Max Berend

Biography

Max Berend (NL/CH) captures his inner world with warm guitar sounds, dreamy synths, a cold melodious piano, a raw sandy voice and honest pictorial lines about life. Sometimes he shares his inner world in a soft and easy manner, sometimes rough and brutally direct. But always in a stirring way to feel comfortable with. A world, which sometimes also can act like a mirror for the listener.

Max Berend de Boer (19.10.1992), born and raised in Davos, Switzerland, grew up as a son of Dutch parents, who moved to Switzerland to find work in the health sector. At the age of 14 he began taking guitar classes to distract and balance himself from the social exclusion and discrimination he experienced in his small-town school. Quickly, the music gave him a place to feel safe. He started to perform various small concerts in his hometown yet became insecure about his prospects as an artist. As a result, he put away his guitar for 8 years and started to pursue a career in business and economics with stops in Chur, Olten, Brussels and Bern. However, he never forgot about what purpose music gave him.
Arrived in Bern, he started to take guitar classes again to find balance in his busy working days. Searching for fulfillment in his hard-earned business career, he failed time and time again to feel some sort of satisfaction. Right before the pandemic, he decided to quit his management position out into the blue and go back to the one thing that gave him purpose in life: music.
Inspired by international singer- songwriters and storytellers such as Passenger, Taylor Swift and Jim Croce he started to write his own intimate indie folk-pop sound, which reflects his full zest for life but also his deepest pain. Two emotional levels that are reflected in his songs: the easy-to-listen harmonies and accessible melodies are an invitation to enjoy his music as such. Still, if you are willing to open up and listen more carefully to his songs, you discover a man sharing his inside world: A roller coaster of honest feeling. Sometimes he shares it in a soft and easy manner, sometimes rough and brutally direct. But always in a stirring way to feel comfortable with. Wrapped in thoughtful and pictorial stories, his music feels like a walk at his favorite coastline, the North Sea: Rough but still cozy. He took his first and second forename, Max Berend, as his artistic alias, so he could always tell his musical stories with authenticity and from the bottom of his heart.
With his songs, he would like to transform what he enjoys most in life: To spend time with his loved ones. He wants to invite his audience onto a journey to his story and eventually their own stories. With a deep wish to create a common feeling of accessibility and approachability. Whether it is one person or a crowd in front of him: It feels like he is talking from the bottom of his heart directly with you
Today he lives with his partner and dog in the city of St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Tag: storyteller, guitar, folk pop, acoustic, indie, pop, folk, singer songwriter