Idol Chatter & Voice Views

His audition: Max Cooper III, 23, of Kansas City, Miss., performed “Cooler Than Me” by Mike Posner. Max accompanied himself on keys and got a quick chair turn from Snoop Dogg. Reba McEntire turned midway through the performance. Niall Horan and Michael Buble eventually followed. Meanwhile, Max delivered an impressive vocal, showed off nice stage presence and nary a bit of nerves on The Voice stage. Reba said his performance kept improving; she called him super cute and super good. Niall loved the way Max added a jazz flavor to a pop tune. Max said the first song he ever performed was “Just Haven’t Met You Yet.” It’s a song Michael wrote, so he joined Max on stage to sing a snippet of the tune. No surprise after that; Max decided to join Team Michael.

Here’s more about Max:

* He’s a singer-songwriter from Lenexa, Kansas, who just released his first original music earlier this year.

* It came in the form of a five-song EP called “Overthinker.” Says Max on his website: “All the songs share a common thread. I’m always in my own head way too much -— my thoughts affecting my life, which is why I titled this project The Overthinker.”

* Check out the music video for “Sadie,” one of the songs from the EP, below. Max calls it as song about “pining for a dream girl who sends back mixed romantic and friend-zone messages” and adds that the song “captures the intensity of being crazy over someone who doesn’t feel the same.”

* He’s planning to release a followup single called “Green Light” on Sept. 19, just three days before The Voice Season 28 premiere.

* On Spotify, Max describes his music as “a dynamic fusion of genres, weaving together acoustic pop, jazz, the occasional theatrical flair and whatever else ignites his creative spark.”

* Max says his interest in music started early. His parents bought his sister an upright piano. Max began teaching himself how to play it at age 3.

* Max has posted a video to social media of himself at that piano, performing a song he wrote at age 5. Two years later, he began taking formal piano lessons.

* He’s a graduate of Olathe Northwest High School in Kansas and studied music composition at the University of Kansas.

* And he’s developed a substantial following on TikTok where his pre-Voice stats included more than 75,000 followers and 2.3 million likes.

* Among videos that have been viewed more than 1 million times there are covers of Mike Posner’s “Cooler Than Me,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and “Just the Two of Us.”

Max on social media:
Instagram
Tiktok
Facebook
YouTube