For Max & Harvey, the internet was never simply an irreverent virtual playground to make some noise – it was a place to tell their story. A decade ago, the English twins found themselves catapulted into the spotlight after sharing singing videos online, capturing the attention of millions and building a devoted following in the process. Now, ten years on, they’re ready to write their next chapter.
Following something of a self-imposed four-year musical hiatus, the duo returned earlier this summer with ‘Fractured’, an infectious new track that signalled a bold new chapter for the duo. Developed behind the scenes, their evolving sound places intimate pop storytelling at its heart, blending organic influences with a newfound sense of creative freedom. And this time, they’re doing things on their own terms.
The release also sets the stage for a milestone moment this autumn, as Max & Harvey: In A Decade – 10 Years of “Controlled” Chaos – their first tour in four years – gets underway in October, marking ten years since they first began their musical journey. We caught up with the twins to talk about coming of age in the public eye, finding their sound again, taking a step back from music and what the next decade might look like.
You’re probably tired of hearing this, but… 2026 marks 10 years of Max & Harvey! A decade in music is a phenomenal achievement. You must be incredibly proud of everything you’ve achieved so far, but also super excited for what’s still to come?
Harvey: Personally, I can’t believe it’s been 10 years!
Max: Neither can I… I mean, where has the time gone, and how has all of this happened to us? (Laughs).
Harvey: Probably best we don’t ask that question Max… (laughs). Do you know, it’s funny, because even though we’ve been super aware that this anniversary was coming up, and we’ve talked a lot about how we want to celebrate it, it still feels kind of scary to hear you say: “a decade years in music…” because between us there’s always been this lingering feeling that we don’t think we’d be very good at doing anything else (laughs) so to think we’ve been able to maintain a career doing something we love for this long (despite having slight imposter syndrome) is kind of mind-blowing!
Max: To make it to the ten year mark in any industry is a blessing! We know that both the music business, and the social media space, is a tough industry to crack, so we don’t take it for granted that we’re still here, and still able to do what we do. We’re very, very grateful.
You’ve achieved so much throughout your career, and explored so many different avenues across the entertainment industry. Would you say that music has always remained the foundation of everything you do, and ultimately the place where you feel most at home creatively?
Harvey: Yeah for sure. We’ve always been super driven by our love of music! It’s not always been easy for us, and there have been many obstacles we’ve had to overcome, but we’ve kept things moving as best we can. What were some of those obstacles? Look, I’ll be honest and tell you straight, music is not cheap to make! It’s an expensive space to inhabit, so sometimes you have to find other ways to subsidise our income. Which we’re not complaining about, we’ve loved having fun and playing around on social media, it’s been an amazing way for us to grow our audience, and we absolutely love the connection we have with our fanbase. But what really drives us is being able to connect with people through music, and so that’s why it feels so good to be properly doing this again after being on a little bit of a hiatus.
Max: A four year hiatus (laughs). We didn’t intend to be away from music for so long, but in hindsight, I think the break has been necessary for us to grow and think about what we want the future of Max & Harvey to be. A change was definitely needed.
There comes a time in all of our lives when we want to change, if for no other reason than to simply try something new. Has that desire to push yourselves outside of your comfort zone felt like a natural part of your evolution, both as people and as artists?
Harvey: We’ve always recognised that a lot of the opportunities presented to us at the start of our career, came about because of the work we were doing on social media. When you’re young and starting out, and trying to get your name out there, you’re pretty much open to doing anything to make your dreams come true. I’m not saying we said “yes” to everything, but we said “yes” to a lot, and as a result we were kind of forced to put music to one side for while. That’s nobody’s fault, we were aware of it, we knew what was happening, and we were happy to go with the flow. But we always, always actively tried to do all that we could to keep our music part of the conversation, so that people didn’t forget that aspect of our career.
Max: It almost became impossible to do the two at the same time didn’t it? We never gave up on the music, but equally we didn’t want to work on it half heartedly, and it not be good quality.
Harvey: Exactly! And because we were off doing other things, fun things may I add, we never really had the chance, time or opportunity, to focus and lock in what we wanted our sound to be. So for a while we were almost just writing to a specific brief of what we thought our songs should sound like. When you’re new to this industry, and not sure of who you are or where you fit in, the obvious answer and way of thinking seems to be, do whatever’s working at that exact moment in time! And when we were first starting out, it was all about Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber, so we were encouraged to follow a similar format to what they were doing. Which I totally understand, but looking back I don’t think we were always writing from a genuine place, and I know for a fact we stifled a lot of our own crazy, wacky ideas because we weren’t encouraged to be original.
Max: Like any new artist, we needed guidance and someone to show us the ropes, and we’re grateful to everyone who helped us in the beginning. But yeah, like Harvey said, it would have been nice to have felt a little bit more encouragement from people.
Harvey: It goes back to that thing of being young and new to the scene, it’s tricky navigate. You can be feeling super confident walking into the studio one day, but all it takes is for one person to say: “no, I don’t like that idea” or “no-one will understand what you’re do trying to do, reign it in” for you to think “oh maybe I don’t know what I’m doing, maybe I should just be quiet and listen to everyone around me, they’re the professionals here, not me!” Going back to your question about wanting change, yes, we did come to a point where we felt like something had to change in order for us to be able to move forward. With time and experience, we’ve learned that our ideas weren’t bad, they were just viewed as being a risk to others… and as we know, a lot of people in this business don’t always like taking risks, because they can backfire, big time! But if you think about who we are as people, and look at our social media content, it SCREAMS risk (laughs). So we’re now trying to adopt some of the same approach we have towards our social media work, into our music.
You can only play it safe for so long right? Sometimes risks are worth taking…
Max: Absolutely! But like Harvey said, the scary thing about taking any kind of risk, is the potential for things to go horribly wrong (laughs). But some of the biggest artists in the world are where they are because they took a risk right? And that’s something we’ve learned overtime. We mainly grew up on mainstream, linear pop, which isn’t anything to be embarrassed about, it just means that for the longest time, that’s all we really knew. It took for us to do a little research, broaden our musical palette, and for me personally, diversifying my knowledge of the music scene, to arrive at a place where we saw the power and potential in creating something different and unique. It’s been incredible building these new songs together with Harvey, and we’re proud of the fact that we can present this new sound to people, rather than be saying: “hi everyone, here’s another version of something else you’ve heard a million times before.” Nobody wants that from artists anymore…
Harvey: We don’t want that! We don’t want to be making music that people can easily compare to others. That’s not exciting or fulfilling for us, or for our fans. We’re all about experimenting and bringing something different to the table. Is that scary? Oh yes, we’re nervous beyond belief! But we’re determined to make it work… we don’t have any other choice.
How has this personal and creative evolution translated into the way you write and record music? Have you approached songwriting and working in the studio differently this time around?
Max: There’s definitely a difference in the way we work now compared to when we first started!
Harvey: And we’ve gotta give a shoutout to Matt for that right?
Max: Yes! Huge shoutout to our producer Matt Brettle, who I actually met whilst playing 5-aside football (laughs). It’s mad, you’d think we’d have connected at some industry party or something, but no, we met playing football, and from there became great friends! After talking and realising that we both worked in music, he invited us to go into his studio, and both Harvey and I have absolutely loved the experience.
Harvey: Yeah, we’ve learnt so much from Matt, and… I probably shouldn’t say this, but we’ve done a lot of songs with him which we can’t wait for people to hear! I know I said it earlier, but at one time, we really were locked down by so many different rules, and formats, and guidelines. Matt helped us to see past all that.
Max: He has the same goal and desire as us to make really great music for no other reason than because it’s something we love! You meet a lot of people nowadays who are all about the money… and listen, we’ve all got bills to pay right? We get it, we like money too (laughs). But for us, and where we’re at, music means more to us than a pay check.
Harvey: Yeah, we don’t play by those rules anymore. We’re not interested in following trends or trying to re-create someone else’s style, we’re now focused on going off of what feels good to us, rather than what’s popular on the charts or online.
Big up Matt!
Max: (laughs) exactly, big up Matt! He’s the best. And aside from what he’s done for us as a duo, he’s also been really encouraging, and given me the confidence to get more involved in the production side of things, rather than just the songwriting aspect of what we do, which has been amazing! And I think me being more hands on in that area has really helped us to create a strong musical identity of our own, which is really important to us.
So does it now feel quite liberating to be going against the grain after following somebody else’s rules for all those years?
Harvey: It does, but like we said before, there’s more risk involved doing things this way. But, we figure rather trying to convince a bunch of people with a load of money to invest in us, we’re going to work hard to prove that we can do this by ourselves.
Max & Harvey – Fractured
Your latest single, ‘Fractured’, really captures that energy and ethos. How did you know this was the song to launch this new era?
Max: It was actually really difficult deciding what song to go with! We’re so proud of all the new material, we genuinely love everything we’ve written, so for a long time we really felt torn and didn’t know what to do. We’re very, very keen for people to know that we’re now exploring more hyper pop styles of music, and ‘Fractured’ displays that in a very strong, yet palatable way. It’s not too intense, it’s not too aggressive on the ears, but it makes enough of a statement to show everyone that we’re moving in a different way now.
There’s a real honesty to your songwriting, with lyrics that feel deeply personal yet incredibly relatable. How comfortable are you with putting that vulnerability out there for everyone to hear?
Max: Honestly, looking back, I don’t think I knew what it meant to be truly honest in a song until now. When it came to the things we posted online, and how we presented ourselves on social media, we were always 100% honest and ourselves, but for some reason that never quite translated over into our songwriting. Not that we were being dis-honest or hiding who we were, I just think there’s a skill to storytelling through song that we perhaps hadn’t quite mastered until now.
Harvey: You could argue that everything you ever wanted to know about us was plastered all over YouTube and TikTok, so perhaps we didn’t need to write anything that was too personal or a direct reflection of what we’ve been going through. But as we’ve already said, we don’t want to write surface level songs at this stage in our career. We’re not interested in that, we want to dive a little deeper into what we’re feeling and what we’re experiencing in real time.
Max: Over the course of the last four or five years we’ve made a conscious decision to pull back a little, and lead more private lives, and I actually think that’s really helped with our songwriting, because the space and privacy we’ve afforded ourselves has made us feel less visible, and like people don’t know every single thing about us. There’s that little bit of mystery there again, which has given us the courage to be more honest.
There’s still plenty of mystery surrounding your next ‘Overthinking’. Are you happy to keep us guessing for now, and let listeners find their own meaning in the song once they hear it?
Max: Yeah, I’d say so. We enjoying being a little bit inconspicuous with our lyrics these days (laughs). Why? For many reasons really, but mainly because we feel quite strongly that the EP we’re working on needs to be presented as a whole body of work for it to make complete sense. Each song forms a part of the story we’re telling, so we really hope people will listen to it from start to finish and understand the messages we’re putting out there.
Harvey: The songs have been written in ways that feel very true to us, but they can also be interpreted in lots of different ways too.
Max: Yeah we always say that songs should be open to interpretation. It’s the emotion that you’re conveying that creates the connection. I might be singing a lyric and thinking about one thing, but someone else may hear it and relate to it in a completely different way.
Harvey: Yeah, you’re connecting with someone based on the same emotion, but that doesn’t mean they have to be thinking about the exact same thing as you. Going back to ‘Overthinking’ one thing I will say about this song is, when you listen to it, I encourage you to to feel the emotion you’re hearing…
How do you think you’re going to define success this time around?
Max: I definitely think we’re more content with pleasing ourselves, rather than looking to others for validation. Back in the day, success to me was reliant on the reaction of everyone around us – if people said a song was good, and it performed well, and did good streaming numbers, then I’d feel reassured that we’d done a good job and that we were therefore “successful”. Whereas now, success to me is very much defined by my personal outlook on life and our career. Do I like what we’re doing? Do I feel like we’re making good, quality music? Am I happy with how we’re presenting our songs to our fans? Are our fans happy with what we’re doing? Do I feel fulfilled both personally and professionally? Those are the kinds of questions I ask myself now. And if I’m able to answer “yes”, then I’d pretty confident that makes us successful.
Harvey: When we were younger it was harder to gauge what success actually meant. We placed a high level of importance on the opinions of those we worked with because they knew the business better than us, and they were also all very good at what they did, so if they said they liked something then our default was to like it too. But now, like Max said, we’re much more interested in making sure that we’re happy and liking what we’re doing now. We’re not driven by peoples opinions or critiques anymore. We back ourselves way more than we did before, and that feels good.
You’re set to hit the road again this autumn for your first tour in four years! What can you tell us about the ‘In A Decade’ show, and how excited are you to be getting back on stage?
Max: We’re really excited! Even though it’s been four years since we last toured as music act, we’ve still be out there doing live shows, and obviously we did the ’13 Again Tour’ which was a lot of fun. But we can’t wait to see all of the fans again, and take this new sound on the road.
Harvey: In a funny way, this tour will be a bit of a send off… not that we’re planning on retiring or anything (laughs) but in the sense that the show will be a real retrospective of our career so far. The closing of a chapter, the start of a new one type of thing. The setlist is going to be crazy, we’re going to be performing reimagined versions of our early material and putting a fresh twist on some of our classics.
How does it feel to revisit your back catalogue?
Harvey: Erm… it depends on the era and the song (laughs). Let me put it this way, every song that we’re going to perform on this tour, is a song that we’re really proud. Make of that what you will (laughs).
Max: It’s funny to hear some of the songs we released 10 years ago, we have a huge appreciation for them, but equally they’re not all our favourites. But we’re enjoying the process of breathing new life into them, and we think the fans are going to love the new arrangements.
Harvey: Max and I have always had this real problem of never wanting to put on a bad show! It’s something we fear, so we’re working relentlessly, back to back hours, to make this our best tour yet!
As you close this chapter, and start a new, how would you sum up the last 10 years of Max & Harvey?
Max: EPIC! But I’ll be honest, looking back and reflecting on the past isn’t something we do all that often. We’re very much people who like to keep focused on the future, and because we’re always on the go, and moving at such a fast pace the majority of the time, once one project is done, we’re onto the next. It’s usually when we get together with family that we stop for a second, and reflect. We’ll be telling them what we’ve been up to, and suddenly we’ll look at each and be like: “oh we’ve done quite a lot haven’t we?”
Harvey: Planning for this tour has forced us to look back, and make sense of all the pivotal moments that gotten us to where we are now. And it’s been cool to be honest with you. Overall we’ve had a great time, and achieved things that we didn’t think were possible. So yeah… it’s all good. We’re super happy, and we’re very, very grateful for all of the support we’ve had from our fans – they are the best!
Tickets for Max & Harvey’s ‘In A Decade’ UK Tour are on-sale now.
Let us know your thoughts on Max & Harvey over on CelebMix socials now.