Ahead of his new studio album, Love in Stereo, release on February 16, MAX stopped by for an Audacy Check In with Mike Adam at the Hard Rock Hotel in New York to share all the details and tell fans exactly what they can expect from the new project.
LISTEN NOW: MAX on his new album, greatest inspiration, and more
MAX increased excitement surrounding the album just a week before its release with the debut of a fresh track titled, “Stupid in Love,” featuring Huh Yunjin of K-Pop girl group, Le Sserafim. A song inspired by his own love journey with his wife, MAX says it was the perfect peek into the tracklist for fans.
“I wrote this song for my wife,” the 31-year-old said of the new single. ”We got engaged in four months, got married in nine months, so a lot of our family members were kind of concerned that we were being a little silly, being a little stupid… we were always kind of stupid in love so this song came from that.”
“I was in Korea, I got to try co-writing for Le Sserafim, the group, and I got to meet Huh Yunjin while I was there. Sent her the song and the rest in history."
Huh Yunjin isn’t the only collaboration fans can look forward to on the album. MAX shared the project has plenty of partner-work as he also joined forces with Keshi and Duckworth, and is manifesting a collaboration with his greatest inspiration, Dolly Parton, for the Deluxe album.
“We’ll see if we can manifest it for the deluxe, every interview we have until it happens, we’ll just keep manifesting it,” MAX said of his dream duet with Parton before detailing how she inspired him. “I think Dolly’s always been an inspiration of no matter how anyone else feels about her, she brushes it off. She’s so resilient, she’s so unapologetically herself and her writing and her heart is what she puts forward the most, and that’s so inspirational.”
While Dolly has influenced much of MAX’s career, she isn’t the only artist that lit the former Nickelodeon Star’s creative fire while working on Love in Stereo. MAX shared he had some Soul artists heavy in rotation on his playlists while songwriting for the project, which translated to some of the songs.
“I always go back to the soul classics, a lot of Etta James, a lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Marvin Gaye, a lot of Prince,” he shared. “I like diversifying the sounds on a project, so each song sometimes has a different flavor of an inspiration... I definitely notice [that] what I’m listening to at the time get planted into the heart of [the song I’m writing].”
Hear all the flavors of inspiration by checking out MAX’s new album, Love in Stereo, available February 16. Plus, listen to his full interview with Audacy’s Mike Adam above for more on the album, his thoughts on the 2024 GRAMMYs, TikTok, and how he stays motivated.