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Act III: Making an incredibly personal album.

Date

January 2025

Location

London, United Kingdom.

Personally speaking, 2023 was one of the most difficult and emotionally challenging years of my life, so far. I'd even go as far to say that it was my 'worst'. My debut album, was released on the 20th of February that year and I spent most of the summer and autumn developing and recording the material that would end up on the follow up album; Chapter II: The Wind Sings In Reverse, which was eventually released on the 27th of April, 2024. However, outside of music, my troubled relationships with friends and acquaintances took quite a significant shift, which left me jealous, confused, angry, lonely, desperate, lustful and to a certain extent, suicidal.

By the end of 2023, I was severely depressed and at rock bottom! I spent the new year period at our family home in Dorset, with my mum, dad and sister (oh, and our cat, of course. How could I forget, eh?). It was during this time, out of 2023 and into 2024, that I began to slowly pull myself together and thought about what I was going to do for my next musical project, the follow up to Chapter II (which at that point, was about 80% complete). Whilst finishing off Chapter II, I began to plan out my third album, which I'd already decided would be called 'Act III'. It would be another step forward from what I was currently finishing off. It would be a lot more personal, deeper and heavier.

I was still recovering from all of the bad experiences I had been through in the past year, and I was channelling them into both my song writing and playing. This wasn't going to be a concept album, but even at these early stages, I knew there would be common themes running throughout the various songs. Themes of love, lust, popularity, heartbreak, loneliness, depression, relationships, marriages, the conception & birth of children and how I was trying to co-exist in a world where these curveballs are just 'facts of life', and where I fitted into all of this.

Previously, I'd played every single instrument on all my songs, but this for album I wanted to try something different. I decided to enlist the help of various musicians from across the globe, in order to achieve the sounds and various timbres I had envisioned in my head. I mainly reached out to people on Discord, from the various servers I'm part of. People who I'd never met or knew before, but who I knew had the correct instruments (such as Fender Rhodes electric piano or Simmons electronic drums) that I wanted for specific tracks.

I finished recording all the basic backing tracks (with drums, bass, guitar and a guide keyboards) by early September 2024. It typically took about a week to record each backing track, as I tended to record each instrument, a day at a time (for instance; I would record the drums on Sunday, rhythm guitar on Monday, bass on Wednesday and keyboards on Friday), whilst coming up with parts / riffs for other songs or the current song I was working on.

Previously, I hadn't given any vocalists much guide on how to sing, I just decided to give them free range. However, I was a lot more strict this time around, as I wanted things to be exactly how I'd envisioned them in my head, when conceiving the songs. As result, I would record myself singing a rough guide vocal, with the desired vocal melody and phrasing, so the real vocalists would have clear guidance on what exactly to do. Doing this also gave me my own guide on how to craft various guitar or synthesiser solos around the vocal melody.

All extra parts that were recorded by me (be that guide vocals or guitar solos) were finished by the end of December 2024.

At the time of writing this, my hope is for the album to be out by mid-summer 2025.

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