Max Schoenwetter & The Exploration of Music Creation

It’s the first night of Halloween weekend when I find Max Schoenwetter, not out partying like most kids his age, but instead hunkered down in his dorm, hard at work on… something.
“I’m just trying to make something,” says Max.
Max is in the process of piecing together his first full length album. A current Music Industry student at Drexel University, he’s ahead of the curve, honing his skills to perfect his craft while confined to his dorm room. Having been in only one serious band before, Max comes with the ability to play guitar and bass proficiently, as well as some practice on piano and drums. Recording his own music is a new undertaking and doing that within his dorm has been a challenge.
“It’s so terrible,” he complains. The incessant talking from the hallway, his roommate ignoring the recording, not to mention the limited space. He’s in his natural habitat, but it doesn’t mean these obstructions help the music flow.
It’s organized chaos. Cables and guitar pedals cover the floor, acting as a carpet. Guitars hide under the bed. Notebooks filled with lyrics and chord structures lay along his desk. It becomes such a task to record in the dorm, sometimes he even entertains recording elsewhere at Drexel. “We have a lot of studios here.” As a Freshman in Music Industry, though, it can be challenging to get studio time. “If I can get studio B time I’d want to do as much as I could in there.”
Recording in a dorm isn’t the only difficulty. There’s balancing schoolwork and adapting to a new city that can hinder musical progress. Each day becomes a game of tetris, but with blocks of time. People ask How does he do it? The answer: sleep deprivation.
“I love to be awake. It’s the best.”
Forget lack of sleep, instead, he says that the real struggle is distinguishing the “producer” and “writer” side of him.
“I like writing and I like producing, but doing both at the same time is not fun.”
“As an artist you’re focusing on the aesthetic of the song,” and “as a producer you’re trying to figure out how to fit it [together].” He is slowly finding out that sometimes these two mindsets don’t agree. Everything is done himself: every choice of chord, every lyric, every decibel up or down in volume. They’re all his decisions and it has greatly added to his time. “Honestly, I’m not far into making this album at all and I thought I was,” he admits. Originally, he had planned to be finished basic instrumentals before Thanksgiving break, but with so many responsibilities it doesn’t seem like that is going to happen. He doesn’t want to rush, and even though some of these revelations have slowed his progress, he is still determined to finish what he’s started.
What spawned this determination began with his old band “No Noise.” After they disbanded in July of 2015, one of his bandmates decided to work on his own solo music
endeavour and write and record all of the songs himself. Max heard what his friend had made, and felt he could do the same. It became an internal challenge. And, as opposed to his old band, he’s actually taking this seriously.
“I think it’s me trying to prove that I actually can do music,” he says.
With “No Noise,” they played shows, he added his own flare with occasional bass riffs, but for the most part it was just a fun experience. “It was mostly just to see what it was like to play in a band,” he recalls. He never thought his band would shoot to stardom while they were in high school. It was a hobby, and even though it is serious now, much of it is still an exploratory venture.
“I want to see if… being a solo artist is something I could pursue.”
Producing and writing are two passions for Max and this process has become a way to explore how he wants to use them. His love for production started, from the classic Beatles’ Abbey Road.
“I fell in love with how that album sounds, as an album,” he explains. “I wanted to learn how to make sounds sound like that… Sonically my favorite records are very mid-ranged and soft, but also bright and welcoming.” Max wants to pull these inspirations into his album, but still have the album sound his own.
For writing lyrics, Max enjoys it, but it’s more challenging.
“I haven’t written any lyrics yet,” he admits. “How do you feel about writing your lyrics on the page?” he asks me, “I don’t like it,” then with a sigh, “saying your feelings is so annoying.”
But Max has no problem putting other people’s feelings onto the page. His interests aren’t limited to music. He has already written two whole feature films and is in the middle of writing his third. “I think I honestly find movie writing to be way easier than writing music.” Movies have become a relaxation method- a break from writing, recording, and even listening to music. “It’s been hard for me for a very long time to listen to music… because I’m thinking about how they wrote it, how they produced it.”
For now, Max is planning on continuing this venture and hopes to have his album out eventually in hopes that it can develop into something he’s proud of. Again, he just wants to make something. Through this slow, yet self-fulfilling process, Max links an art class he took in high school called, What is art? to this album process. He remembers:
“Art isn’t art unless somebody else observes it and comments on it. Like the whole process of making it is fine, but once it’s out in the world there’s a little more catharsis to it. And so I think I’m releasing this to like release whatever energy left over from writing it all and knowing that I have that in me.”
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That was back in the fall. Fast-forward to today, and Max’s first LP has been released through the moniker “Val Jester.” Released in May, the album is entitled Sorry. It’s out now. Go listen to it.
