Name: Maxine Funke
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, producer, composer
Nationality: New Zealand
Current release: Maxine Funke's River Said is out via Disciples.

If you enjoyed this Maxine Funke interview and would like to know more about her music, visit her on Instagram, and bandcamp.  



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

The smallest things seem to sink in and do their own work.

For example, recently a line in an old folk song "I woke up with my mind standing on Jesus", great concept. Or a thought I had way back about how it's only once you're in the kitchen the afternoon ends and suddenly it's pitch-black outside, those gardening days where the afternoon goes all night and then its suddenly midnight or so it seems … There's always impressions like these that catch me.

They don't turn into something until they are ready though which is often just a moment of peace or happiness, grace I guess, then they will surface in a piece of writing. Which is just a scribble on the back of an old envelope usually.

There have been times where I need to write a song for a project and I've done a lot of brainstorming and given up and then I'll hear a really simple song in a movie or on the radio and it gives me exactly what I needed, an approach or a way in, or a way of structuring the information that's natural and light, once I've got that, that song is there, if it's something you might just say in your own voice one day.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I can plan if I have to. Chance is always better. Best is when I'm out camping or at a beach and I write something on the go.

If I plan something the usual process is that I make a giant epic piece of rubbish, cry, give up, have a good sleep and it will reassemble itself usually sometime inconvenient like two in the morning. It's much nicer though to appreciate the gifts when they want to come and be grateful to have experienced the full mystery of it, you can explain some things only so far, but if I explained the creative process fully and rationally a person still wouldn't be able to write a good song by following my instructions to the letter.

Hopefully they would take a wrong turn somewhere and get lost and come up with something else though.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research'; or create 'early versions'?

No there's always a pen handy and uncannily there is often a free day coming up or a chance day off to record, or a few hours of having a house to myself will unexpectedly appear.

It really is like some things want to be born and you are just the conduit.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

When I'm getting warmed up, like if I have a day to myself and I know I have a good idea up my sleeve, I will walk around the house a lot making cups of tea and setting up gear, maybe go get a coffee. Just small steps while I gather up speed then it is hard to stop.

I don't do well being too lonely though. It really helps to meet someone for coffee for an hour in the middle or go play mini golf or whatever and come back to things again fresh.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

If I haven't had some kind of natural inspiration first, then yeah sitting down to write a first line does sound deeply unfun.

I guess you want to forget yourself to make room for something else, I'd probably have more luck going for a swim.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

For me the lyrics are the music, words are sound. A piece of writing has a shape, by organising rhyme, sounds of words, parallel ideas, sometimes double meaning if I'm lucky, repetition, things like that. Songs can have a path like 'Oblivion', the last track on River Said.



It starts with a sea lion coming at me like a bull followed by a slow recognition that what's happening is actually happening, followed by running away up the sand dunes through the lupins. My highwayman shadow on the sand made by myself and my sunhat, turns into a “cautious toreador”, which corresponds to the “lupin crowd rattling their castanets”.

So, on one level is reality but also there is another bullring drama going on like in a film, which is why the song is bookended by the first line, “film rolling susurration" and at the end "film on fire" like how those old films start with a rustle and often get stuck and have a hole burnt through them by the bulb.

In addition, “Obsidian” pairs so nicely with “Oblivion”, they are a pair of lovely beams.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

I like lyrics that have a good question, like “who knows where the time goes?”. I like Shirley Collins when she sings “where the ice goes I go”. I think she is the voice of the ship, that's wicked!



Unfortunately, I am at work all the time, so I just listen to hits stations on the car radio, but I am studying the Old Testament and I adore the poetic actions of the characters which are often a mystery even to scholars.

I like it when Elijah curls up in a foetal position on top of a mountain and gets his servant to check the horizon multiple times. A cloud the size of a man's hand appears, I really like that, it comes closer, and then a full storm comes after a drought. Elijah then ties up his skirt and runs full force through the storm in front of a chariot, because he was aided by the hand of God. Great stuff.

Plus, if someone is talking about a foot in the OT they probably mean a penis. It's a wild ride.

Once you've started, how does the work gradually emerge?

I probably wouldn't write anything that good if I controlled it too much, the connections in songs that make it a world that’s not just a linear progression are so subtle I don't make those connections consciously.

I think God is creative and we can all enter into God.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control over the process or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

The initial idea comes so quickly in one go and that's the true heart of it.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

I love for a song to be finished. It's really finished about one minute after I started writing it. I need to work solidly though with the recording until I have the final version recorded or I won't be able to sleep or anything.

But like I said space appears out of nowhere for these things to land.

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?

Once it's done it's done. I really don't ever want to touch them again, or play them again tbh, the energy has gone. Better to move on.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

I'm not very complicated, but the sound coming out of the speakers needs to feel good without a mixer first …So I make things sound good by using an old reel to reel, finding the right angle with a mic, if I use my digital stuff I just fluff around with every button until something calls to me. I'm not trained in any instrument so it's extra important that the written song can stand up for itself.

Every mic or recording device has its own voice, I like the papery sparkly texture of digital and digital effects, I like the body and warmth of magnetic tape, I like the realness of a cassette deck.

I guess my recording approach is to get to know the machine and appreciate what it has to offer. It takes time to learn gear and get familiar with it, then it becomes a friend. Sometimes you need to make new friends because you get bored.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

I have learned to not look back and to just keep moving forward.

It probably helps that I don't have much time anyway, so any time to be creative is a gift.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

In music I experience my full humanity, I feel good all over. I'm glad I was born. I feel like I should be this person and that I am being the real me. I lose my sense of time and I feel like I connect with something eternal. I go to sleep feeling satisfied.

If I did this all the time though I would probably become homeless, and I love a fancy coffee from the 24-hour dairy and I think those girls that work there are angels. So, I need to go to work and make money for nice coffee too.

I hope other people get this experience though in their lives, having kids or making video games or weightlifting or whatever. How will I ever know?