Nicknames on the Release of His Latest Single “Go Big or Go Home”
Photo by Sabrina Yanez
Max Strite, who goes by the moniker “Nicknames” for his music, is the next artist to add to your playlists. Released on January 20th, his latest single “Go Big or Go Home” visualizes the cinematic atmosphere of Uncut Gems. Self-produced by himself, the song takes Nicknames in a new direction driven by pop-rock themes. In a conversation with Unpublished, Strite delved into his latest single “Go Big or Go Home” and what the future looks like for Nicknames.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Thank you for sitting down with us today! Could you give us a little background about who you are and how you got into music?
[NICKNAMES]: So I was born in DC, that's where I consider to be home. But, I grew up in Germany for a couple of years, when I was like eight to twelve. It was the years of listening to the radio on the way to school. I got really into music that way just by listening to the radio. I love EDM and pop. When I got to middle school in the US, I moved back, I got into other stuff like rap and EDM. I wanted to be a DJ. So, I started producing when I was in like seventh grade, I just kept doing it. I would put up things on SoundCloud and nobody would listen, they were not good. And then I finally started to get more into the pop side in my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college. It took a long time, it took me like four years to even release a song.
[UNPUBLISHED]: For someone who hasn’t listened to your music before, how would you describe it?
[NICKNAMES]: I would call it pop. I think a lot of people get the wrong impression of it at first when I say that or kind of dismiss it. But, it's definitely pop. It's more influenced by dance and indie and hip-hop. So, I think it's a little different from traditional pop, I wanted to make something that felt untraditional.
[UNPUBLISHED]: When approaching music, what does your creative process look like?
[NICKNAMES]: Since I'm mostly a producer, usually I start with an instrumental idea, like a melody or a bass line. Usually a bass line, I play bass. Then the vocals, I kind of just freestyle them out a lot of the time, and then refine them. But, I think usually the initial instincts are the best ones. So, I just am producing something and I just get an idea and then I write in my notes app and then record it. But, I'm trying to get better at collaborations and working in the studio.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Can you tell us about your new single “Go Big or Go Home” and the inspiration behind it?
[NICKNAMES]: Yeah, so the song is actually based off of Uncut Gems. I was doing a songwriting lesson and I had an assignment to write a song about a movie with a character from a movie. So, I wrote about that like a year and a half ago. Then I put it on SoundCloud like nine months ago, and then I was like, "You know what, let me just release it for real." So I reworked a little bit, remastered it and we made a video. But it's based off of Uncut Gems and it's like my first rock song.
[UNPUBLISHED]: So I read that you were running around New York to film the music video. Do you have any fun memories you would like to share from filming it?
[NICKNAMES]: The whole team was great. It was Sleepy Studios, Myles Caba. It was like 15 people, all super nice, all film students. They're actually blowing up right now with this SZA "Kill Bill" fan video, she reposted it. It was cool. We were honestly just hanging out all day. For lunch we all got bacon, egg and cheese or a chopped cheese from a deli in Brooklyn. It was the most New York thing ever. We went to the airport and got kicked out for filming in there. But it was worth it. We got some shots. So it was cool, it was a good day.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Do you have any favorite lyrical or instrumental parts of the song?
[NICKNAMES]: There's a chord that sounds diminished right before the chorus comes in. And then when it comes out, it goes back to the diminished kind of sounding chord and then it goes into the verse.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Did you explore any new creative techniques with this song?
[NICKNAMES]: I feel like it's a couple I think. It's much faster than a lot of my stuff and it has a super different drum pattern. Also vocally I wanted to do a lot of autotune as if it was maybe like a SoundCloud rap song or something almost. It's super heavily processed and it doesn't really sound human and I thought it was cool. But, I feel like some people really like it and it resonated with them. And some people were like, "I don't know." But that was definitely trying something different. I wanted to just experiment a little bit with that and see what people thought.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What have you been listening to lately? What’s been inspiring you?
[NICKNAMES]: This new Little Yachty album– so sick. This song "Freaky T" by TiaCorine is like my favorite thing right now. Jordan Ward I like and I always love Yeat. I listen to a lot of Yeat.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Outside of music, what have you been up to lately?
[NICKNAMES]: Well, I just moved to LA and I'll be here until May. I'm interning right now, I'm working at this label called Selene. I just wanted to learn about the label side and meet people. Otherwise, just hanging out with friends. I went to a show last weekend, which was cool. LA is crazy. I ran into like four artists that I'm fans of just sitting in the crowd. I also love to bike, but I can't bike here. I don't have a bike here, unfortunately. So I gotta figure it out. But, I'm basically just settling into Los Angeles right now.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What does the future look like for you?
[NICKNAMES]: Like short term, I'm working on a couple singles. I'm doing a little dance EP which I'm really excited for. But in general, I really want to do an album at some point, but I want to really figure myself out, you know. A lot of my music sounds pretty different from each other. So I'm basically just testing different things out, seeing what hits with people, and then kind of developing myself from there. Once I feel like I've found that sound and my voice and stuff, an album in like a year or two, which would be so sick. But for now, just trying to put out singles and just grow as much as I can. I really want to be producing for other artists because the reason why I started making my own music as an artist was because I wanted to put up my beats. And now I love singing and I love performing and stuff. But, I still want to do production for people. So I'm thinking about just making some beat backs and just sending them out to people I know. I've made a couple more connections now, so that's the goal. Just release a bunch of singles and EPs and then produce for people, different artists in the scene, connect with people that way.