Max effort

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This article was published 25/04/2025 (227 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Every day before getting to work, Max Kerman sits down with a cup of coffee and a physical newspaper, goes for a morning “thinking walk” and then dives into the tasks at hand.

Kerman’s job doesn’t involve a cubicle, punching a time card or working on a factory floor, but it’s work all the same: managing the business and creative components of a multi-platinum rock band.

For the better part of two decades, the 38-year-old Kerman has fronted Arkells, a road warrior Hamilton quintet that has risen from playing small clubs to belting out hits such as Knocking at the Door, Leather Jacket and Years in the Making in arenas thanks to a bit of luck and a whole lot of hard work from the charismatic singer and his bandmates.

In his new (and first) book Try Hard: Creative Work in Progress, published by Viking on April 22, Kerman chronicles the band’s trajectory, his creative process and some of the highlights of his work with Arkells.

Kerman launches Try Hard in Winnipeg tonight at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park at 6 p.m., signing copies of the book.

Arkells manager Ash Poitevin was pivotal in getting Kerman to write the book, which he hopes answers questions he hears frequently from fans.

“The book is meant to be a conversation that I’ve had many times with people wondering what I do all day,” Kerman says from his Toronto home prior to the book tour.

“That’s what I hope people feel like when they’re reading — like, ‘Oh, this is just an opportunity to ask a guy in a band questions about how things get done.’”

For Kerman, explaining his creative process and the business of the band proved easier than parsing out the themes of a song or album.

“I think in music culture and music writing, there’s this tendency to want to look at the narrative around a record, but sometimes I find that harder to talk about — you just want the music to speak for itself. This kind of book, which is about process, it’s very easy to talk about because it’s really just a matter of pulling back the curtain and talking about exactly what you do,” he says.

Over four months, Kerman managed to write his book between his work with Arkells — which, in addition to the songwriting, involves quarterbacking the band’s social media and other day-to-day tasks.

“I really enjoyed the process of writing. I didn’t know if I would. I went in with some hesitation — like, let’s see if I like the first 1,500 words. If it felt like a real chore, I probably would have stopped. But then I fell into this routine that I fell in love with. You’re trying to do the thing that you do in any creative pursuit: what feels honest, what feels true, what feels like the best version of myself?” he says.

Inspiration for Try Hard came to Kerman through the work of other artists who have written about the process — including David Byrne in How Music Works and Rick Rubin in The Creative Act — as well as long-form writing in magazines such as the New Yorker, which he’s read since he was a kid.

But if his book has one kindred spirit, it’s perhaps prolific horror writer Stephen King’s how-to, On Writing.

“I think we have this tendency to make the arts into this mystical thing, when really it’s just sometimes about getting into 2,000 words in a day and then doing that the next day and the next day — and if you do that for a few months, you have a book. (King) talks about it in this very matter-of-fact, everyday worker kind of way, which I really identify with,” Kerman says.

Once the ball is rolling, says Kerman in Try Hard, the key is to keep it going.

“One of the underlying themes is how important this creative momentum is, and finding ways to keep that momentum up. And I don’t mean just like going a mile a minute — I mean feeling good about the work,” he explains.

“If you feel good about the work and the people you’re working with, and there’s that sort of beautiful, generous give and take, you just do more because you don’t even realize you’re working. The second you start thinking, ‘Do I want to call this guy? Maybe I’ll put it off till tomorrow,’ that’s when things begin to grind to a halt.”

Kerman still finds great joy in working with his bandmates on all things Arkells, in part because each has been able to focus on the parts of being in a band that they enjoy.

“Nothing about what I do is inherently enjoyable — there’s lots of people in bands that hate it, lots of people who hate the idea of marketing, who hate dealing with the money. Nothing about a creative life is promised to be fun — but I really am trying to make it fun,” he says.

Kerman hopes readers can find some sort of creative spark in Try Hard, whether or not they have aspirations of fronting a band.

“Even if they don’t see themselves in me, they might see themselves in somebody in my orbit who’s very, incredibly valuable. They might see themselves as a guitarist, they might see themselves as a business manager,” he says.

And while it’s his name on the book, Kerman says Try Hard, like being in Arkells, was very much a team effort.

“Sometimes I wonder if people look at me and go, ‘Oh, there’s like, a lot of energy there’ or ‘This guy’s too bold’ or something,” he says, laughing.

“But there are so many other people I rely on that happen to be interested in another part of the operation, which I could never do. Everything I do is a group effort.”

ben.sigurdson@freepress.mb.ca