<\/p>\n
Max McKnown<\/span><\/p>\n Benjamin Edwards<\/small><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n Max McNown\u2019s music is imbued with stories of grief and darkness, resilience and light\u2014and ever-evolving perspectives. <\/p>\n As the Nashville-based singer\/songwriter\u2019s star rises with more than 10 million monthly Spotify listeners, the recent release of deluxe edition album Night Diving (The Cost of Growing Up) <\/em>and current U.S. headlining tour, he\u2019s also evolving his perspective on self-care amid rapid success.<\/p>\n One of his biggest recent game-changers came courtesy of sage words he received at the Boston Calling music festival in May 2025, where he was performing alongside artists including Luke Combs, Fallout Boy, Dave Matthews and Megan Maroney. <\/p>\n \u201cI have a couple band members and crew members that are close with some of Luke Combs\u2019 team,\u201d McNown says. \u201cAnd so I was able to meet Luke and I was talking with his production manager and he told me, \u2018Man it\u2019s so cool; I can tell you\u2019re on the rise.\u2019 And then he got really serious with me and he was like, \u2018Are you writing everything down? Do you have a journal or anywhere that you\u2019re writing these experiences down and processing them?\u2019 And I said, \u2018I have a journal but it\u2019s at my apartment. I haven\u2019t used it in a long, long time.<\/p>\n The manager continued: \u201c\u2018The number one piece of advice I would give is to write down what you\u2019re doing, not only to process what\u2019s happening but to also look back on,\u2019\u201d McNown says. \u201c\u2019Because you\u2019re going to miss so many important life lessons and moments.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n The guidance resonated. \u201cI now journal every single morning. That\u2019s very, very key to my mental health. Usually the first thing I do when I wake up is find the nearest cool kind of local, hopefully, coffee shop and just sit here and grab a cold brew and write in my journal for about an hour. That\u2019s how I start every day,\u201d he says. \u201cThe journal has been pivotal. I think it\u2019s a huge piece of why I have felt so good. So thank you to Luke Combs\u2019 production manager.\u201d<\/p>\n While he\u2019s focused on being self-aware, McNown is also mindful of not letting it overwhelm his organic process.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s a fine line between self-awareness and self-consciousness. It took me years of being extremely self-conscious and kindof, you know, not comfortable in my own skin to finally learn the balance between understanding where you are and having the humility that, there\u2019s always something greater. And also just not obsessing over it because if you get stuck in your own head it\u2019s hard to escape sometimes. There\u2019s that distinction. And when you get some big life lessons at a young age, you\u2019re really thrown into it.\u201d <\/p>\n McNown\u2019s family dynamic turned inside out in 2019 when his brother Brock was diagnosed with Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma. After five years of treatment, today Brock is in remission and accompanying him on tour. But the emotional toll and those unimaginable \u201clife lessons\u201d pouring in just as McNown was finding his voice as a songwriting left indelible marks. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just a perspective shift that I think is a game changer for my life. If I\u2019m going on stage and I\u2019m worried about my voice cracking or not hitting certain notes, I think about what he\u2019s been through and the fact that for every single human on earth, just to wake up is a privilege,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s the perspective Brock gave me. And I think that\u2019s the reason I\u2019m able to not tire and burn out. I just kind of keep going because it\u2019s like, How lucky am I?\u201d <\/p>\n McNown poured many of his experiences and epiphanies during that pivotal time into the songs that comprise Night Diving<\/em>, which debuted in January 2025, and The<\/em> Cost of Growing Up<\/em>, which joined the initial release form deluxe package Night Diving (The Cost Of Growing Up)<\/em> in July. Not without intentionality, he refers to the two title tracks as \u201csibling songs.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cNight Diving<\/em> and The Cost of Growing Up<\/em> have always been one project for me; they were coming together at the same time. When I wrote Night Diving<\/em> there were loosely 14-15 songs, some finished, some not finished, and then I wrote five more before it was released,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I separated them. A lot of the songs on Night Diving<\/em> are not necessarily pessimistic but it has more of a brooding, an introspection. It\u2019s the feeling of desperation, of like, \u2018Man, no matter how hard I try to keep in front of this I end up hating myself.\u2019 Whereas The Cost of Growing Up<\/em>, the sibling song, has more of the optimistic view on a lot of those sadder moments because that is just what life is. The Cost of Growing Up<\/em> is the cost of healing and being able to come toward joy. It\u2019s both sides of the coin. Those two songs and the relationship between them represent the music I hope to make for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Noting he starts \u201cwith poetry,\u201d McNown says, \u201cLyrics have been the focus of every single form of music I\u2019ve ever listened to. I\u2019m a fan of a beautiful electric lick as much as the next guy but I was never one for the trap music of the dub step if it didn\u2019t have lyrics that meant a lot to me. I have always found joy and comfort in that type of music. So when it came to writing music, there was no other way.\u201d<\/p>\n As he traverses the country, informed by new encounters he\u2019s no doubt documenting in his journal, McNown is deep in writing new music that will chronicle his current chapter. Songwriter and producer AJ Prius, who produced his 2024 debut album Wandering<\/em>, and Trent Dabbs, who co-wrote McNown\u2019s Night Diving<\/em> single Better Me For You (Brown Eyes)<\/em>, joined him on the road early in the tour. <\/p>\n \u201cI was writing five to eight hours and then would do meet and greets, interviews and play a show and then wake up and do the same thing over again. Every single day. So actually we\u2019ve got 11 solid tracks already for the next project,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd any time I\u2019m home I write. I got five solid writes in last time I was in Nashville for seven days. You just go with the flow\u2014and the flow is strong right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Mind Reading (formerly Hollywood & Mind) is a recurring column that features interviews with musicians, actors, athletes, creators and other culture influencers who are elevating conversation and action around mental health, and breaking stigma.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.forbes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Max McKnown Benjamin Edwards Max McNown\u2019s music is imbued with stories of grief and darkness, resilience and light\u2014and ever-evolving perspectives. As the Nashville-based singer\/songwriter\u2019s star rises with more than 10 million monthly Spotify listeners, the recent release of deluxe edition album Night Diving (The Cost of Growing Up) and current U.S. headlining tour, he\u2019s also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2134083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[406279,363037,406278,323283,406280,406275,406277,406276],"class_list":["post-2134082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-boston-calling","tag-dave-matthews","tag-fallout-boy","tag-luke-combs","tag-max-mcnown","tag-megan-maroney","tag-night-diving","tag-the-cost-of-growing-up"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Max-McNown-On-\u2018Pivotal-Advice-He-Got-From-Luke-Combs.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2134082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2134084,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134082\/revisions\/2134084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2134083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2134082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2134082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2134082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}