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Human beings contain multitudes. Our interests, skills, desires and personality traits can vary from day to day and even minute to minute. It’s up to us to find a constructive way to bring them into the world.
The creatives among us accomplish that task in highly visible fashion. So when Max Niemann of Milwaukee’s rollicking rock ‘n’ roll outfit Diet Lite was feeling a little more country, he acted on it and came up with “Clean Copy,” the single getting its premiere today.
Under the banner of Max & The Fellow Travelers, Niemann hits the dusty ol’ trail with a new sound that sprung from a crossroads he finally reached after years of ideas rattling around his brain. Talking about “Clean Copy,” he noted, “I knew it wouldn’t really work as a Diet Lite song. It needed a more delicate arrangement and instrumentation than our three-piece power-rock setup could provide.”
Essentially, he needed Diet Diet Lite (or Diet Lite Zero?). He finds it on “Clean Copy” through an amiably bouncy acoustic guitar, warm pedal steel from Evan Ceman and sunny strains of violin — I like to think of it as fiddle, considering the context — from Isabel Schmenk. Along with Alex Niemann (bass), Miller Matthews (drums) and Maximiano Janairo (electric guitar, vocals), the group laid down an approachable track to match the message Max Niemann was striving for.
“In the grand scheme of things, our problems and hangups are often pretty small and fleeting, and our lives too subjective to cast any overarching judgment on much of anything,” he shared. “I’d rather be happy than be right, right?”
It comes through in feeling more than meaning. There’s a Beck-ish abstractness to the lyrics as Niemann sings about “Waiting for a spoon of the moon” and how “That mellow empty’s bringing everything down.” It’s best not to take the song literally, which was kind of Niemann’s point after all: Don’t sweat the small stuff and try to put a genuine smile on your face.
My guess is “Clean Copy” will do exactly that, so give it a spin by hitting the “Listen” button at the top of the page. It’ll also air on 88Nine all day (6:30 and 10:30 a.m.; 2:30, 6:30 and 9:30 p.m.) and find its way onto the project’s debut EP, The Fellow Travelers, when it comes out Oct. 11. You can also catch Max & The Fellow Travelers at their release show Oct. 18 at Linneman’s and at Vivarium in support of Them Coulee Boys on Nov. 30.
