Derek & Alex of MoMax > the desert-bred dudes have co-led a handful of bands with different styles and various members over the past decade. While these such bands have discontinued new albums and tours, their contribution to Phoenix's artists scene and impact on music lovers across the country have obliged the duo to administer too-seldom dosages of collective voice reunion.
Tonight Mourning Maxwell will take the stage for a reunion show at the Vagabond Ballroom in Scottsdale. It'll be the first time I've seen them in almost 5 years and just the 3rd time they've performed during that span. Both their albums Our Collective Voice and Mourning Maxwell still get mad play on my iPod so I'm excited to see some of this gold go down live.
This week I got to chat with Derek and Alex about the show and stroll down their memory lane of touring, crashing vans and missing boa constrictors. Here's what the fellas had to say about that and the future of Phoenix homegrown artists.
MARC: Who is Mourning Maxwell?
DEREK: Mourning Maxwell is me, Alex, Kyle and Justin...and John, and Bud, and Betal, and Roach, and Ryan, and Andy. There were a lot of us.
ALEX: We were the Polyphonic Spree in the 80's.
MARC: How’d you guys come up with that name?
DEREK: We were called Slowpoke and there were already like 20 bands with that name. We were heading out on Warped Tour that summer so we decided that we better change it now before someone makes us. We were heading out on a short weekend tour somewhere and were going to come home with a new band name no matter what. On that tour I got a call from my parents that my childhood dog had passed away, Max, so that was kind of where the name came from. You should have heard some of the crap we almost named ourselves. At the end of the day most band names are really stupid and have absolutely no meaning so I guess at least we have a story behind it.
MARC: How did you guys form?
DEREK: We kind of evolved from Slowpoke, and then we filled in the gaps with friends and stuff that we already knew and had played music with before or people from other bands that we admired. Kyle was the only dude that we didn't know before he joined the band, I think we met him online or something. He was only 17 when he went on his first tour with us!
ALEX: With all our elements combined we formed captain MoMax!
MARC: What sparked this reunion show?
DEREK: We have been talking about getting together for the last couple months since Alex moved back from Spain. Kyle is working at the Vagabond Ballroom now so it just kind of seemed to happen. We are all really good friends still and love to play music together, and love to play this music so it was an easy thing to put together. We all play in pretty different types of bands these days so it's fun to get together and play this type of stuff every once in a while...really tests my chops.
MARC: What’s your favorite city you’ve been to on tour?
DEREK: We always had a lot of fun in Omaha even though we never actually played a show there. I have family there so we would crash there on route to other places and always had a blast partying. We had a blast in a lot of places though. We had some really good times in New York City with some good friends out there. But the thing I always loved about our band was that we always had a lot of fun everywhere, it didn't matter if we were in a cool fancy town, we would laugh until we cried on nights that we were sleeping in the van at a rest stop in Oklahoma. But, I think as far as coolest places we ever played, we played on a Pier in San Francisco twice on Warped Tour, and that was always cool because the bridge went right over the stage. The Gorge in Washington was awesome too. I also liked when we would play at some big football stadium and we got to use the showers and bathrooms in the locker rooms and stuff, me being a sports fan that was pretty cool. We also played in Detroit at the Silver Dome right before they tore it down, I am pretty sure we were the last event to ever happen there, so that was kind of cool I guess. Vegas was fun too, but we sometimes had too much fun.
ALEX: It is very hard to pick a favorite! We also had really cool people coming out and hanging out in different places! The Gorge was beautiful, I had a great time in Cincinnati, Montreal, New Jersey...Derek pinpointed it in saying that we normally always had a good time so all of it was cool!
MARC: What’s your most memorable show?
DEREK: My favorite shows have usually been our cd release shows, or our dvd release show. I always like getting those release shows out of the way because there is so much anticipation and build up for those, and it always feels like what you have put together is finally complete and you can rest. Of course, the work has really just begun, but for me, in all the bands I've ever been in, I always get the biggest high after one of those shows because it just feels complete. I always liked opening for bands like the Rx Bandits and Authority Zero though too, those were always really good shows. Whenever on Warped Tour and would make it to AZ was great because we usually hadn't seen our friends and families for weeks and we always had the best crowds on those stops.
MARC: What was the worst tour nightmare?
ALEX: Camden, NJ when the police were trying to pin stuff on us without any warrant...I thought we were going to be put in prison forever just cause they could do it...intense.
DEREK: I can think of a lot of stories, some that I am probably not at liberty to tell, but I do have a few. Kyle fell asleep while driving once and crashed our van into the freeway divider, luckily no one was seriously injured. We have stayed in a bunch of really shady places. I remember one time we went to crash at this dude's house after a show and he had this big aquarium in the living room, but nothing was in it so I asked him what was up and he told us that he has a 6-foot boa constrictor but. It got out earlier in the day and he hadn't found it yet - we ended up sleeping in the van that night. I could go on all day about crazy things that happened on the road. When you are living in a van with 4 other dudes for months at a time, shit gets crazy.
MARC: What’s everyone doing these days?
DEREK: I'm playing bass with a cover band called Snakeburner, and then doing The Smith Family Band, which we have a record out called For Your Kin. It was basically myself and my brother Ryan who recorded a record about a year ago with Bob Hoag at Flying Blanket and then we recruited some of the dudes from Snakeburner and Alex and some other peeps to fill in on all the instruments when we play live. Justin played our first few shows with us on bass, and now our buddy PJ who plays with Alex in Flying Scorpion is going to jam with us. It's fun music, really laid back, nothing like any of the other bands I've ever been in, which is exciting for me. My brother and I have been writing again and are going to start piecing new songs together to record another album and just keep doing that.
ALEX: The Smith Family Band which is very groovy! Then Flying Scorpion which is in the works and should be melting faces pretty shortly here [we are looking for a frontman, if anyone is interested in trying out]. I am taking piano lessons and writing all sorts of goofy shit when I have time.
MARC: What desert home grown bands should the rest of the world be on the lookout for?
DEREK: There are a lot of good bands in AZ. All of the dudes in Mourning Maxwell have other projects going on. Alex plays drums with me in The Smith Family Band, which is kind of a classic rock/soul type of sound. He is also starting a new band called Flying Scorpion that is some good ol rock 'n' roll. Justin plays in a punk band called Come on Die Young, and Kyle plays in a electronica dance type of band called La La Lust. John plays in a really cool indie rock band called Halos out in California [they are opening the show this Saturday], and some of the dudes who were with us when we first got together play in a really cool progressive rock band called NEBA.
ALEX: La La Lust, NEBA, Come On Die Young, Tugboat, Captain Squeegee, The Gallery, The Artifact, Halos, Saddles, Fayuca, What Laura Says, Snake Burner, sooo many good ones.
MARC: What should people know about MoMax?
DEREK: Well, we were a band for about 3 years, 5 if you count the Slowpoke years...Slowpoke basically evolved into Mourning Maxwell, and once our original rhythm section left, we pretty much changed our sound completely. We went through a few drummers and bass players, but Alex and I always stuck together. We played a bunch of shows, toured the US and Canada a few times with a bunch of cool bands, and recorded 2 EP's. Our last official tour was in 2005 when we did Warped Tour, we released a DVD of that tour in 2006, and then pretty much broke up when Alex moved to Tucson to finish college. I think this is going to be the 3rd time we've gotten together since 2006, so we're pretty excited to jam this Saturday!
MARC: How will the Mourning Maxwell Wikipedia Page begin?
DEREK: Maybe "Mourning Maxwell was a progressive rock band from Tempe, AZ that liked to have a lot of fun." Or maybe this will be more accurate "Mourning Maxwell was a devilishly handsome progressive rock band from Tempe, AZ that liked to have too much fun"
ALEX: "After many years of touring and ravishing women around the world, time caught up with the 4 gentlemen in Mourning Maxwell and gave them a deadly case of crabs...they will be remembered or not"
