KEVIN MAX has taken a side step from dc Talk to produce one of the most intriguingly eclectic rock albums to be heard for years. He spoke to Tony Cummings.

Kevin Max

In an age of Nashville star conformity, Kevin Max stands out like a pork sausage in a bar mitzvah. He writes poetry, is prepared to pose for publicity in bizarrely camp clothes (feather boa, anybody?) and ever since 'Jesus Freak' catapulted dc Talk to the top of the CCM tree, has carried the reputation of being Christian music's loose cannon. As CCM magazine admitted, "at times his onstage theatrics left audiences a bit baffled. His offstage antics were equally eyebrow raising." He told reporter Melissa Riddle, "In the past, I have been a very outspoken guy and sometimes have not guarded my tongue as well as I would want to. [I was] kind of in a position of having a bad attitude or a bitter feeling... All eyes were on me because of the fact, I think, that I made the most stink."

Things finally came to a head when after the 'Supernatural' tour Kevin told Toby McKeehan and Michael Tait that he wanted out of dc Talk. But a few months later he changed his mind. "I really had a heart to heart with God and a heart to heart with my wife and I realised that's not what I wanted," Kevin said of his retracted decision. "I've helped build this group for 13 years. I'm an integral part of what it is and I don't want to give up on it. Even though I might have some differences with it, I feel like we're stronger as a group than we are not."

Now, in the time afforded him by the band's sabbatical, he has released a devastating solo project, 'Stereotype Be'. Its two strongest musical influences appear to be British rock and Eastern music and this is confirmed by the singer himself. "Not to wear my influences on my sleeve, but I was most affected by the Beatles and some of the best Beatle work I enjoyed was George Harrison's dallying with Eastern music and John Lennon bringing it into the Beatles' writing in songs like 'Tomorrow Never Knows', that's what I used to like listening to. There's just a magical quality to it. Even 'Strawberry Fields Forever' you hear almost like an Eastern influence in the music. That just excites me. I'm excited by world music, I'm excited by European music. I think the grass is greener on the other side a bit. I kinda feel a bit stale with the music America is making right now."

Older rock devotees might find some of the more experimental passages on 'Stereotype Be' to be perilously close to prog rock. "When I made the record two thirds of the band were King Crimson and so with that comes a very high art quotient when it comes to putting the record together. Playing it live I strip it down and make it a bit more rock 'n' roll - it becomes a little bit more simplistic from a live standpoint. It'd be very hard to pull off what I'm doing on the record in all its texture in a live setting - I'd have to have at least a 12 piece orchestra and various different percussion instruments going on. I mean, the idea is to dismantle it live and make it more immediate and add more synergie to it."

'Stereotype Be' has received considerable critical acclaim. Billboard enthused that it was "an amazing album that balances his sometimes eccentric persona with highly accessible musical fare." Kevin is encouraged by the response to the album. "Just today a friend of mine brought me over the USA Today paper which is the national US paper and on the back it says, 'Kevin Max, the Christian rocker, creates chaotic yet tuneful Anglophile art rock with a dash of Middle East." It's a lot of stuff to swallow. The piece on me is next to Hal Ketchum, who's a country artist, and he's leaning up against a tree and it says something about his folky roots... I think what I like about it is this, you guys in the UK like to eat curry once in a while you go out and get a bowl of curry; it's interesting to change it up a bit. That's kind of what I look at this music doing - it's changing it up a bit. You know, we've been eating chicken for too long, it's time to eat something a little different and go outside and try a different flavour. I'm excited about that. I want to be the torchbearer, the banner waver to the new music, for people who are wanting to take it further. The fact that the States have embraced Radiohead, 'Kid A', is enough to say people are willing to go out there a little bit and try for things."

Kevin's poetic leanings (he wrote much praised book of poems At The Foot Of Heaven) are also clearly evident on 'Stereotype Be'. He remarked, "USA Today also likened my lyrics to William Blake and his vision a little bit. The truth is that that's more along the lines of how I think. When I'm writing a lyric I don't think in terms of complete realism; when I'm painting a picture I'm painting more like Jackson Pollock than, say, Renoir. To me there is more fascination in the parable than there is in somebody just coming out and hitting you over the head with a subject. That's what made Jesus Christ such an interesting and controversial figure - he spoke in parables and he mystified people and he made them think. He made them wonder and look inside and I think that's what these lyrics are for, to make people internalise a bit more."

Kevin is keen for his work to walk that elusive line between simplistic religious sloganeering and obscure poetic metaphor. "I think with this record people will understand what I am trying to say. It's not so far out there that people can't grasp and grab the ideas behind the lyrics. I think when I am writing poetry people tend to sometimes complain if they don't understand it right off. I think that's what poetry is for. Poetry is over the heads of a lot of people. A lot of people don't want to take the time to even read poetry. That's where, to me, the difference between music lyric and poetry is that it is a bit more formulaic and it has to be for people to get it on a large scale."

Kevin is a little disillusioned by the simplistic dictates of American Christian radio and the suspicion of any lyric which isn't "straight down the line Gospel." "I think that's limiting for the Christian musician. Even like a Blake poem, like Tiger Tiger, there are many different meanings you can pull from that poem. Some people might just read the first layer. The problem that I see right now in the States is that people are looking for that Christian catch phrase in the lyric and they are not looking for the deeper meaning. I believe that I've made an unconscious Christian record, it's unconsciously Christian. It's not consciously there that I've written God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I've written songs about people, and about failure and stumbling around on this planet trying to find the meaning of life. I think that's where we find our true Christianity, in the mundane."

Looking over the success he has enjoyed with dc Talk, the singer poet is convinced that it was God and not the Nashville suits who gave the band their huge success. "CCM never gave me anything. God gave dc Talk that platform and the truth is I think we achieved a lot of the things we achieved through a lot of hard work as well. Dc Talk have been one of the biggest road dog shows, even from the late '80s we were doing more shows than just about everybody. So I feel that we have garnered a crowd based upon paying a lot of dues. We've played a lot of shows. CCM has embraced us and has put us up in their hands and said 'these are our favoured sons.' During the 'Supernatural' tour and afterwards I started seeing a lot of the fallibility of the CCM industry in that as soon as I started pushing the envelope in different areas I met with a lot of tension because people wanted their Christian rock stars, if you will, to be these neat packaged little people. They want them to look just the way they want them to. A case in point, he's a great friend of mine, but somebody that I think the CCM world feels safe about is Steven Curtis Chapman. I don't know why that is. I guess he represents more of a conservative, straight-laced person. Then you get me making some pretty outrageous fashion statements and doing some unconventional things on stage. They immediately don't know how to take me and think, 'well, he doesn't fit our prescribed way of doing things.' So yeah, I meet with a lot of tension within that CCM world. If I was in the world doing this stuff I would be just another cat. I don't think the CCM world has a lot of room for people who want to push it right now. They're not open to it yet. I think that's why I'm excited about Europe because I think Europe is a bit more open to it."