John Maus

John Maus
Born	Austin
Nationality	United States of America
Genres	rock music
Instruments	keyboard instrument

Not to be confused with John Maus of the Walker Brothers.

John Maus
Maus performing in Denmark, 2018
Born	(1980-02-23) February 23, 1980 Austin, Minnesota, U.S.
Education	California Institute of the Arts (B.A.) University of Hawaii (PhD)
Occupation	Musician singer songwriter composer academic
Years active	1999–present
Spouse	Kika Karadi ​ (m. 2017)​
Musical career
Origin	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genres	Synth-pop experimental pop lo-fi post-punk
Instruments	Keyboards vocals bass guitar
Labels	Demonstration Bootleg Ltd. Upset The Rhythm Ribbon Music Human Ear Music Mistletone
Formerly of	Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
Website	johnma.us

John Maus (born February 23, 1980) is an American musician, composer, singer, and songwriter known for his baritone singing style and his use of vintage synthesizer sounds and Medieval church modes, a combination that often draws comparisons to 1980s goth-pop. His early lo-fi recordings anticipated and inspired the late 2000s hypnagogic pop movement. and had a middle-class upbringing. performed in punk bands, and created music with his computer. He said that he began playing an instrument "around 12 or 13" and remembered that "the [only] culture I was exposed to was what was coming through MTV, Top 40 radio and maybe a classic rock station or something like that. ... I lived out in a very small town, with no boutique record stores and no college kids." Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" created "a fascination for musical details" for him, and when he got his first bass guitar, "I didn’t take any lessons or learn how to play it. I’d just kind of pluck on the bass and scream my heart out." Afterward, he became fascinated with the life and music of Syd Barrett, and recorded his own version of Barrett's 1970 song "Feel" from The Madcap Laughs. and "my very first fan", and in turn, Maus called him "the zeitgeist embodied. He is the figure of this situation and of this time, of the cloud, of the spectacle gone online."

After Maus and Rosenberg became roommates, Maus recorded the material from his first album using a cassette multi-track recorder and an early 1990s synthesizer soundbank. They collaborated on the title track of Rosenberg's Lover Boy (2002). Maus said that Rosenberg made contributions to some of his own songs, but was not credited "because neither of us care enough about any 'official' credit." He later completed his degree in experimental music composition in 2003. By 2005, Maus had also taken about a year in "art criticism or something". For two of his college years, he "couldn’t write a thing ... and it horrified me. ... Nothing did what I felt music ought to do. I had to feel like I’d started to get there, at least in my mind, before I could share it with people." At his most "prolific", he could write only one song a month.

Label signing

John Maus discography
Studio albums	5
Compilation albums	1

Official studio albums

Title	Release
Songs	Released: March 20, 2006 Label: Upset the Rhythm
Love Is Real	Released: November 19, 2007 Label: Upset the Rhythm
We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves	Released: June 27, 2011 Label: Ribbon Music, Upset the Rhythm
Screen Memories	Released: October 27, 2017 Label: Ribbon Music
Addendum	Released: April 20, 2018 Label: Ribbon Music

Compilation

Title	Release
A Collection of Rarities and Previously Unreleased Material	Released: July 12, 2012 Label: Ribbon Music

Early unofficial albums

• 1999: Snowless Winters EP (Demonstration Bootleg)
• 2000: Love Letters from Hell (Demonstration Bootleg)
• 2003: Second Album EP (Demonstration Bootleg)
• 2003: I Want to Live (Demonstration Bootleg)