I found Angus Maude’s music in late September and have been listening ever since. The Vancouver based artist is now a month out from the release of his album Blue Book and is still riding the high off the love fans are giving the songs. Being so enamored with the album itself, I sat down with Angus over Zoom to discuss his career up to this point and the meaning behind Blue Book.

Maude grew up in a musical family and was constantly surrounded by the influence of his father’s love of punk music. “I always had a fascination with music, so I started writing songs and performing them for my family when I was four or five, but I didn’t play any instruments so I would just get anything I could use as drumsticks and use that,” said Maude.

It wasn’t until late in his high school years that he realized music was his true passion and calling. While his friends were getting accepted to colleges and universities, Maude said “I realized then that the only thing I really wanted to do was music, and at that point I hadn’t told any of my friends that I even made music.”

Maude discussed how making music is such a vulnerable thing to do, and sharing those intimate lyrics has been a fear he’s had to conquer. “I was really really scared...almost a year after I graduated high school I released my first song onto SoundCloud and I remember the response from my friends was so positive that it gave me the motivation to keep going. There was no looking back.”

Though Maude grew up loving pop-punk bands like Blink-182 and Good Charlotte, he later found influence for his own music in pop-folk style bands such as Vance Joy and the Lumineers. The simplicity of the music drew him in. “Listening to those bands” , Maude says, “I realized I didn’t need a big setup or anything, I just needed an acoustic guitar. So it was motivating to me to play those songs, and once I understood the music and the chords, I started applying it to my own songs.”

Today, some of Maude’s greatest influences include Frank Ocean and Bon Iver. Yet, given the opportunity to collaborate with any artist, Maude chose Kanye West. With myself being from Chicago, I had no choice but to support that decision.

As we began to discuss Blue Book, Maude described the album as, “something that every version of myself growing up would have liked, ya know? Teenage me. Seven year old me. They all would’ve liked Blue Book.”

Maude explains how Blue Book is based on both his father’s life and his own. “I grew up with my dad having an addiction problem, which was a very significant part of growing up. My mom was incredibly supportive with it and at a very young age I knew everything that was happening with my dad. I knew why they were having the divorce. I knew why he had to go to treatment. She never hid it from me so I think that’s why I’m so comfortable with my feelings. I’m not scared to say exactly how I feel on a song,” says Maude.

“When I asked myself what I wanted to write an album about, I was in a relationship at the time and I kind of felt it falling apart, and so I kind of imagined what my dad must’ve felt when he felt my parents falling apart, but it being out of his control because of his problems with drugs. He has these two battles to fight...so I just wanted to tell that story through how I viewed it growing up.”

Maude explained how the lyrics are written from the perspective of his father and each song title is something Maude himself would indulge in as a child while the world around him was falling apart. “While all this is going on and my parents are having all these issues, I’m playing PlayStation 2 or I’m going to the Slam City Jam, or I’m at Blockbuster picking out a movie,” said Maude.

He explained how he carefully curated the album so the listener is unaware of the red flags in the lyrics, distracted by the happy sounds that accompany them, such as on Aunt Acid. So when the breakup happens in the album, it’s almost as if you don’t see it coming.

“Over the four years of making it, the relationship that I was in did eventually die, so a lot of the songs are also from my perspective too. It was weird the way it unfolded. It was initially planned to be about my dad and it kind of ended up being about both of us” said Maude.

Being so vulnerable on this album, Maude has been shocked by the outpour of support and love that followed its release. “I know that just because someone makes something. It doesn’t mean that it deserves people’s attention...but I kind of realized that from the get go, I just make music for myself,” said Maude. He continued saying, “This (album) could have one stream and just the fact that it’s done is something I know I’ll be proud of.”

Turning to a lighter note, we laughed about Maude’s days working at Starbucks and how he vowed he would quit the day he heard his music in the store. Though he quit before it happened, his music was in fact played in Starbucks all across Canada. “While I was there I was working part-time and making music...there were days when I didn’t sleep. I remember I would write all my lyric ideas on the Starbucks sleeves. I still have them all in a box. I probably cost that branch so much money. I have hundreds of them,” said Maude.

For now, Maude is focused on releasing more music within the next year, but he is eager to go on tour sometime soon once his fanbase begins to expand. So for now, go stream Blue Book religiously and be sure to catch the release of his Slam City Jam music video, out on Wednesday, October 27.