Photo: Fraser Chatham
Tony Stamp spends time with the horse thieves, bank robbers and forbidden lovers who populate up-and-coming singer-songwriter D.C. Maxwell's first album.
When listening to 'The Leading Man', the debut single from this upcoming Tāmaki troubadour, the first thing I noticed was how funny it is. I may have been tuned into the lyrics after knowing Maxwell through his Instagram page, where a sense of humour is evident.
Listening more it became clear that this aspect is just part of the craft. The songs on his album Lone Rider are well-written, and invested with lush, ornate production. But Maxwell’s main strength might be his sense of storytelling; I found myself waiting for plot points to resolve as much as I looked forward to the next melodic hook.
There’s a moment in that song, at the end of the second verse, when Maxwell sings “People came to see blood on the stage and they will see it by the third act”, making a promise to his audience and aligning the song’s structure with the play its narrator is observing.
They’re watching off-stage with jealousy as the leading man botches his lines. He was a star, but now he’s a washed-up drunk, and the narrator is a backup performer whose role involves stabbing the lead with a prop knife. They remove duct tape from the knife and use it for real, deluded into thinking they can take the dead man’s role.
It’s dramatically neat, and a lot of plot and subtext to pack into a five-minute song. No surprise that Maxwell has a background in creative writing.
As much attention is paid to the production, with Maxwell’s urgent performance backed by a string section which ups the drama. Elsewhere on the album, there are brass lines, and on ‘Out Stealing Horses’, a male choir.
You may have noticed that the American West looms in the background of these tracks. Maxwell has been photographed on horseback, but I don’t think he’s referred to himself as a cowboy. Other people definitely have though. It’s not just there in the lyrics, but the music and choice of instruments too. I get the feeling he just likes playing in this particular sandbox, and the dramatic possibilities it presents.
On the title track for example, he plays one half of a doomed romance, with the key line “We were born into a world that said it's wrong to love a man”, followed with “I’d burn in hell for a thousand years just to hold your calloused hand”.
Any sense of novelty associated with the setting, or inhabiting different characters, is dispelled through Maxwell’s performance, which is earnest enough to make clear he empathises deeply with his creations.
In his bio Maxwell mentions baroque pop acts like Scott Walker and slightly punk-tinged singers like Nick Cave and Chris Knox. He was frontman for the punk outfit Roidz, who got some acclaim here and Stateside, but Lone Rider is an album with a sound dictated by its characters.
It does get somewhat nihilistic on the track ‘The Last Stand of the Killer’, which follows a bank heist led by someone who says they don’t want to kill anyone, don’t mind dying themselves, and secretly dream of a house by the sea. The romantic subtext is enhanced by some dramatic mariachi horns.
The album’s last song is the one I suspect might be written from Maxwell’s perspective. It’s a bracingly straightforward love song called ‘I'm With You’, which features lines like “In the evening I’ll be so excited to get up and do it over again with you”. He’s joined by a choir in the chorus, which features even lovelier lyrics. His voice occasionally cracks.
Picture a sun going down over a Western plain if you like, but regardless of setting or context, it’s very moving.
