Transcription of Max García Conover for the show Sharing Strength, #90
Dr. Lisa: The interview that I’m about to begin today, is one that’s going to be a little different than usual because it’s going to involve one of my favorite things in the entire world, which is music. This interview is with Max Garcia Conover, who is a musician and teacher at the Breakwater School, who has recently released his first full-length album, Burrow, through Clip Records.
Max, give us a few lines of one of your most recent songs.
Max Garcia C: Sure. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Sitting in the wide old weeds, chamber of a church is a skylight stream and if it was the memory burning then the fire was weak.
All us in the wedding line, cry my father’s mother in her cataract eyes, she said she was a saltwater woman and the rain only made her more dry.
Roses kept the hillside red, bowing to the wind-fell trees let in, and I don’t mean to say I’ve done nothing but hey I’ve done less than I can.
But I’ll come back when the highway’s a fallen and drawn on the old concrete are the bones of a hand with the words I could be, with the words I could be.
And I’ll come back when the weeds are a steeple, we are all of us now shouting out loud when you rob this house, when you rob this house.
Dr. Lisa: Max, tell me about that song.
Max Garcia C: It’s called The Wedding Line, and it’s … most of my songs aren’t really about sort of one thing, because when I try to make them about one thing, I end up getting really sick of singing them, quickly, but one of the things that that song is about is, I think for a long time, growing up, I felt like I understood everybody around me, and my family and my friends, and they had a big event like a wedding, or something, I would go and feel like I understood all those people, but they didn’t quite understand me. I was actually going to be much, much bigger, and much … like very important, and of course they had their nice little lives.
The song isn’t … I think that’s sort of natural feeling that you grow out of, and the song is about growing out of that and moving away from that, I guess.
Dr. Lisa: Max, you and I both went to Bowdoin, the small Liberal Arts College, just up the road here in Brunswick, and although it has a really great classical musical scene and of course has the MeddiBempsters and it has a musical theater scene. It’s not known as much for the singer, songwriter scene.
Max Garcia C: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: How did you work this into your education there, and what kind of an impact did the Bowdoin education have on your approach to the world?
Max Garcia C: It was … being a songwriter was always something that was very separate from my studies at Bowdoin. I had a few friends that I would play music with, and that was great, but I didn’t really. I never studied music at Bowdoin, and I didn’t really pursue it while I was there. I would spend the summer, sort of, making music and then at Bowdoin I would be more focused on classes, and I was a government major and so that kind of thing.
I went into Bowdoin wanting to be a political speechwriter, and so I studied government, and I think that informed my songwriting, it definitely did, but it didn’t have that real direct connection.
Dr. Lisa: It seems as though the education Bowdoin, though, did help as far as the social justice notion. Although I think you had this going into Bowdoin from our conversations before, that you sent a portion of sales from your last-
Max Garcia C: EP, yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Okay, to the Chewonki Foundation, and then from this album, to the Evergreen Health Services, which is a nonprofit working to bring medical service and support people living with AIDS. There’s this whole … you may not have become a government speechwriter.
Max Garcia C: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Lisa: You still have the strong interest in social justice.
Max Garcia C: Yeah, yeah, and it’s good that you use that term, social justice, there’s this one professor at Bowdoin who I really connected with, right when I got there, and stayed connected with, even still, and her thing was very much social justice, and she was an education teacher. I think that does really inform how I approach being a musician, and I’ve always been really interested in teaching, and really interested in education in general, and the role that it plays in society.
Music doesn’t have … doesn’t immediately have that direct connection to the social good that education does, and so I’m often trying to figure out ways that will connect it to something bigger. I think music is a worthwhile thing to do in and of itself, but being an independent musician requires so much self promotion and talking about yourself, that it’s just a much easier thing for me to do, if I feel like it’s connected to something bigger.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. That’s interesting and tough thing, and we’ve spoken with other artists before, who are more visual artists, and I talk about this simultaneous need to go within yourself to create, but then to go outside of yourself to promote, and they’re two very different-
Max Garcia C: Totally.
Dr. Lisa: … aspects of one’s mind and one’s life.
Max Garcia C: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Then if you’re … if it’s easier for you to be able to say, “Okay, there’s a common good, I’m going to promote this, and it’s going to help not only me but somebody else, then I think that that … it seems like that’s a worthwhile approach.
Max Garcia C: Yeah, yeah. I think so too. It’s also a mutually-beneficial thing, because I can give a little money to the cause, and on top of that I get to sort of show my fans or people who are new to my music, what I care about and, hopefully, it just sort of grounds the music in a greater context.
Dr. Lisa: There is a tradition of this sort of thing-
Max Garcia C: Totally.
Dr. Lisa: … driven by … more recently, I’m trying to remember the Feed the World people with the Christmas albums.
Max Garcia C: Right.
Dr. Lisa: There’s been a lot of this sort of thing in the past, and to have you as an independent musician doing that continues on a tradition that I think a lot of people would like to do.
Max Garcia C: Yeah. Even in Portland you see it happening all the time, musicians playing for free for benefit concerts or recording videos or something that all to support some cause that they believe in.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, that’s actually a really important point. As you’re talking I’m realizing that John McCain, who is our Audio Producer, he just did a concert recently that was for … to benefit a man with cancer, and actually I know that John has done many of these types of things. I know you’re also coming up, and you’re doing a Kennebunkport Festival gig.
Max Garcia C: Yeah, right.
Dr. Lisa: Of course, money is going to Share Our Strength, which is the hunger relief organization in Maine. It seems like musicians and artists are very much valued for the ability to open up people’s hearts, and really help them to understand that there are needs that are beyond what we sometimes think about in our lives. Can there be another side to it, which is that you may not always get the money you need to pay the mortgage?
Max Garcia C: Yeah. I mean, I think music is a very under-valued thing in general. They’re financially undervalued not … I think people really value music but it’s … there’s this whole thing going on right now about Internet radio and how much musicians are getting paid, and whether they’ll be paid a tiny fraction of what the Internet radio sites are making, or an even tinier fraction of what the Internet radio sets are making. Trying to make music into a business is a really challenging thing, and made even more challenging by the fact that so many musicians want to be helpful, and want to ground their music in the social good.
Dr. Lisa: As a singer, songwriter, and teacher, you not only have to have this sort of outgoing energy, but you also have to be able to pull back and create. What inspires you?
Max Garcia C: Usually other music, other songs, if you want to hear a good song, I just get like this feeling like I wish I had written that song, and so I’d go off and I’d try to, I’d try to write that song, but it ends up coming out of something different. Yeah, so that’s the really direct source of inspiration for me. Often it’s going to new places, doing new things that end up giving that sort of spark of inspiration. A lot of times it’s what I’m reading.
I’m a relatively quiet person, and sort of introverted person, and so I’m often driven to write a song and inspired to write a song, because there are things that I want to say, but I don’t know always put myself in the social situations where anybody is there to hear me so I say it through songs.
Dr. Lisa: Max, how can people find out about your latest album, Burrow, or the work that you’re doing with Evergreen Health Services?
Max Garcia C: The easiest is just go to: www.maxgarciaconover.com, you can listen to the album from there, and see the shows, and stuff like that. Then www.evergreenhs.org, I think, is the website for Evergreen Health Services. Evergreen Health Services is a nonprofit in Western New York, and where I’m originally from, that brings support and medical services to people with AIDS; which is a really personal issue for me, and something I’ve been trying to figure out how to be involved … for a while. Yeah, so those are the best ways.
Dr. Lisa: You’re going to be touring?
Max Garcia C: I’m going to be touring, yeah. I’ve got a bunch of shows in May and in June, and then about half-way through June, I’m just going to hit the road for six weeks or so, but all over the northeast. I don’t have a lot in Maine actually. The next thing is that our works at the Kennebunkport Festival, and then … but I’ve got a lot of shows in New York and Boston and Philadelphia and, yeah, something like that.
Dr. Lisa: People can also read about you in the June issue of Maine Magazine?
Max Garcia C: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: The article was conveniently written by Sophia Nelson.
Max Garcia C: Conveniently, yes.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. Actually it’s a very good article, and the picture, there’s a great picture by Greta Rybus. Anybody who hasn’t had a chance to pick this up, they should, where they can look online at www.themainemag.com.
Max, thanks for coming in today.
Max Garcia C: Thank you so much for having me.