From Wandering To Rooted: Max McNown Finds His Rhythm

When we last spoke with Max McNown, he’d just kicked off his first-ever tour Down Under, playing only two shows in Brisbane with the rest of the country still ahead. Now, with some distance and a little reflection, he’s looking back on the run with nothing but gratitude and a standout night that’s hard to beat.

“My whole band and crew and I look back on Melbourne as probably the best show of our whole lives,” McNown says. “All the Australian crowds, and even the New Zealand crowd in Auckland were incredible. We had never experienced that level of energy before.” The experience of stepping into a country he’d never visited, playing for thousands, and then jetting off again was surreal. “It was just so far from home... but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

So much so that he made a rapid return in June for a one-off performance. “That was crazy! 72 hours of travel total, and we were there for just 40 hours,” he laughs. “My body was absolutely wrecked. I got home and ended up with some kind of stomach bug. I think my body was just like, ‘Where are we? Do we sleep? Do we cry?’”

The travel chaos hasn’t slowed him down. McNown is deep into his Night Diving: The Cost of Growing Up (Deluxe) era, with the deluxe edition dropping not long ago. It features 11 new tracks and unlike the standard “bonus tracks at the end” approach, McNown completely rearranged the tracklist. “That was very intentional,” he explains. “I actually don’t think of it too much as a deluxe. A lot of the new songs were written before some of the original tracks. It’s always felt like one big project in my mind, so I wanted it to feel like a new album, not just an extension.”

The breakout single from the deluxe edition is Forever Ain’t Long Enough, a high-energy track that McNown says felt like the obvious lead. “It just felt like the most global song to me,” he says. “When I’m choosing singles, I think will this grab attention immediately? Especially in the streaming era, you’ve got seconds to hook someone.” 

Beyond its addictive intro, the track also holds personal meaning: “I’m not a cynic. I’m a bit of a lover boy,” he laughs. “I’m in love, I’m in a really healthy place in life, and I just wanted to write a song about wanting to spend forever with someone… but even forever doesn’t feel long enough.”

McNown has also revisited older work like Turned Into Missing You from his earlier album Wandering re-releasing it with rising star Avery Anna. “She’s the queen of harmonies. There’s not a better title for her,” he says. “We actually sat down to record an acoustic version with my producer, Jamie, and just got carried away. It turned into a full new version. It gave the song a whole new life.”

As he gears up for his North American headline tour, McNown reveals the band has put serious thought into leveling up the live experience. “We’re playing 23 songs now, about an hour and 40 minutes, but it’s not just song after song,” he says. “We’ve added transitions, flow, and moments that feel more like a performance than a setlist.”

That evolution was born in a hotel room in Calgary, where the band mapped out the entire show using sticky notes. “Lee, my guitarist, wrote every song from my discography on sticky notes. We colour-coded them by vibe and transitions, plastered them all over the wall, and moved things around until it worked,” he explains. “It was very mad scientist, but it helped us craft something we’re really proud of.”

Despite the increasing scale of his success, more shows, more songs, more fans, McNown says one thing has remained steady: his crew. “The same people that were with me in Australia are the same people with me now,” he says. “We’ve had a couple of additions, sure, but no major changes. That road family keeps me grounded.”

It’s that consistency that McNown sees as key to staying humble. “If your team is always changing, and you’re hiring new people who don’t know where you came from, it’s easy to get an inflated ego,” he says. “But I’ve been lucky. The team around me hasn’t changed, and that’s one of my greatest gifts.”

From marathon travel days and love songs to setlists designed like detective boards, Max McNown is proving that heart, hustle, and a great team can take you far.