: The press release for this song describes the EP as “a retrospective of their tumultuous odyssey of a relationship.” What was it like processing that through song?
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: Weird? Writing it and putting it all together made me realize this relationship that I wrote these songs about was something very casual in reality. It wasn’t anything serious. [...] In the moment it felt so dramatic and serious but when it was over, it's like, ‘Oh, yeah. Was I actually into this or was I really just using this as a fuel to write songs about?’ [...] When I really look back on it, all the songs to me are actually about LA. This girl that I use as a lyrical topic is kind of an abstraction of reality. [...] It's just about where I was and what I was feeling at the time and how these things get intertwined with people you meet and things you go through. It all started with the summer when things started with “Happy, Healthy, Well-Adjusted.” I started experiencing everything I would want to experience. My music was getting noticed, I was meeting managers and labels. But then I actually felt really uncomfortable with it and I didn’t know why. That's what the EP is exploring: What do you do when the things that you thought you would like, and not giving you as much enjoyment as you thought?
[UNPUBLISHED]: Speaking of your EP, Junk Male, what brought you to that title?
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: Oh, my God, we were at a party and I was just talking bullshit with one of my friends. The name just came up in conversation and I was like, that would be the best title for an EP. Then I was like, ‘Wait, what a weird coincidence. I have an EP that needs a title.’ It means being the worst version of yourself, you’re a junk male! [...] When I look back to this time, everything was a mess. I was lazy and doing stupid things to give myself some inspiration. That version of myself lived in a garage and had a check engine light on for two years, and had $1,000 unpaid parking tickets. That is the ‘junk male’ version of me. I used to be self destructive in the name of being a musician. Because I thought that's what it meant to be an artist. [...] And I feel like I ended up using music as an excuse to be the worst version of myself. [...] That is what it means to be a piece of junk, it's selfish and kind of arrogant and entitled to think ‘Because I'm making art, I guess I have an excuse to not clean up my dishes in the house with my roommates.’ [...] I look back on that time, I really don't like it. I feel like making this EP and making all these songs about this time, I can flush them out of me and put them in the past. And then if I ever catch myself behaving that way, again, the songs will play in my head. You don't have to suffer for your art anymore.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You don’t have to be a ‘junk male!’
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: You don’t have to be a ‘junk male.’
[UNPUBLISHED]: While you compartmentalized this aspect of yourself for this EP, can you walk us through what your process was making this very cohesive, thematic EP?
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: I made a lot of music that summer [2021]. At the time, I was just writing what felt true to me and a lot of the songs that didn't make it on the EP, were released as singles. [...] Certain ones really stuck out to me, sound wise and topic wise, because these ones especially had some sort of through line, they all center around LA. [...] There was a lot of bitterness and pessimism. [...] I just noticed the pattern between the songs and that's what brought them together. There is one song on the EP called “Paycheck,” about before I moved to LA, and I worked this job at a bar, and I was really looking forward to LA. It sounds optimistic, right? But if you put it in context to the EP where I'm talking about how much LA sucks, it actually becomes a sad song. Because that is how I used to feel about it and then it immediately goes to the next song, where I'm talking about how much I hate it. [...] All these things stuck out to me when I was deciding to put together a project but they all came together at once. [...] It kind of built itself.
[UNPUBLISHED]: That's really awesome. So coming up is your Junk Male, what else have you got going on?
[MAX BENNETT KELLY]: So much stuff! It's been a busy year. [...] I've just been compiling so much music. I wrote the songs in 2021, finished them with the live band in the beginning of 2022. And since then, there's 100 or so finished songs just ready to go. The honest truth is when “Happy, Healthy, Well-Adjusted” came out, and I had this big moment on Tik Tok I had nothing else ready. It was my only song and that felt really terrible and scary to be caught empty handed. So I was like, ‘I'm never gonna do that again. I'm just gonna make as much music as possible so at any time I have four EPS ready to go, in case.’ [...] But for Junk Male, we've also created a short film to go along with it. That's the big centerpiece for this whole thing. The EP itself tells a storyline about relationships in LA but the short film that goes along with it has an allegory to everything in the EP about boxing. And the EP is the soundtrack to the short film. [...] It's primarily acted, there's not much music video to it. It's a 15 minute thing with my songs as the bumper between scenes. So that is what I'm really excited for. We did it with an awesome team and my girlfriend directed it, she's awesome. [...] It's the real beginning of this universe that I'm building, this Junk Male universe and “Superinlove” is a little intro to that, which is funny because it's also the ending.
