Jade EhlersMAX has just hit #1 on Billboard’s Adult Pop Songs chart with “Lights Down Low,” featuring gnash. It’s the first #1 for each artist on the chart, which is based on radio airplay. Max says his collabo with the rapper was a case of the “stars aligning.”
“We had become friendly over the years…We would never hang out for a long time, but we would always see each other around. And I loved what he was doing,” MAX tells ABC Radio about the “I Hate U, I Love U” rapper.
“And someone said, ‘Hey, you and gnash should do something together,'” he continues. “And then I had this weird idea of, ‘Well, I could actually hear his voice on this song.'”
MAX says he called up gnash and told him about the song “Lights Down Low,” which was inspired by the woman who’s now his wife — he used it to propose to her, in fact.
“It was just one of those universe moments where he immediately connected with it,” MAX recalls. “And the same day that I told him the story, he wrote the verse that’s on the song and recorded it, and that was it. There were no changes, nothing!”
Thanks to the success of the track, MAX is now the first male solo artist to hit #1 on Adult Pop Songs with his first charted song since James Arthur did it last year with “Say You Won’t Let Go.”
Says MAX, “Somehow the stars aligned with the idea, the story behind it, and him being in the right head space with his own relationship to create the collaboration.”
MAX is currently on tour with Fall Out Boy in the U.K. Next month, he’ll be opening for AJR.
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