Once Upon a Time
In a world before driverless cars & Netflix, when going on the internet involved a spine tingling dial-up tone, and standing in a queue consisted of human interaction instead of staring into a handheld computing device, two people consummated their love. 9 months later the child who would be known as Max Wildwood was born.
Legend has it he was born like any other child: it was the multiple tumbling down the stairs as a baby that made him unique. It became an efficient mode of transport for the inquisitive toddler until his painful encounter with a spiral staircase. Some say it went downhill from there.
At age 4 Max started playing guitar. He’d strum away for hours in his bedroom, much to the annoyance of anyone in earshot. A few months later he was taught a few chords, which when played in the correct sequence, the audio experience greatly improved.
Fast forward a three or four years and Max met a girl with an Australian accent.
This was a feat in itself because he had never attempted to speak in an Australian accent before.
They played ping-pong at the village hall. Dinner with the family followed. Her father’s name was Tommy. He said he was a musician, and invited Max’s whole family to a concert at The Stables in Milton Keynes.
A life size poster of the kind-hearted man with ‘Tommy Emmanuel’ plastered across it was the first clue that Tommy wasn’t 2nd marimba player in the Walkabout Creek philharmonic.
8 year old Max watched the concert from the sound engineer’s booth and given the special job of adjusting Tommy’s microphone level under the supervision of legendary sound engineer Neil Segrott. This was a defining moment for the young wannabe musician, who now knew what he wanted to with his life. From that day on, Max and music have been inseparable.
A year later Max - still playing a three-quarter-size guitar - was having an impromptu lesson with Tommy. Just before he left on a world tour, Tommy suggested Max should really get a full-size acoustic instrument. The next day Tommy called by on the way to the airport. “You can borrow this one,” he said. “Don’t break it.”
It was a priceless, unique guitar, hand-made by Jean Larivée himself with a mother-of-pearl angel inlaid by Jean’s wife. It was a few years before Tommy returned to collect the treasure. In lieu, he gave Max a Mini Maton of his own. It’s Max’s most prized possession.
Since then Max has practised and worked tirelessly to hone his craft. He performs live at every opportunity, whether in a pub to the landlord, the barmaid, a sole customer and a wet dog, or a stadium of 10,000 rowdy stock car fans.
He’s played at weddings in castles and, on more than one occasion, to an audience of Nile Crocodiles.
He’s performed at many festivals throughout East Anglia, supported acts like The Willows, and impressed some of the world’s most accomplished songwriters with his pen.
Max has built his own recording studio and produces, engineers, mixes & masters music for himself, as well as any friends who ask nicely. Along the way, he’s taught himself to play many other instruments, including anything with strings, most things with keys and anything that makes a noise when hit. He’s not so hot where blowing and fingering holes is required, but he perseveres.
As a songwriter, any incident in his life can provide inspiration, and his life is unusually full of incident. He once had a relationship with a charming young lady who proceeded to break up on a popular social media site. 10 minutes later Max had written ‘Dumped on Facebook’, his debut single, which he released January 2021.
Since covid had restricted the ability to meet anyone in person, Max enlisted the help of friends and fans to send photos and content for the lyric video to ‘Dumped on Facebook’. Lulu Rose Hensley played the backstabbing, cheating, belligerent, sadistic, morally-insensitive girlfriend.
Max created the video remotely,
Max now has a collection of 11 guitars of various shapes, sizes & colours. He will burn through a set of strings in 3 hours, due to his unique playing style. He buys plectrums & thumb picks in bulk as they wear away in a matter of weeks.
Turn up at one of his gigs and you’ll likely hear the 2000watt PA System he has custom-built to support his insatiable taste for power and volume. (Evil laugh)
Max has been singing since the age of 3. He performed in Trianon Music Group (a choir and orchestra of over 170 members) at The Ipswich Corn Exchange & Snape Maltings, performing solos and jumping between tenor and bass sections. Max has an usually wide tongue which (apparently) explains how he’s able to sing as low as Yellow’s ‘Oh Yeah’ and as high as The Chipmunks’ ‘Christmas Time’. Alternatively it’s just a fluke and he’s simply boasting about the size of his appendage.
When Max isn’t playing music, making videos or rebuilding the many instruments he has a knack for wearing out, he likes to work on machinery.
Again self taught, he can expertly dissemble an engine and sometimes put it back together again.
He has a small collection classic cars (which proves that either he’s cultured and interesting, or that he has a problem).
He has owned several motorcycles. For a short time he scooted about on an off-road skateboard with a 49cc Brushcutter engine.
This was one of his favourite toys. He loved rushing through the long grass at 40mph, until he came across a hidden tree stump, with no brakes to speak of, the adrenaline-fuelled machine nevertheless stopped dead. Max however didn’t!
Flying is of course one of Max’s other hobbies, more often than not in an aeroplane. In fact he can drive, ride, or fly almost any mode of transport.
Max has vivid memories of driving a steam train before he could walk, a steam roller at age 6 and an army tank age 9.
He learnt to fly before he was old enough to have a driving licence.
He can also operate a digger, tractor, tele-handler, fork-lift, combine harvester & crane. When describing how he learnt do drive a crane, Max says you just pick things up as you go.
You may be coming to the conclusion that Max is highly intelligent but let’s not jump to any hasty conclusions. Reputably an IQ of 167, he’s also managed to shoot himself. Twice. On different occasions.
His event-filled life has seen him at the sharp end of a shark attack, being bitten by a black widow, and also a spider, boxed by a kangaroo, and on one haunting occasion defecated upon by a guinea pig. Contrary to popular opinion, Max was not responsible for the escape of the crocodiles.
He is clearly Wildwood by name and wild ... animal by nature.
Max has been recording his debut album for some time. Archeological artefeacts suggest that he started in the Neolithic period when Europe was a single geo-political entity. Geophys confirms that some of the paracetemol in his medicine cabinet predates Dr Fauci.
His recording studio comprises many bits of equipment but no fixed abode.
In fact Max has moved his setup time and again between friends kind enough to lend a room for musician to record the next piece of the soundtrack, whether it be a portrait artist’s mediaeval music room, a folk musician’s drawing room, a number-one selling pop star’s dutch barge, or an engineer’s portacabin on the edge of a farmyard.
Each of these unique locations have added their own ambience to the sound.
As well as the odd birdsong or twin turbo 5.0 V8 that inadvertantly made there way into the mix.
Max's Album 'should' be finished in a matter of months.