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Interview: Max Sharam

"At the time I wanted the world": the "Coma" singer on her '90s success

Interview from March 2021

Released in late-1994, Max Sharam's bold debut single, "Coma", became a top 20 hit on the ARIA chart and ranked in the top 10 of that year's Triple J Hottest 100. Further critical and commercial success followed for the singer/ songwriter, who'd first caught the public's attention through her appearances as a contestant on Hey Hey It's Saturday segment Red Faces and on talent show New Faces. But despite all the acclaim her gold-certified debut album, A Million Year Girl, received, there wasn't a follow-up. Chart Beats caught up with Max, who now lives in New York, over the phone to discuss her mid-'90s success and (in the full-length interview) find out why she didn't ever release a second album.

You’ve had a very varied career — besides music, you’ve done stand-up, performance art and soundtrack work. Where does A Million Year Girl sit amongst all that for you — was it just another project or does it have special significance?

Music cuts extremely deep, so nothing quite tops the ability to sing your guts out live onstage. But I do consider myself a multi-hyphenate artist, so I’m pretty excited about a multitude of mediums. The album… I think any musician or artist is not satisfied until they hit the mark. You’re always chasing the next fix. The stories [on the album] were all extremely important to me — sharing experiences and taking people on rides, and the magic and timelessness of it was what I was chasing also.

Max Sharam

In the early 1990s, you did the Australian TV double of appearing on Red Faces and New Faces. What was your aim going on those shows?

What was my aim? That’s part of the issue with my life is that my aims are… [laughs] My aim is to have my own Broadway one-woman show. I’ve always just wanted the stage to basically explore art. That was just another way of me challenging the system and pushing the envelope in some regards.

A Million Year Girl.jpg

Max Sharam on Chart Beats

So it was a conscious thing — to go on those shows and do something a lot of people hadn’t seen before?

Oh God, yeah. It was just like, “Oh my God, you bore me to death. Let’s have a bit of fun with this.” I was always such a fan of Jeannie Little and Reg Livermore — they were such unique talents and they should have been celebrated with absolute reverence. So in some respect, other than a speckle of artists in the generation preceding me, I felt that there was nobody doing what I liked in the public realm. I had lived outside of Australia for a very long time — that’s what people didn’t ever really understand — and part of me wanted to find where the things I loved were.

In the early '90s, female singers often fell into two categories: pop princess or big balladeer. You were neither — did that work for you or against you?

Well, I didn’t know what I was myself. That would have helped. I remember my manager said, “You’re a cross between Bart Simpson and Wednesday Addams.” I wish I’d known what I was. That’s part of the problem with growing up in Australia — I had no real reference for where I sit on the scale of things. And I refused to follow any kind of fashion doctrine, but it took me a long time to understand what my personal taste is.

New Faces was in 1992, but "Coma" didn’t come out until 1994. What happened during that time?

That’s when all the administration was taking place with the record company and management. There was a bit of a bidding war going on or who do you want to sign with and who’s going to provide you the best deal and creative control? So it took a while to work out a deal. I felt like I’d died and lived and died again in that amount of time. It was really destructive because my process was interrupted due to corporate admin.

Were you apprehensive about signing with a major label like Warner Music?

No, because at the time I wanted the world, and I felt like a caged animal: “Just let me out, let me at them.” I was very pent-up.

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