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Offline C4AJoh  
#1 Posted : 01 May 2010 21:39:23(UTC)
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Offline C4AJoh  
#2 Posted : 01 May 2010 21:40:27(UTC)
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INTRODUCTION
Max Armstrong began his venture into music, forming The Junction with close friend Robin Krieger. They’ve toured worldwide since 2008 and have released two albums, Heartbreaks & Outtakes and Love, Blood And Anything Above, they both failed to chart successfully. Heartbreaks & Outtakes peaked at 154 in the UK and Love, Blood And Anything above peaked at 35 in the UK and USA. Since then he has released numerous singles as a solo artist and has released one Live album with 4th Street Band.
4th Street Band: Live Anthology Vol 1 was massively successful peaking at number 8 in the USA it also spawned two USA top 40 singles and it helped reunite the 4th Street Band.
He was recently announced as a member of the Marc Rolan & The Cold Iron Band and contributed two tracks to the self titled album, those tracks being Hard Times (Come & Go) and I’m coming to you Elizabeth.
He hasn’t had things easy in the past couple of years. In January 2009 he was rushed to hospital after overdosing on drugs, he spent two weeks in rehab after leaving hospital. In November 2009 his parents were both murdered at their family home in New Jersey which left Max struggling with this loss and also forcing him to become a father to his two sisters and younger brother.
He’s earned huge amounts of money in his short career and has invested a lot of it into his own record label Junction Records!. He’s also engaged to Juliette Moore whom he has been dating since February 2009 and they plan to wed in 2011. All in all it’s been a mixed 5 years with the good, the bad and the ugly but he seems to be happier than ever before.
Offline C4AJoh  
#3 Posted : 01 May 2010 21:42:49(UTC)
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INTERVIEW
I meet Max outside of a record studio in New York City, He’s smaller in person than you’d expect. He’s wearing a light blue shirt and dark blue jeans, cigarette in hand, he gives a nod of the head and a smile. We shake hands and move into the bar at the newly finished 4th Street Studio’s. “What you having” he asks, I order a glass of water and we receive our drinks and head to his own personal recording space (After all It is his studio). We take a seat at the sofa he’s had put into his room. “How’s it going, did you find the place well.” he asks. After exchanging pleasantry’s we begin to talk about how he came to form The Junction, “It was weird I was sort of learning to play guitar but I wasn’t really dedicated to it, I was more into writing and singing, but my friend Robin was pretty great at it. I’d never thought about forming a band until he picked up a guitar at a party asked me to sing along and he started playing Atlantic City by Springsteen, We’re both massive fans of Bruce Springsteen so we knew the songs well enough, anyway I woke up the next morning lying next to Robin and his then girlfriend and all I could remember from the night before was performing that song, I was just so inspired to just give a music career a go, We didn’t get many gigs for the first year or so, so it was frustrating but then things started to happen and we were getting gigs regularly.”

When talking about The Junction and those early years he was regularly smiling and laughing and indication that he enjoyed that period a lot. We then go into how he formed Junction Records and 4th Street Band. “We had a couple of shitty offers for a record deal but they just wanted chart success and radio play, so we thought fuck that. We stayed unsigned from late 2004 - 2007, but we had a lot of money saved up so me and my friend Lucy Tyrell decided to create our own little record label and sign The Junction to it, I had know idea that it would become a pretty big label but I’ve been lucky. Myself and Lucy decided to form a side project band which we called 4th Street Band, we were the only two acts signed to Junction Records and it was a struggle financially.”
We continue to talk about his music endeavours “ It was always difficult to juggle time between The Junction, 4th Street Band and Junction Records!. I had about fifteen songs to choose from for The Junction’s debut album and I thought and still do think that Heartbreaks & Outtakes is so much better then Love, Blood. Obviously the latter charted much higher than our debut and to be honest I have know idea what made me release Love, Blood And Anything Above, it truly is a terrible album, I’m not really proud of it at all, I was disappointed by the charting of our debut but I think we just didn’t have the resources we have now. I was amazed by the 4th Street Band live album’s chart position, I wasn’t expecting it at all, I knew there was a small demand for an album by a small selection of our fans but it’s sold over 1 million copies and it charted at Number 8 in the USA and that just gave me the fire in my belly which I kind of lost after the two Junction albums. And as soon as I listened to the Live Anthology Vol 1 album I knew right then that I wanted to return to touring with 4th Street Band and I guess that, subconsciously I knew that the tour I was preparing for with The Junction would probably be the last in a very long time.”

We begin to diverse and talk about his social life and what he’s like as a person.
“I’m probably the hardest person for Juliette to live with, I can’t really sit still for more than 20 minutes, I like to be active and that’s why I didn’t take time off from music when The Junction finished, there would have been a period from April to August where I’d be doing nothing and I couldn’t have that so I found out about the Marc Rolan project and they were happy enough to have me on board so hopefully that will keep me busy for a bit but at the moment I’m just working on improving the record label. Even on holiday I’m not a big fan of laying on a beach and getting tanned, I prefer to be more active, I’ll see sights or I’ll find something to occupy myself. Juliette and I have arranged for a holiday to Hawaii in June which we’ll be going to alone because we’ve basically been parents since November and that’s been a tough thing to deal with so it will be nice to have a holiday without any worries, But we’re also gonna be taking a trip to Spain with my two sisters and my younger brother because they also deserve a holiday after what they’ve had to deal with.”

We begin to talk about the night his parents were killed at their family home, “It was one of the worst things to happen but it could have been so much worse because my brother and sisters were living there at the time but they weren’t at home when it happened thankfully. It was a dark time for me, and I still don’t have any idea’s as to why anyone would break into my parents home and murder them for seemingly no reason, It was the worst thing for me because I’ve never had to deal with death before it happened and the circumstance it happened in made it much worse. I was a wreck, I also had the responsibility to look after my siblings but admittedly the first two weeks I wasn’t doing a very good job and I have to thank Juliette so much because she was so helpful, she was basically a stand in mother for my kid brother and my two sisters and she couldn’t have been more helpfully, she also helped me keep my head above the water, the first two weeks nobody could really talk to me, I wasn’t eating and I wasn’t leaving the house I was a mess but after two weeks I started to pull myself together and realise that my family needed me now more than ever, It has helped bring us all closer as a family and it has showed me whats important, My younger sister Katie’s life is great at the moment, she’s at NYU and she’s in a relationship with a great guy who looks after her, my other sister Jennifer is doing great things at high school and she’s gonna have an amazing career and my younger brother Michael is gonna be whoever he wants to be, he’s the funniest kid I’ve known and I’d expect him to be on a stage of some sort in the future, You’ve just gotta look at the bright side of life when something so tragic happens and I’m always gonna be hurting but you’ve gotta get on with life and make them proud.”

A teary Max wipes his eyes and we finish our chat and make our way into another room where he’s set to play a couple of songs for me.
Offline C4AJoh  
#4 Posted : 01 May 2010 21:43:54(UTC)
C4AJoh
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FAN QUESTIONS
We take a seat and I begin asking questions which were sent in from fans.

Q: Does performing live ever get boring?
Max: No, not at all. As long as your doing different things every so often then it really shouldn’t get boring. With The Junction we couldn’t continue together because we just weren’t happy for the last month of the tour, but before that I’ve enjoyed every live performance.

Q: How difficult was it to make Junction Records a success?
Max: It was tough and it’s only really started to improve as a label in the last 6 months, myself and Lucy created Junction Records in 2007 so it has taken a while for it to become a decent label.

Q: Who’s your favourite act which you’ve signed to Junction Records?
Max: They’re all good in some way or another but for me Alicia Lena was an amazing find, she’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met and she’s got this unbelievable voice, a lot of musicians don’t actually have great voices, I don’t really have a very good singing voice but because I’m in a rock band the vocals don’t have to be perfect, but with Alicia she’s got probably one of the best voices around at the moment.

Q: Pop acts have been criticized in the past, what do you think of the current rock bands?
Max: There’s some amazing rock bands around at the minute and I think rock music is back on the rise, It dipped around 1994 but it’s starting to get back on track. You’ve got bands like The Voyd, Reckoner, The Nimrods, PANIC, Saburben Sunrise, Hollywood Revolver, so many acts to choose from it really is becoming interesting again.

Q: Why do you think pop music is struggling?
Max: I wouldn’t say it was struggling, I think people are getting a bit bored with the same kind of songs being released but there are some great pop acts around. There isn’t a lot of pop music which I listen to but I think Alicia Lena and Moquel are doing pretty well at the moment. I think with pop music some people become to obsessed with getting a number 1 record or becoming hugely famous and I think that’s one of the reasons why pop music is becoming a little bit stale and boring. But with rock music it’s generally about the live performances, that’s what we’re more interested in, the album is just a kind of bonus for the fans.

Q: What kind of music are you currently into?
Max: I listen to all ranges of music really. I live with my fiancée Juliette Moore and she likes pop music as do my sisters so at home there’s a lot of music by Miss Vanity, Stephanie Fierce and Tisha Jackson, and I’m not closed minded when it comes to music so I’m not gonna lie, some of the music by those girls are pretty good songs, Miss Vanity writes amazing songs with catchy choruses and I admire her song writing a lot and the other music are all just pretty decent pop music, just because I‘m in a rock band doesn‘t mean I don‘t like pop music. But to answer your question, I usually listen to specific albums so at the moment the albums I’m listening to are Breaking The Forth Wall by Jakey Comatose and Tales Of A Wasteland Hero by Axiom, they’re both pretty great albums.

Q: Who in the music industry are you close friends with?
Max: I don’t really have many close friends in the music industry. I guess Robin Krieger and Lucy Tyrell are my closest friends in the music industry because I trust them and I’ve known them for many years now. Juliette’s close friends with Alicia Lena so I’ve spent a lot of time with her.

Q: Who would you most like to meet?
Max: I’ve been lucky in my career to meet come great people. I always wanted to meet Marc Rolan and I’ve been working with him recently so that was pretty great. I bumped into Jakey Comatose a year ago but we never actually spoke to each other. But I don’t really have anyone I want to meet badly.

Q: Have you ever been worried about being called a sell-out?
Max: Not really, It does happen to rock bands but it wouldn’t bother me. I make the music I want and if it’s successful then that’s a good thing, I guess people like discovering an unknown band and then the band becomes successful and they’re no longer unknown I think that’s what pisses people off. But for me If I have success then that’s great, if my albums fail then fair enough.

Q: How long do you expect to be in music?
Max: Hopefully for the rest of my life. I’m not really into the acting thing but for me music is my way of forgetting about any problems I have in my life. I’m really blessed to be able to call myself a professional musician.

Q: What do you hope for in the next 15 years?
Max: I’ll hope to be happily married to Juliette, hopefully have a couple of children and hopefully my sisters and brother are happy. If I get all of that then I’ll be a happy man.

[End of Article]
Offline C4AJoh  
#5 Posted : 01 May 2010 22:15:28(UTC)
C4AJoh
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MAX ARMSTRONG PHOTO'S
UserPostedImage - Q Magazine Alt Cover photo

UserPostedImage - In the studio working on a solo track April 2010

UserPostedImage - Flying solo in September 2009

UserPostedImage - With fiancé Juliette Moore in March 2010






Offline GirlSpice  
#6 Posted : 01 May 2010 23:19:05(UTC)
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Miss Vanity: Glad you like my songs, great interview!
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ACTIVE:
Vanity x Nadia Berry
Offline C4AJoh  
#7 Posted : 02 May 2010 00:11:38(UTC)
C4AJoh
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Thanks: 4246 times
Was thanked: 8715 time(s) in 2739 post(s)
GirlSpice wrote:
Miss Vanity: Glad you like my songs, great interview!


Max: Thanks, Your songs are so addictive it's hard not to like them.
Offline C4AJoh  
#8 Posted : 02 May 2010 08:01:01(UTC)
C4AJoh
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SOLO TOUR DATES

May 15, 2010 - The Egg - Albany, NY
May 16, 2010 - Landmark Theater - Syracuse, NY
May 18, 2010 - Auditorium Theater - Rochester, NY
May 19, 2010 - Cafe Select - New York, NY
May 20, 2010 - Apollo Theater - New York, NY

(Tickets are still available, Max Armstrong will be playing newly written songs as well as delving into the back catalog's of The Junction and 4th Street Band)
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