About
Max Liebenberg is a drummer and composer based in Basel, originally from Johannesburg. He started out on drums and violin at a young age and spent his early years moving through very different musical worlds — from progressive metal and hip-hop to orchestras and live drum & bass. When he moved to Basel at 22, his focus shifted fully toward jazz and improvised music. The city’s open, collaborative scene stuck with him, and over time it became home.
His project Max with Snacks, formed in 2022, is where a lot of that journey comes together. The music feels playful, curious, and sometimes a bit bouncy, but there’s also a reflective side to it. The album grew out of a simple idea: bring together the different musical influences that shaped him and record them with people he actually feels connected to. Most of the band are close friends and regular collaborators from the Basel scene — musicians like Charley Rose, Fernando Brox, Iannis Obiols, and Nadav Erlich — and that shows in how naturally the music moves.
The process of making the album marked a shift for him. After finishing jazz school, it was the first time he allowed himself to write without overthinking or trying to meet expectations. That freedom comes through in the music — it feels open, personal, and sometimes a bit raw in a good way. Some pieces grew from very simple ideas, like a bass line or a rhythmic concept, and developed through collaboration. Others came from more structured experiments, like using interval systems or rhythmic patterns to generate material, only to strip things back again later.
As a composer, he’s less interested in control and more in creating space. The tunes have a clear identity, but they’re built so the musicians can shape them in their own way. There’s always a sense of narrative, but it’s shared — not imposed.
In the end, the album lands somewhere between intention and play. It’s not trying to prove anything, it’s more like a space you step into.
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