Interview with Mik & Maxi

Mik & Maxi are a power pop rock duo hailing from Los Angeles, California. Mik & Maxi’s unique sound is a fusion of multiple genres. I had the chance to chat with Mik and Maxi and ask them about their music, their plans, and many other things.

Avatars guide

Hello, Mik and Maxi. I’m happy to be chatting with you. How are you doing?

Doing great! Happy to be here!

The best! The world is reopening, we’re back at live shows, things feel energetic again.

That’s great to hear. How would you describe your sound to our readers who haven’t had the chance to listen to your music yet?

A little bit of pop rock/alt rock/punk rock all mixed together.

Sassy rock? We’ve embraced the fun of glam and pop and fused it on to our pop punk root influences.

How did you two first meet and start creating music together?

I was looking for my first band to play with and found Mik with her then-band on Craigslist needing a drummer. We went through a few iterations of the band makeup before realizing that we were a strong foundation on our own.

Do you have any upcoming releases that you’d like to tell us about?

Yes, we have some unreleased material in the works!

With the world in full swing again, it’s getting more difficult for us to match each other’s availability in order to keep up working at the same pace so we’ve been exploring some things on our own; Mik has been collaborating with different musicians to feed her sound and I’ve been slowly working on a more vocal-forward project for me that will be our ‘Max Tape’.

Good luck! In order to get to know you better and from a different point of view, how about playing an imagination game? I will set a scenario in an alternate universe with new rules and see how you’d react to the different situations. Ready?

Yep!

OK

In a universe where you are the queen of a country, what would be the first law you’d make?

Yikes, sorry to be too serious but– I’d raise the wage for anyone working a service job. I’ve hustled so hard for so many years on multiple jobs and still gone into debt or have been barely making it, even without the health or caretaker issues that many people deal with. It’s seriously time we made it possible for everyone who keeps our lives and systems running to live as well.

That’s a great answer! In a universe where humans can choose either to be able to teleport from one place to another or travel back and forth in time, which superpower would you pick?

Teleport. Time travel would complicate things too much. We need to leave some things in the past.

Time travel! There are so many people and pets I’d see again.

In a universe where you’re the statue of liberty, what object would you be holding instead of a torch?

probably a guitar

A tub of Chipotle. Mik has seen me eat probably a thousand of these over various long rehearsals.

In a universe where money does not exist, but instead, people pay for things by making other people laugh, how rich would you be considered?

Not rich, I create more awkward moments for people. But Maxi on the other hand has skills!

I’d owe Mik a ton of money. She’s the funniest person I know without even trying, so if she had her eyes on a new guitar I’d be in trouble.

In a universe where the senses of taste and hearing are mixed up together, what food would you imagine Mik & Maxi’s music would taste like?

Pop Rocks. Not needed in the diet but adds fun that reminds you it’s OK to be a little weird.

haha yes agreed with maxi pop rocks but with coke (soda)

In a universe where a theme song plays whenever you wake up announcing the start of your day, what would your song be?

probably a lullaby to go back to bed. I’m not a morning person.

The as-of-yet-unwritten “Probably going to do something extremely stupid today but you’ll figure it out” song.

Hahahaha! Thank you for playing! I hope you enjoyed this! We live in an era where social media became essential for musicians to reach fans and promote their music. In your opinion, what are the cons and pros of social media having all that power in the music industry?

I think the pros are that it allows more access to artists on various levels from personal moments to their published works.

It’s more democratic of a way to get music out to the fans, or for fans to find you, but without the push or money of a label with advertising powers behind you, it’s still very difficult to get the volume you need to “make it” full time. Most of us will have to just continue making music on our own for the love of it without expecting social media to deliver a miracle.

Have you ever faced any kind of sexism in your professional or personal life? How would you deal with sexist behaviour and what advice would you give young people around the world who face any kind of discrimination?

Yes. I think while we have faced criticism for being female and getting attention for that fact alone, people also forget that that type of attention is never really validated.

We have a lot of male allies in the music world who respect what we’re doing and support us. The more annoying part is getting faked out a lot and our time wasted by guys claiming that they will do something for us professionally and then string us along just to get near us. I would tell aspiring musicians to give everyone the benefit of the doubt initially since it’s such a small world when it comes to who knows who, but that if your bullshit detector is going off, you don’t have to keep entertaining them.

Thank you for giving us this interview, Mik and Maxi. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Thanks for having us!

Thank you for taking the time to get to know us!