London: The home of Big Ben, jellied eels and – more importantly – Max Chapman. Yep, the up and coming talent has been firmly establishing himself as one of house music’s finest heavyweights, rolling out some serious dance floor delights on the likes of Elrow, Do Not Sleep and Kaluki Music to name just a few.
With some solid releases already under his belt, and appearances at some pretty major festivals already ticked off, we thought our readers would love to hear what the Resonance Records owner has planned . So we caught up with Max for a chinwag, check out what went down below.
WWD: Hello Max mate how you doing today, you alright?
MC: Yeah I’m good mate you?
WWD: Yeah I’m all good man. So to start mate, I first caught you at the WeAre festival silent disco on the Friday, when you played just after Detlef. I saw your Facebook video on it, so what did you think of it in the end?
MC: Yeah it was good fun. A lot of my pals and DJs were there that I knew and stuff. Everyone was on a good vibe, but it was a bit strange for me because I was on quite early and I couldn’t hear any music, but it was still good fun.
WWD: Yeah I definitely agree. It was a laugh, but not having any music playing out loud is a bit of a strange one.
MC: Yeah mate.
WWD: Then you had Parklife festival a week or so ago now and I headed to that as well. I just missed your set unfortunately, but did you prefer that? That Warehouse Project stage was a bit of alright wasn’t it!
MC: That was probably the best gig I’ve ever done mate.
WWD: Ah mate I’m gutted I missed it.
MC: Yeah man the crowd was just unbelievable, mate Manchester always goes off. Every drop they were just going mental, the stage was unbelievable. The sound system was actually really good compared to festivals that we have down our way, because the sound is usually crap. So yeah, everything was wicked about that. The sun could have been out, but other than that it was brilliant, wicked vibe. The only bad thing about it was that I had to leave straight way to go to Alicante. Otherwise I would have liked to have stayed and got pissed to be honest! But there you go.
WWD: [Laughs] It was a good’un mate. We had a chat with Rowan (Secondcity) about two weeks ago, and he mentioned you two had a three track EP coming out on Relief at some point…
MC: Yes mate. So yeah we’ve got a track called ‘Terrace Tales’, a track called ‘En las nubes’ – which means up in the clouds because I started it on a plane – and then we’ve got another one called ‘Madison’. My mate has just had a daughter, so we named it after her. ‘En las nubes’ and ‘Madison’ have got a Spanish sort of foreign vibe, terrace tales is more of a clubby sort of banger. Yeah so hopefully they do well man.
WWD: Sick mate we’re looking forward to it, and it’s a solid label as well.
MC: Solid label, solid EP and obviously both of us working together on it should help as well.
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WWD: How did your and Rowan’s partnership come about if you don’t mind me asking, have you known him for a while?
MC: We met each other properly, and first had a proper chat, when we played together at the start of last season in Sankeys, and we must have been in the studio 6 or 7 times now. So yeah he’s a nice lad and we get on really well, he’s a good mate of mine now.
WWD: Nice one. Now in terms of upcoming releases, we’ve heard your track ‘La Fiesta’ getting played in sets for a while now, and we’ve heard it’s going to be part of an upcoming EP. Can you give us a bit of info on where/when it’ll be coming out?
MC: Okay so it’s a Latin style track, it features a Columbian singer called Toto la Momposina. She’s a Grammy winner, and I took the sample from a song called ‘La Verdolaga’ which means the little flower, I think, in Spanish. I managed to make a kind of housey version of it because the original is 60 BPM and obviously mine’s 124, and that’s coming out on Hot Creations on the 25th August with remixes from Todd Terry and Lucas C.
WWD: That sounds like very good stuff.
MC: So yeah that should do really well, I hope so anyway.
WWD: Yeah we’ve heard ‘La Fiesta’ get played in sets and it always goes off.
MC: Wicked man, yeah hopefully. I’m getting that vibe off everyone so let’s hope it does well in the charts.
WWD: Moving on to Ibiza stuff, the parties are already in full flow, and we see you’re playing a lot of Do Not Sleep nights at Sankeys as well as other places…
MC: Yeah, so Cuckoo Land is Do Not Sleep’s little sister party if you want to call it that. I’ve got six dates in total and I’ve done three already, and that’s at Ibiza Rocks a daytime pool party thing. Then there’s the original Do Not Sleep party at Sankeys, and I’ve got three dates for them. So yeah about nine dates altogether with that lot.
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WWD: Solid man we’ve seen Do Not Sleep throw a few good parties.
MC: Yeah mate they’re wicked, always good. And I’ve also got Elrow at Amnesia on the 26th of August. Then I’ve got a Kaluki party at Blue Marlin as well, at the start of September.
WWD: Nice one so you’re pretty busy in Ibiza this summer then.
MC: Decent few dates mate yeah. I think it’s about thirteen in total, something like that man it’s good.
WWD: Let’s move onto your label now Resonance Records, it’s been growing a lot and there’s been some solid releases already. So we were wondering: are there any label showcases coming up?
MC: Yeah, we haven’t at the moment, but we are planning them.
WWD: Nice when do you reckon they’ll be coming in?
MC: I reckon we’ll have one this year I would have thought. I can’t really say much in case it doesn’t happen, but things are looking like they’re going to happen soon. Next year they’ll be in full flow.
WWD: We’ll be sure to keep an eye out. Final question we’ve got for you Max: If you could choose one DJ, from the past and the present, to a dream back to back set with, who would you go for?
MC: Oooo. I reckon, just to see what it was like, I’d have to go back to back with Larry Devine from the past. Just to see where everything came from, because he’s the root of all this. Then, I think I’d have to go back to back with The Martinez Brothers.
WWD: You know what mate Rowan said the same thing a couple of weeks ago [laughs]. I caught them at Parklife, they’ve always got so much energy.
MC: [Laughs] Yeah mate they can play a shit tune and it’ll sound sick because of how they look [laughs].
WWD: [Laughs] You know it. Alright Max mate thanks for chatting to us today.
MC: Nice one bro cheers for your time.
Catch Max playing at Ibiza Rocks Hotel on the 2nd of July for Do Not Sleep presents Cuckoo Land. Tickets here