Quality Americana

Max Devereaux brings us a throwback to the 1960’s with the surf-guitar inspired “Something You Can’t Hold.”

The slow-paced dancehall number has the classic country sound we miss, and it’s sure to be a favorite at the local honky tonk.

Growing Up in the Midwest

Devereaux was raised in Milwaukee and is now pickin’ around the dance halls in San Diego. His father was a musician and radio DJ back in Wisconsin.

“He got a lot of music influence because they’d send records to the station and he’d get to hear all kinds of stuff,” Devereaux said. 

He also remembered attending the Hodag country music festival in Rhinelander where his father worked security.

“He’d get to meet all these crazy country stars that would come up there,” Devereaux said. “He had a lot of music coming in, especially country music. He passed a lot of that on to me as a young child.”

Devereaux said he especially liked the Marty Robbins records his father would play. He started out strumming the acoustic guitar and later played upright bass in the school orchestra.

“That gave me love and appreciation for classical music, which then gave me an appreciation for how music was actually written and composed, and thinking about composers and that concept of making your own music,” Devereaux said, “so I kind of merged the two worlds, the more traditional Americana stuff and the music that I learned about when I was in school and my studies of classical.”

Film Studies

Devereaux spent his free time learning guitar from YouTube videos and later found a creative outlet in film. 

“I briefly attended a film school,” Devereaux said. “I lasted one week.”

The overall structure of the film world left little free time for music, and the lingering student loan debt that would be required seemed like more of a burden than he could take on. He took on some jobs as a production assistant for television while continuing to pen his own songs. 

“I was just flirting with solo recording at that time and kind of doing the Prince thing where you just record all of your parts on to a Tascam recorder,” Devereaux said. “It was definitely a lot more on the indie-alternative side of things as I was listening to a lot of rock and stuff like that, but it shifted as I became more aware of my ‘songwriter voice.’ I realized it was very easy for me to sit down and write a country song because that seemed to be a great vehicle. My songwriter voice seems to be stripping to very essential elements.”

Devereaux liked the simple chord structures that classic country is built around, and the country records from his youth seemed to keep coming out while finding his sound. He spent time performing in the country scene in Los Angeles while preparing for his album, and after the wildfires devastated the region he relocated to San Diego.

“I was working as a furniture salesman full time just to stay out there,” Devereaux said. “It just didn’t feel great. It’s a difficult city for artists to make ends meet in.”

Gare Du Nord Records

New Country Classics is the follow up to last year’s California Cowboy. Devereaux had placed an ad out on Facebook for a collaboration on pedal steel and “instantly got hundreds and hundreds of hate messages. People were just dunking on me, it was really bad.”

Devereaux’s brother works as a session musician, and explained how many emotions can come out when being asked to record without a budget. 

“One of the people that was the most vocal in my defense was Jack Hayter,” Devereaux said. Hayter returned to play the pedal steel on New Country Classics, and connected Devereaux to Gare Du Nord Records in the UK for the release. 

“I’ve been doing that self-released experience for the whole run,” Devereaux said about his past decade of work. “It’s exhausting to be the only person who’s like trying to get these releases to the public, so just to have any support whatsoever to me feels amazing.”

New Country Classics features Ethan Elseth on bass and John D. Lowrey on harmoncia.

“Max & co’s approach, ethos and songwriting chops fit perfectly, and we’re excited to be a part of this release,” Ian Button, Gare Du Nord Records Founder, said.

Something You Can’t Hold

Devereaux is now working to find ways to make classic country sounds appeal to modern audiences. He recreates the vintage sounds of Robbins and Williams as well as influences from the Golden State like Buck Owens.

“It has the essence of what I was trying to do, which is really like a Hank Williams kind of thing. Really simple music,” Devereaux said. “I like the idea that it’s open ended in that hopefully it’s universal enough that whoever hears it can go and put whatever they’re feeling, whatever heaviness or thing that they feel like they can’t hold on into it, and then feel like it could be cathartic to hear that.”

His Zen Buddhist studies also inspired the theme that’s “not trying to contain things that are ultimately like smoke,” Devereaux said. “They’re going to go through your fingers no matter what. It’s ever changing.”

Support the Artist

Support Max Devereaux by streaming and purchasing New Country Classics on Bandcamp.

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