Lilith Max was born as the youngest of three children in December 2003 in Germany. When she was six, they moved to the US. For her seventh birthday, her parents gave her a camera and she started to make little movies. Her friends and she performed in front of the camera with dances and plays. Lilith Max absolutely loved it! In 2013 she did an acting summer camp and she enjoyed it so much, she kept bugging her mom for theater classes. It wasn’t until summer 2014 that she finally got to take acting classes with John Homa and Jeff Dockweiler.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
Kamil) Hey Lilith Max, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What first got you into music?
Since I could remember, music was an important part of my life. I was dancing and singing to every song that my parents listened to. From Queen to Bowie, Lady Gaga to Taylor Swift, I would constantly practice performing their songs in front of an old video camera. At age eleven, I began writing my first lyrics but stopped after I began my career in film acting. However, I soon realized that I would rather create my own stories than act in another person’s script. I rekindled my passion to singing and writing music and ever since then, I haven’t looked back.
How do you balance your time in the studio with other commitments such as a part-time job, family, admin?
I’m very fortunate to have a flexible work and home life where I can create music in my at-home studio and still participate in other daily activities. Before I graduated this spring, I was in an online school, which allowed me to take time off to focus on music and performances.
Your latest release is 'Storybook'. Can you tell us more about the making of it and if there were any unusual things happening during the process?
Storybook is my first big project where I compiled all the songs I wanted on my EP and presented them to my producer. After careful consideration we brought in a whole team of excellent musicians who worked on the cello, bass, drums, piano, violin, and guitar parts of my songs. I would sometimes sit right next to the musicians to guide them through the songs, and it was the most surreal experience, watching them create magic out of thin air. Not many unusual things happened during the process expect for some minor difficulties. After recording my vocals for Sacrifice, my producer came to the realization that the mic hadn’t been functioning properly and we had recorded the entire song again. I remember feeling very pressured to create that perfect take once more, but after recording it a second time, I made an even better take than before.
Where did you get the inspiration for this EP?
Storybook wasn’t inspired by a specific source but by the songs themselves. I wrote all the tracks in Storybook at different times of my life and only after choosing them did I realize they had something in common: each one told a unique story. That’s when I decided I wanted to create this fairytale-like theme centered around storytelling. To tie it all up, I wrote The Cautionary Tale to complete the set of five songs.
How long did you work on the 'Storybook'? Was it an easy process for you?
I began working on Storybook in May of 2021, so it has been more than a year since I started. The reason for this long process was the pandemic. There were a couple setbacks where musicians became sick or our schedules would not fit each other. Since the music industry was trying to recover at the time, everyone was being booked for gigs so often we had to wait weeks for the next instrumental recording. Even though the wait was long, the results were absolutely worth it!
How do you know when a work is finished?
Oh, this one is a tough question. As a perfectionist, I believe a song is never really finished because there’s always something to nitpick and overthink about. But I’ve come to realize that my music is ready as long as I feel a great sense of accomplishment and pride. Oh! And if it’s stuck in my mom’s head for the rest of the day and night, I know it’s definitely a finished product, haha.
Can you write what was your best performance in your career? How do you remember it?
I think the best performance so far happened around six years ago. I was performing on Town Square for a music school concert, and I remember being a little nervous yet so confident. Of course, my singing was atrocious, but I burned up the stage with my little dance moves and that memory solidifies it as my absolute favorite performance ever.
How do you find yourself in the music business? When you started out in music, did you know it would be like this?
As I said before, my love for music and my ever-improving vocals and lyrics led me down the musical path I’m on today. But it was also the fact that I knew if I didn’t share my music to the world, I would regret it for the rest of my days. It’s almost like a calling, the urgent desire to comfort people and to unite under the umbrella of melody when the sky is raining. To be honest, I wasn’t very surprised at the hustle of the music industry when I first started out. The competitive nature of my acting career had somewhat prepared me for the switch, and I feel a lot more in control of the work I do now than before.
Who is your favourite musician?
My favorite musician is wholeheartedly BTS. Ever since becoming a BTS ARMY, I have found a second family filled with nothing but love. Their focus on mental health, the preservation of art, and compassion has moved me greatly. Not only has BTS made my life brighter, they also helped me stay creative in my lyricism. I very much look up to their group leader, RM, who’s lyrics inspire me to experiment and write about the deeper meanings of life that occur internally and externally.
What are your plans for the future?
Storybook is just the beginning of an exciting career in songwriting and singing. I hope to make a name for myself as a performer and as a composer, so even when my voice vanishes, I can still write music for other aspiring artists. But that’s far in the future, right now, I will sit back at my piano and cook up the next big project to surprise you with.