We Chat With Musician Maxine Gillon

Born in Sydney in 1992 and now based in Melbourne, Maxine Gillon’s music covers a wide range of the sonic spectrum, from electronica, to dream pop, and dirty-indie. Harking back to the classics whilst being modern and unique. With an EP, a recent LP, and a slew of singles to her name; Maxine’s music has won praise both internationally and locally in Australia. Along with collaborators and supporters in luminaries such as Lindy Morrison, and Wade Keighran.

Maxine performing live.
Photo by Charlie Foster.

Prior to her recent move to Melbourne, Maxine played guitar in Second Idol, with her solo work marking a departure from Second Idol’s more ‘rock’ based sound. She also DJ’s at Melbourne community radio station Triple R (3RRR), a vehicle that allows her to explore and share her passion for music in all its forms; and contribute directly to the city’s vibrant creative sphere.

Wanting to get to know her better, we sent Maxine some questions to answer over email.
Explore her world, below…

Getting Acquainted

Name and date of birth?

Maxine Gillon.
12/12/1992

City, state, and country you currently call home?

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

City, state, and country you’re from?

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Please describe some memories – such as art, music, writing, friendships, adventures, study, romance, politics, travel, religion, work, crime… anything really – from the stages of your life noted below:

* Your childhood:

I barely remember my childhood specifically to be honest. I remember being really hyperactive and sort of lived in a fantasy world in my head.
I loved drawing from an early age and spent most of my time drawing and inventing characters and things. I loved comic books, especially X-Men.

* Your teenage years:

I grew up 2-3 hours out of Sydney in a rural area that was very agricultural, sporty, right wing and white bread. From 12 I felt alienated from everything around me and was pretty horrifically bullied for most of high school.
I really loved art; I was still drawing a lot, loved studying art history and grew interested in alternative music, film and countercultural literature. Art felt like the one thing in life that was for me.

In my late teens I was really miserable and sort of shut down and isolated myself from everyone. My main memories at this time are just listening to Morrissey in the library or art department at my high school drawing or reading Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics or the Beat Generation writers.

* Your 20s:

I moved to the city and that was deeply exciting to me; to escape the tiny queerphobic rural area I hated and had no interest in. I felt like I was finally living the life I’d been reading about, listening to and watching in Burroughs books, HTRK songs, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder films.
It was all pretty debauched and hedonistic for a while.

Also had a few melodramatic romantic relationships that felt apocalyptically important and ruled my life. Having the space to come out as queer and live a queer life was also amazing. I feel like everyone is a bit queer now but believe me even 10ish years ago the situation was a lot different.

* Your 30s so far:

30’s have been great! All 2ish years of them! I know myself, am pretty secure as a person, am very driven and dedicated as an artist, have grown out of reliving toxic patterns and situations. I feel the best I ever have.
I’m happy to be alive!

Maxine enjoy a good book.
Photo by Jacob McCann.

Personal motto(s)?

I don’t know. I guess I say things like, “It is what it is” and “C’est la vie” a lot but I’m not sure how seriously or purposefully I say them.

What role did toys play in your childhood?
… and any favourites you remember?

Honestly not a huge amount, I mostly drew things or made my own characters and toys. I never was spoiled with toys.
I remember some great X-Men figures, Star Wars figures, Mighty Max’s, Beanie Babies; and I loved Pokémon cards.

Creativity Questions

When and why did you first become interested in music and everything creative?
… and any pivotal moments or influences?

As a kid I loved drawing instantly and spent most of my time doing that. I had no interest in music at all until I was 12 and saw Green Day on Video Hits (Australian MTV). I think they looked like comic book characters and projected an energy that really grabbed me.
From there I’d listen to all their namechecked influences like Nirvana, Sex Pistols, The Clash etc. and then I was off and started buying any compilation cd or dvd that had anything to do with punk, post-punk or alternative music.
The Velvet Underground are probably the primary influence on my art and my life, everything I do can pretty much be linked back to their influence. They were an eclipse of my mind, I was forever changed.
In my late teens I was a Smiths teen, I thought Morrissey was the only person who could understand me (from afar). This was also when torrenting and music blogs were a big thing so I was onto Krautrock and 60’s girl groups and garage and all sorts of niche weirdness through those and researching my favourite band’s influences.

What led and inspired you to go solo after previously playing in bands?

I was always writing music and posting demos online before I joined Second Idol so always had a vision for my own music but perhaps lacked an understanding of the music scene, industry and the confidence to go it alone. As I grew as a songwriter while in the band, and as the industry demystified itself, it didn’t make sense for me to give most of my time, energy and creative output to supporting someone else’s vision when I had my own.
I also moved away from wanting to make noisy angsty music and felt a bit like an imposter pretending I was solely because the band was doing good and getting more attention, but I would never have been creatively satisfied playing guitar for someone else even if we “made it big”.
It was also people I really admired like Wade Keighran (Wolf & Cub), Jonnine Standish (HTRK) & Lindy Morrison (The Go-Betweens) who encouraged me to focus on my solo music and pursue it properly.

The video for Maxine’s 2022 track Genuflect.

… and connected to that – What led and inspired your recent(ish) move from sunny, cocaine fuelled Sydney; to the dark heroin-stained streets of Melbourne?

Definitely the heroin! No, I’d spent time in Melbourne on tour and liked it, I always considered it a bit mythic in terms of it’s music scene and history, felt like after being trapped inside for years during the lockdowns of the Covid pandemic I needed a change of scene, and also being a musician is more viable here, there’s more of an audience, appreciation for emerging artists, funding opportunities and venues here.

If you had to explain your creative endeavours to some recently crash-landed aliens…
What would you tell them?

I’d tell them that I arrange words and musical notes into a pleasing sequence that often repeats, diverts and then repeats again because these things seem to impact humans emotionally on a metaphysical level that can’t really be fully explained.
It’s also a way of paying tribute to and joining a lineage of people doing the same thing in ways that I like and that have impacted culture and counterculture over a series of decades.

Who are some of your favourite writers, filmmakers, artists, and musicians?
…and what is it about their works that so inspire and move you?

There’s so many!
I’m going to try and list some that really formatively impacted me for whatever reasons or inspired me to make art or add different dimensions to my art: Patti Smith, Eileen Myles, The Smiths, Tricky, Suede, Wu Tang Clan, William S. Burroughs, Jim Carroll, Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell, My Bloody Valentine, Rainer Werner Fasdsbinder, Susan Sontag, Anne Carson, and Lou Reed.

Anyone who creates their own individual world or lexicon in a convincing and interesting way is IT for me.

If people wanted to check out your stuff, work with you, or buy some of your wares – Where should they visit and how should they get in touch?

There’s Bandcamp, all of the big streaming services, Instagram, or just say hi at a gig!

Any news, upcoming projects, or releases to share?

Yes! I have a new release coming out mid-year.
It’s on vinyl, it’s gorgeous, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done, I’m excited to share it.

Odds & Ends

If you could live in any place, during any historical era – When and where would that be?
… and why would you choose that time and place?

I’m pretty set on living now really, like it is a nightmare don’t get me wrong; WW3 feels imminent (but I gather that it always does, just look at the Cold War), late stage capitalism is at boiling point, a loaf of bread cost’s $300, a genocide is unfolding before our eyes on our smart phones; but I don’t love the idea of going back to any era, I like having the entirety of history of the world to sink my teeth into and have some vague hope that instead of progress ebbing and flowing it’s more linear in the long run.
Maybe I’d love to go back 375 million years ago before fish started walking on land, I think that’s where we went wrong.

What are the top 3 items you own?
… and what is it about each of them that you so love?

Primal Scream – Loaded 7” record.
To me this is the perfect pop-cultural artefact. Aesthetically it’s beautiful, every part, the photos, the design, the Creation Records vinyl label. Loaded is actually a remix of the b-side of the single that was a song from their previous album. The band started hanging around the acid house scene and met a DJ, Andrew Weatherall who remixed it, tapped into the cultural zeitgeist of the time and formed the spark for their Screamadelica album which merged rock, house and sample culture perfectly.
It’s a total Burroughs cut-up, genre destroying, pop-cultural weapon and I just love it.

Beat up Sigma acoustic guitar.
This is just with me all the time as a third limb, I hate not having a guitar in arms reach. Most of my songs have been written and finessed on this. I recorded a song with it recently and the strings haven’t been changed in so long it’s got this weird earthy tone to it that I really like right now.

Vintage 1991 Siouxsie & The Banshees shirt.
I just love how destroyed and soft this has gotten. I also only got it for $40 on an eBay auction maybe a bit over 10 years ago.
It gets more and more unwearable but I always end up wearing it again….

If you had to sum up your hometown of Sydney, Australia in one object – What would it be?
Why did you choose it?
… and how does it represent Sydney to you?

Probably a pre-plain packaging 25 pack of Marlboro Gold.
It contains all the hubris of my youth when I moved to the city. It was like I was a cool artist who smoked at cafes with big Raybans on, I was edgy, “grown-up”, independent, had moved out of home and not only that but was a connoisseur of the deadbeat lifestyle, no rollies for me. I would prefer to spend half of my centrelink for the week on a pack of the most iconic pop-cultural cigarettes of all time.
(I no longer smoke)

Please describe your last dream in detail…

Honestly, I can barely remember any recent dreams, sorry!

What does God mean to you?

Not much really! I don’t and have never believed in any sort of god figure, I did start reading the Old Testament recently but more in a Homer’s Odyssey ancient poetic text sort of way not as a moralistic scripture.

The closest feeling I could equate to divinity is my vague belief there’s a collective mental and emotional consciousness among humans that is heightened when everyone in the vicinity is concentrating on or being affected by the same thing like gospel church sermons, rock concerts, raves, football finals, etc.
Losing yourself in creativity working purely on instinct and intuition also feels divine to me.
Whether those feelings relate to a kind of idea of god per say I don’t know.

Of everything you have done so far, what would you most like to be remembered for?

I think I’d just like to be remembered through my growing body of work as someone deeply dedicated to songwriting and art, it’s sort of a religion to me.
I like to think that I make music for kindred souls who have an insatiable drive for discovering interesting and culturally referential music that feels individual, special and that they feel connected to.