Tribute: Max Vague

Nashville rocker Max Vague passed away in August 2005 but left behind an enormous musical legacy. The following tribute was originally published by the Reverend’s Alt.Culture.Guide zine…

It is with great sadness that we report the death by suicide of an old friend and one of our favorite musicians, Max Vague. A multi-talented musician and producer as well as an enormously skilled graphic artist, Max was a leading figure in the Nashville rock music scene for over a decade. Although relatively unknown to the music world outside of the southeastern U.S., Max nevertheless recorded and released six albums without any label resources and, with various bands, toured the region relentlessly.

Max’s musical career began back in the early ‘80s in Monterey, California. He taught himself to play keyboards and, known by his birth name – William Hearn – played with a number of popular local bands, including Bill Hearn and the Freeze. In 1984 he packed his bags and headed to Los Angeles where he supported himself as a freelance graphic artist and musician, writing the scores for several documentary films, including a special on the GM Sunraycer. While in LA he changed his name to “Max Vague” and began an incredibly prolific period of songwriting and recording. In 1992, Max recorded his first album, Love In A Thousand Faces, moving later that year to Nashville with his debut disc tucked beneath his arm.

Max made an immediate splash in the Music City. This critic, writing about Love In A Thousand Faces in Nashville’s Metro music magazine, said “the songs presented here – hard-edged pop/rock replete with melodic experimentation – evoke a variety of influences: the Beatles, Peter Gabriel, many electric British folkies, but are freshly original and completely uncategorizable.” Shortly after arriving in Nashville, Vague recorded his sophomore effort, S.O.S. The Party’s Over.

Produced in his home studio, Max contributed nearly all of the instrumentation for this solid collection of songs. “Imaginative, colorful and intriguing, the songs on S.O.S. are like a puzzle box whose solution awaits discovery,” I wrote in December ‘93 in R.A.D! Review And Discussion of Rock & Roll. Support for Max came from unlikely places, such as from NASA Space Shuttle Captain Michael Baker, who carried Max’s CDs with him on two trips into space, subsequently mentioning Vague when interviewed by MTV’s Tabitha Soren for the cable network’s ‘Week In Rock’ show.

Over the course of the next twelve years, Vague recorded and released four more critically acclaimed albums, each more musically complex and rewarding than the previous. With The Field CD, released in 1995, Max began recording with a full band that included guitarist Steve Green, bassist Ross Smith, and drummer Robert Kamm. Two years later Vague recorded the Timing LP with Smith and drummer Buddy Gibbons. It was with the addition of Music City rock veteran Kenny Wright to his band, however, that Max would hit his creative peak, the trio of Vague, Smith and Wright recording the powerful Kill The Giant album in 1998. Together, these three toured the southeast and drove home Vague’s immense talents to appreciative audiences. Max’s work received airplay on local and regional radio stations and accolades poured in from publications like the industry trade paper Cash Box, Bone Music Magazine, and the Nashville Scene alternative newsweekly.

In 2002, Vague returned to the studio to record the self-titled maxvague CD, his darkest and most personal effort yet. A solitary figure in the studio, Max carefully crafted the songs, playing nearly all the instruments while engineering and producing the album himself. Of maxvague the album, this critic wrote, “there’s no denying the power of his music, Vague’s gift of artistic expression and his instrumental prowess making him the most consistently interesting and intriguing artist working in the American underground today.” A masterful collection of songs, the album nevertheless went largely unnoticed by the mainstream and alternative press alike.

After the release of this self-titled album, Max retreated from music somewhat, supporting himself as a graphic artist. He never stopped writing songs, however, and before his death had nearly completed work on what would have been his seventh album, titled Drive. Max and Kenny contributed a track, “Oh Well, Okay” to the memorial CD A Tribute To Elliot Smith, released earlier this year by Double D Records. Max had found new love, was beginning a new company, and was seemingly looking towards the future when he came to the decision that he had accomplished everything that he had set out to do.

Sometime in the early morning of August 13th, Max took his own life at the too-young age of 44, leaving behind his fiance Danni, his mother Gay Cameron, his sister Lynda Cameron, and brother Jim “Spyder” Hearn. At a memorial service held at The Basement club in Nashville on Sunday night, August 28th, a packed room of family, friends and fans heard Max’s siblings Lynda and Jim share their memories of their brother. Former bandmates Ross Smith, Kenny Wright and Steve Green also spoke as did Ben Mabry, one of Max’s oldest friends and biggest fan and the Rev. Keith A. Gordon, who presided over the memorial service. Mike “Grimey” Grimes, co-owner of Grimey’s Music and booker for The Basement graciously provided the club for Max’s memorial.

An intelligent, complex, multi-faceted and extremely talented artist and musician, Max Vague’s work will live on long after his tragic death. As a friend and champion of his music, I’ll miss Max and look forward to meeting again on the other side.

Vintage Review: Max Vague's The Field (1996)

Rock ‘n’ roll has fielded its share of starry-eyed dreamers, insane geniuses and dedicated fools throughout the past four decades. Said artists have covered just about the entire gamut of available subject matter, from the usual lyrical staples like life, love and intoxicants to topics too disgusting for even these jaded ears. Precious few poets have really turned their eyes to the skies, however, and wondered aloud what might lie beyond this earthly dimension. The few who have usually tend to dance on the fringe of commercial acceptance, tagged forever with "cult favorite" status. For every Peter Gabriel, there's also a Roky Erikson or Nik Turner.

Whether Max Vague is a madman or a genius is not up for me to say. I suspect that there's a little of both residing in the man and artist – a certain musical genius, to be sure, but also a little foolishness for thinking that an album as lyrically vital, intelligently introspective and musically daring as The Field could find a receptive ear among the great gurus of radio and records. The Field is Vague's third album, following an impressive debut, Love In A Thousand Faces, and 1993's excellent S.O.S. The Party's Over. Vague is, perhaps, Nashville's most daring and adventurous artist. Although the home of country music, rhinestones and twanging guitars holds the promise of many rock & rollers who tend to walk on the proverbial edge – talents like Self or the Floating Men – Vague is not content to merely balance frightfully, preferring instead to crawl out and see just how far he can get on that branch before it snaps in two. With three albums under his belt, he's yet to take a tumble...  

A concept album twenty years past its prime and a good decade ahead of its time, The Field is a masterful collection, a song cycle that tells an unusual and haunting story about alien abduction. That it's a true story, told by an individual close to the band and filtered through Vague's mighty songwriting pen, makes The Field and its songs all that much more powerful. There are a lot of familiar musical elements that The Field shares with its predecessor, S.O.S. The Party's Over, but they serve as a connecting lifeline rather than a simple rehashing of material. S.O.S. is, indeed, an introduction to The Field, the two serving as bookends to frame a fantastic story.     

The Field begins with a disconcerting "Fever Dream," a low rumbling and jangled chiming leading almost immediately into "The Face In Your Window." Punctuated by a constantly repeating, wire taut guitar riff, "The Face In Your Window" launches the cycle, with our protagonist beginning their unearthly sojourn. From this point, the songs roll right by, a captivating, seemingly seamless composition made up of fourteen songs that sit separate and yet are melded together by a shared storyline and recurrent musical signatures. Among The Field'’s many moments, several nevertheless stand out.
    
"Epiphany" is an ethereal cry for sanity, the traveler captured by their own fear and growing sense of distance. "I will make it out of this 2x6 foot box," sings Vague, the line opening and closing the song with a distinct sense of terror and determination. "The Trade" illustrates the abductee's feelings of persecution and paranoia, with repeated abductions from childhood through adulthood not uncommon, creating in the individual a sense of disconnection and uncertainty: "Why do you keep coming back to me, haven't you had enough?" sings Vague in harsh, distorted vocals. "What is this preoccupation with me, haven't I suffered enough?" The disconnected "Rapture," with its echoed, dreamlike chorus of "we fall" repeated endlessly, creating a sense of floating while a gently strumming guitar supports Vague's lofty vocals.  

By the closing of The Field, Vague has brought our traveler full circle, through a myriad of thoughts and emotions, to a final confrontation with themselves. "I'm O.K." is a reaffirmation of life and purpose, a four minute musical struggle for identity in a psychological sea of confusion. "You sucked away my energy, you took the things that made me really me," sings Vague, "you roughed me up against my will, now tell me who the fuck I'm supposed to be." By the closing of the song, and the album, however, our protagonist has faced their demons and won, delivering a hearty lyrical 'piss-off' to those forces in the universe, both mundane and otherworldly, that seek to rob us of our dignity and individuality: "no compromise, no pity, no self help, no revelations from now on," Vague triumphantly delivers, just above the razor-sharp and repetitive riff that runs through the song and appears throughout The Field. "I made it all come out the day I faced your eyes and then refused to run. So you can take your fucking lights and your tables and your eyes and go away."

Musically, The Field mixes the familiar influence of a half a dozen artists – I won't insult the artist by making comparisons – you'll just have to get the disc and figure it out for yourself. I will say that there's plenty to discover musically hidden beneath these lyrics, the multi-layered and complex soundtrack of The Field yielding something new with every listen. The music is mesmerizing, an alluring combination of deceptive electric ambiance and passionate rock & roll fury. The guitars are thick and omnipresent in the mix, the percussion understated and purposeful while a consistent bass line supports the entire process. The band that Vague put together for The Field is top notch, with all of the players – guitarist Steve Green, drummer Robert Kamm, and bassist Ross Smith, a seasoned Nashville veteran of local legend Aashid Himmons' various bands – have an undeniable chemistry and a cohesion that belies their brief time together. A relative neophyte in the studio, Vague has grown as a producer over the course of three albums; his work on The Field is quite impressive given its complexity and dimension. 

The Field is a carefully-crafted piece of art, a heady tale of trial and redemption told through the eyes of an alien abductee. Although Vague has created a specific story, he has also unwittingly delivered a wonderful metaphor for life itself, the traveler of The Field representing every single one of us who views life from the outside looking in, with all of the attending uncertainty, doubt and psychic obstacles that accompanies such alienation (whether chosen or imposed). Released under Vague's own MetroLord Records imprint, The Field is a triumph of form over fashion, of honesty and sincerity over trite trendiness and musical pretension. At some time over the course of the past few years, I stated publicly  that Max Vague was too damn good to get signed by a major label, too unique to receive significant radio airplay. I stand by that statement today. It still remains to be seen whether or not anyone will prove me wrong. Until then, I can only sum up The Field thus: fucking brilliant! (MetroLord Records, 1996)

Review originally published by R.A.D! Review & Discussion of Rock & Roll zine, 1996