Veteran musician Max Abood has just released a five-song EP under the name Gray Shore.
Titled “An Open Letter to Myself,” the record finds Abood packing a powerful music punch as he leans into the heavy music that has influenced him throughout his life.
Abood recently spoke about the EP from his home in Oklahoma.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Did you play everything on this recording yourself?
Yeah. Everything except the synth stuff on “Heavy Weather.” My dad [Peter Abood] stepped in and helped me with that stuff but all the drums, guitar, bass, vocals, that’s all me.
Because you play all of those instruments, I would imagine that you’ve done some tracking like that before. But to be the person behind everything on the project … was it frustrating, rewarding, a little bit of both?
A little bit of both. A lot of my favorite bands are one-man bands that became something more. Foo Fighters started with Dave Grohl; Beartooth is a band that really inspired this project, and Caleb Shomo is kind of the guy who does everything in the band. I thought it would be fun to do something like that since I do have the ability to play everything. I’ve played in lots of bands, and I enjoy playing with other people. But at the same time, it was pretty nice to say, “I like that, I’m going to do it. I don’t like that; I’m not going to that.” That was that. There wasn’t any kind of back and forth. It was really nice and rewarding [in that way], frustrating because I have to do everything. [Laughs.]
Can you talk a little bit about the lyrical themes, some of the connections between songs if there are any.
[Pause.] I was in a pretty dark place and that’s what came out naturally. I grew up in a pretty religious household, and I feel like the church sometimes dismisses the mental health side of things. Being in that environment my whole life, I never admitted that I had depression. I didn’t really feel like I could struggle. When I started writing lyrics, that’s naturally what came out. I was actually admitting that something might be a little bit wrong. There’s a little bit of a chemical imbalance. At the time, I wasn’t really finding any fulfillment in anything, and so that’s what I wrote about. It was kind of therapeutic, too, to get all of that stuff out and release those emotions in a healthy way.
And then get to just scream it.
Yeah, very therapeutic. Feels very good to do it that way. [Laughs.]
The sequence of the songs. Was that always going to be the running order?
I did have a vision for some of it early on. Some of the songs were written on drums first, and then I wrote everything else around what I recorded with drums. Some were written with lyrics first. Sometimes there was a little bit of a vision. I always knew that I wanted to start with “Lost” and “Enemy.” “Enemy” was the first one that I wrote. It’s got a little bit more of an upbeat ending: It’s about how I’ve taken back my own life, and I’m no longer my own enemy. I felt like that was a really good way to end the EP and also just that song. I always thought it would be really cool to start with this kind of static and chaotic sound but something that also sounded kind of pretty. There’s tension but also showing that there’s beauty in dissonance sometimes.
There are moments that are reminiscent of emo from 2004.
There’s a lot of that inspiration in there. Some of it is having been in some of the bands I’ve been in that had that as inspiration as well. There’s been a little bit of nostalgic resurgence with that genre of music right now, too. It seems like a lot of people are going back and listening to that again.
Do you know the Wichita band Stay The Course?
Colby [Munn] is a really good friend of mine. All those guys are awesome.
Very much in that vein.
I love those guys.
Your father appears on one song. How cool was it to be able to ring him up and say, “Do you want to be on my record?”
That was something I knew when I started this, that I wanted to have him on at least a song. I felt like that one fit really perfectly because there is a lower dynamic and lots of spots for some cool synth ear candy textures. The title “Heavy Weather” [is there because] when I was a little kid we used to listen to the album “Heavy Weather,” kind of repeat. That was one of our go-tos. Naming it “Heavy Weather” is kind of a nod to that, too, and how he’s always been a big part of my life and a huge inspiration musically.
Are you at a point where you’re thinking, “I should put together a band and play some of this music live”?
I have considered it. I definitely don’t consider myself a vocalist. When I first started doing vocals with previous bands that I was in, it was only a couple of lines, more background vocals just to kind of help out the other vocalist. That’s how a lot of this came to be; someone would come up to me after a show and say, “You sound really good,” and I’d think, “Maybe I should record myself and see what I sound like and hear what they’re hearing.” I would like to play a show at some point. I have a few people in mind that I would want to be in the band to make it happen. I’m going to see how this release goes. If it’s well received and people want to see a show, I’ll make it happen.
