It takes a lot to win the title of ‘Dork fave’, but Joey Maxwell is on his way.
Words: Finlay Holden.
London-based popster Joey Maxwell has moved beyond the genre boundaries of his past musical experiments. His new mixtape ‘Trying Not To Deep It’ features honest declarations alongside dynamic sonic environments, finding him infusing pop beats with jazz instrumentals and R&B supplements. From his flat in London, Joey updates us on his year of reflection and self-growth.
Hey Joey. What have you been up to recently?
I’ve been running loads recently because I’m doing a marathon next month. Up until the last couple of weeks, it was fun, and I was enjoying the mileage, but now, at the business end doing really long runs, to be honest, I’m getting horrible aches – my feet are actually disgusting.
Where did this project come from?
I was in a band called Indigo Husk before this, which made lo-fi garage rock, but a couple of years ago, we sort of hit our peak and were interested in different music and wanting to write other things, so that group had run its course, and so here I am.
Was it a big change going solo?
I only realised how different it was when I released something by myself. It’s way more scary and intimidating because there’s no one else to hide behind, which sounds cliché, but it is true.
Do you like using a full range of media to get your personal message across?
Yeah, I’ve always come up with cool video narratives, but I’ve found with the bigger budget videos that so much of the vibe comes from the camera styles and equipment, so the collaborations I’ve done on those have been a perfect balance of filling in each other’s creative and technical gaps. In the latest video, we had a huge camera rig to imitate Peep Show, which I couldn’t have set up alone.
