Interview: Max Bennett Kelly Talks “Quit Your Day Job” and Opening Up to Collaboration

The “Happy, Healthy, Well-Adjusted” singer sits down with Afterglow to talk about his personal motto, “Quit Your Day Job” and the scary parts of sharing your music with others.

Written by Lauren Stephens

Photo courtesy of Max Bennett Kelly

The Seattle-raised pop punk singer Max Bennett Kelly first took the world by storm with his hit “Happy, Healthy, Well-Adjusted” in 2021. Since then, he’s touched every aspect of his career from making music videos and designing merch, to producing and writing his own music. Afterglow sat down with Max to discuss his hometown’s influence on his music, rediscovering the wonder of music, and pursuing your passion.

Afterglow: You were in some bands throughout high school, but your first single as a solo artist came out around three years ago. How do you feel that your music has evolved since then?

Max Bennett Kelly: I had no idea what I was doing as a solo artist at first. You can kind of trace my progression to be like, I wanted to do music, so I started a band with my friends in high school. We learned how to do music together, and when we went to college together we really took the band seriously then. That's how I learned to do shows and everything. I felt sort of seasoned by that point, because I'd been in a band for like eight years. But, when I moved to L.A. during Covid, the band broke up. I was faced with this choice where I was like, “Well I want to do music, but I don't have a band anymore. What [should] I do?”

Everyone was getting on TikTok at the time, but I was too punk or something to do it… and I say that ironically because I was mostly just afraid of embarrassing myself. I decided to start learning how to produce, and I didn’t even know where to start. Before, I was relying on my band members for a lot of other stuff, and one of them was the main producer. So, now that I was on my own, I took it upon myself to do a kind of boot camp.

So, I guess to answer your question, how has it changed? I put my first song out from this project in [the] end of 2020 to no avail. I don't know what I expected. I mean, I didn't know how to cultivate a fanbase, I wouldn't promote myself on TikTok or anything. Around the time my second [song] came out, I decided to start coming out of my shell and going around and meeting other artists and seeing what they were doing. I have this song called "Fresh Green at the Gallery,” where I'm talking about when I went to my first event with other musicians there, and I'm seeing people who have GRAMMYs and they're, like, in their careers. I'm just looking at myself and I was like, “What am I doing? What am I wearing right now? Is what I'm wearing cohesive with what I'm making? Is what I'm making cohesive with who I am? Is what I'm saying in my songs authentic?” Then, I went home and wrote a song about that feeling and that felt really cool. From then on I was making each song of mine feel like a slice of truth, that if you hear just this one bit of this song, you'll be able to learn something accurate and authentic about me. I think there's a really clear distinction between before and after this moment specifically.

One of the next things I made immediately after that was “Happy, Healthy, Well-Adjusted.” I saw my roommate at the time go viral on TikTok, and then a lot of my friends were going viral, and I was like, “Ah shit, I got to start posting on TikTok.” I posted that demo of Happy Healthy, and it was like my fifth TikTok ever, and it really took off. From then on, I put myself through even more boot camp. I was obsessively working on music and kind of lost touch with why I liked doing it in the first place because I was so obsessed with getting good at it. 

I guess my music now has almost returned to a sense of childlike wonder. The music I made for the EP is really similar to what my band would have made, but just if they were to do what I said basically [laughs]. It's evolved a lot and that's more of a general philosophical answer. In terms of sound, my stuff is definitely a lot more poppy than what I would have done with the band. The EP is a super DIY, live-sounding thing because it was recorded live with a new band that I work with now. I produced it and mixed it — definitely broke my back over it. Now the new stuff I'm making is definitely more experimental. I'm really excited about the newest stuff that people unfortunately probably won’t hear for a little while. Not to say I’m not excited about the EP. I'm just in the process of releasing it, so I’m like, “I want this off my shoulders,” but I do love it. I’m really proud of what I've done with the EP.

You’ve said that your songwriting process and inspiration has changed with time, so what did the songwriting process look like for your more recent releases like “2AM” and “Superinlove”?

I think around that time I was really exploring some bottled up emotions and major things. So, “2AM” and “Superinlove” came together so fast. I came up with the chorus of “Superinlove” while I was reading a book, and I was like, “I got to record this” and the whole song came together in like an hour. I was really priding myself on wanting these to be three association songs that I make really quickly because that's how to capture them most authentically. [I’ve kept] the first take for mostly everything.

After "Happy, Healthy" went viral, which is around the same time that I was writing these songs, I didn't want to put [Superinlove] out because I was like, “Oh, I recorded the vocals on a bad microphone.” So, I went to re-record the vocals, and it just wasn't hitting. Then I [showed] my friends and they were like, “Dude, you have to keep the original take. That's the one with the vibe in it.” I kind of internalized that to mean [to] just let the idea out, let the emotion out authentically, and [not] worry about it being perfect. There's no such thing. People try to make things perfect to make up for the fact that they're made from you. It’s some sort of weird internalized, self-hatred thing that makes you want to make things perfect, but it should just be you. I guess, going into the scary places and writing songs about stuff that I think I shouldn’t be saying, like using words that I've never heard in the song before, that’s what guided this process.

You also talked about how you like to design your own merch and work on your own music videos. What inspires you to work on all of these different aspects of your art and do you foresee yourself maintaining creative control over them as your career evolves?

To be honest, I think I got this idea in my head as a kid that I was like the best of all time at everything, just completely unfounded. I would decide that I'm good at things and then do them. So, I think I had to unlearn that as I got older. As you try to do more and more complex things you can't just nail them on the first try. It's one thing to be in fifth grade and you can pass a test without studying, but you can't make a great album by yourself without trying. I think I had to snap out of that kind of old hubris of myself.

But the EP is at the limits of how far I could do something all on my own, right? I went into it wanting to prove to myself that I can make something completely on my own. Not to say it’s completely on my own, because obviously I have a band playing the parts, but I wrote the parts. I have people in the music videos, but I made the videos. It was sort of just to prove to myself that I could do it, and this is me looking back on it. At the time, I wouldn’t let anyone touch those songs, but now that I did it, I'm like, “Wow, I'm never doing something all by myself again.” It sucks. It makes my mental health worse. It turns art into a thing that pushes people away instead of a collaborative thing.

Now that I am done with Junk Male, which was my completely self-isolating project, I've decided [that] I only want to collaborate right now. Junk Male is obviously awesome, but it was a painful experience to make, whereas [the] music [I’m making] now is back to being light and fun. So yeah, I like to have my hand in everything, but if I know someone that wants to be a producer and they want to work with me, why would I not want to collaborate with them? Out of my ego? It's just dumb, and I'm done with that.

The way that Junk Male bridges into that other stuff is to go with the EP, I made a short film. Obviously when you do something in that realm, you can't do it by yourself. There's like 30 cast and crew and one scene with 75 background actors. It’s a huge thing that you can't do on your own. I'm just gonna write this and star in it… which is funny that you can use the word “just” for that. I asked someone else to do the editing because I know they’d do a better job than me, but for a former recovering control freak, it was a hard thing. We watched the first screening two days ago and it was mind blowing. I can't believe I was a part of something so good, that I never could’ve done on my own. I'm [also] making my next EP, which I'm finishing up right now. The plan is to not have me producing a single song on it or mixing it which is the opposite of Junk Male. I've tried everything, and I learned what I do and don't like.

Yeah, I think that's a good point. I'm sure when you've worked really hard on something and you care a lot about it, like your EP, it can be hard to let others touch it — like it can feel like a very personal thing. 

Yeah, and at least for me, I can't speak for everyone, but for me that came from a place of fear. I'd be afraid that my song wasn't good, you know? I'd be afraid to ask for feedback. I wouldn't want someone to tell me that it's not good, but I guess it came to the conclusion of, “Then what’s the point in putting them out and showing them to people like you?” I'm in a place right now where I really value feedback. I really value collaboration. I guess I'm usually pretty cool about it now. Before, I’d view that stuff from a scarcity perspective, where I'm like, “Oh my God, like what if this is my last idea, ever? I don't want someone criticizing it.” But now I'm just like, “I come up with so many ideas, and they can't all be good.” It's nice to have people tell me what's good and what’s not.

You release your music under the “Quit Your Day Job” label name. Can you talk a bit more about the inspiration behind that name?

I don't remember how I came up with it, but it's really cool to see how it's taken on a life of its own. So, I guess I could say it started with… I don't know, a classic marketing tactic is that a brand has a slogan attached to it, right? Every musician goes through a phase, I think, where they have to make a slogan. I think that is my slogan, but it used to be way more a part of everything. Like, I would sign off every Instagram post with [it], I would put it on everything, and then it became more of a lifestyle, like a motto. I've always been very kind of into this idea that you shouldn't be wasting your time doing anything you don't love doing. Obviously, you need money. Do your thing if you need to. But what that means is don't do some shit that doesn't benefit if you hate your job and you don't need the money. I don't know how many people, I'll go off on the topic, but I don't know how many people will complain to me about, “I hate my job.” Why are you working it? You don't need the money, like you're really 24, and you have 100K in your bank account, and you’re complaining about your job. Go travel, go do something. If you like your job, and you happen to work it during the day, I don't consider that [a] day job. If you love it, whatever. But stay away from those things that just become a routine suffering, right? So, “quit your day job” is like that lifestyle motto that’s kind of pervaded everything since then. It’s become the name for everything I do, period. Like the record label and my clothing company.

I've been saying this for so long that people started texting me that they quit their job or DM’d me about it. On my Discord I have a “Quit Your Day Job” channel. I went through and I screenshotted all of them the other day. Back since like 2020, I probably have a hundred people that quit their jobs and thought of me when they did it. Which, I'm like, how cool is that? It became an actual thing that people can latch onto. They get it.

That's great advice. I think now there’s such a focus on making money, and like you said, you have to work to survive, but you don't necessarily have to do something you hate. You can definitely find some kind of in between, so I think that's great.

Yeah. I guess the last thing I will say about this is I made a promise to myself when I moved to L.A., to pursue music. I quit my job, and I said I would never get a job again. It's really hard to stick to it when money gets tight, but I've done so much bullshit to eat. I started doing clinical trials, where you would go to a hospital and they test out a pharmaceutical on you and you get paid like a grand at the expense of your health. So yeah, dumb stuff like that. Just selling things, producing for people, engineering for people for the sake of “don't get a job.” Yeah, I have gotten myself into some debt. Every business requires a sacrifice, but I'm gonna pay it off once I get to the point, and I made that commitment to myself. So I’m going to stick it out. Going to figure it out.

You can follow Max Bennett Kelly on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, and pre-save his new EP Junk Male here.

This interview has been minimally edited for clarity and length.