Not so much a gang as the effervescent musical vision of 24-year-old Max McElligott. His debut album, Suego Faults – the name of an imaginary utopia that came to him in a dream – is an uplifting, romantic and delicately layered collection of some of the finest synthdappled indie pop we’ve heard all year. Here’s what you need to know about him…
Wolf Gang’s debut album was produced by the legendary Dave ‘Mercury Rev/Flaming Lips/ MGMT’ Fridmann.
I sent him ‘Lions and Cages’ on the off-chance and he asked me to phone him. I was really nervous because it was potentially the most important phone call I’d ever make. He was like, ‘Hey, man, come out and record, man, I love your song!’ I went to Tarbox Road Studios – essentially an old barn in upstate New York – to record that one song. Then he got in touch and said we should do the whole album. I was over the moon. When he mixes, he adds a huge soundscape to the music without being too overbearing. He was respectful of what I wanted as well, so we worked really closely together. He really is a genius. Where we recorded near Lake Erie, you have no distractions because you’re in the middle of nature. It was a great experience.
He was raised mainly in Scotland, but his childhood was fairly itinerant.
I spent most of my time in a little village there called Strathkinness, near to St Andrews. My mum’s German and my dad’s half Greek, half Irish and we travelled around with my dad’s work. I’ve also lived in England and Ann Arbor, Michigan. And now my parents live in Ireland, so I’ve moved around a bit.
McElligot dropped out of his last term studying social anthropology at LSE to pursue music.
I was in my third year, but by that point I was quite far behind. My head was up in the clouds and I was thinking about music more than ever. I had a chat with my tutor and he told me to go for it, and said that I could go back to finish my degree whenever I wanted if the music thing didn’t work out. Luckily I haven’t been back since.
His parents did encourage his musical explorations as a child.
‘They encouraged me to play all the time and bought me instruments for my birthday. My mum is a violinist, so music is very important in my family, and going to my mum’s concerts had a great effect on me. But they never felt I could do it as a career. I remember mum saying there were thousands of people in London who wanted to be musicians, and that I had to think seriously about what I wanted to do with my life.
So he didn’t tell them he’d dropped out until after the fact.
My mum didn’t speak to me for months because she was really upset. My dad was angry, but tried to be supportive. It wasn’t really the nicest time, but I knew I had to do it in order to focus, and without doing that I don’t think I would have worked so hard towards music. Now we’re on very good terms.
He’s heavily influenced by both David Byrne and David Bowie. Musically, at least.
I’m a fan of them, but I don’t feel the urge to wear an oversized suit and start cross-dressing! I think they’re amazing, but if you’re being a frontman, the ideas have to come from you.
For an exclusive video interview with Wolf Gang go to: www.timeout.com/music
