Local musician creates a Monster

Sometimes all it takes is an ultimatum.

In late 2013, Max Harnishfeger found himself with a month and a half to get a solo project together. Bartlett co-owners Karli and Caleb Ingersoll, also Harnishfeger’s bandmates in the popular local quartet Cathedral Pearls, began spurring Harnishfeger to work on his own material while the band went on a brief hiatus.

“They booked me for a show on New Year’s Eve at the Bartlett before I had any material,” Harnishfeger said. He’d be opening for electronic artist Helado Negro, whom Harnishfeger said he admires, and that looming deadline helped him switch into full-on work mode.

“At that point, I could either say ‘no’ to an opportunity that really excites, or I can try to get my act together and push through,” he said. “I had some scraps of things I’d been working on. I have so many interests, so if I don’t have focal point, I don’t get much done.”

That pressure seemed to have helped, because Water Monster has since become one of the busiest musical acts in town.

“When I was thrown into that ultimatum, I really didn’t have a lot of time to think about what it could become,” Harnishfeger said. “You always have aspirations that people will like it, but you never know until you share it with people.”

There’s always been an electronic streak running through Cathedral Pearls’ music, and Harnishfeger took full advantage of that. Most of Water Monster’s songs lean heavily on synthesized beats and melodies, augmented by collaborator Scott Ingersoll’s electric guitar work.

“I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the sound would be,” Harnishfeger said. “With Cathedral Pearls, I’d done the indie rock thing and had played with singer-songwriter stuff. For a really long time, I’ve been fascinated by electronic music and synthesizers. So basically I was in limbo for a long time, writing stuff without much direction.”

But he seems to have found himself. Last year, Water Monster released a five-song EP titled “Survive the Night,” featuring lush soundscapes that owe as much to ’80s electronica as modern-day indie bedroom recordings.

“I’m always trying to be open to discovering new things and experimenting with things,” Harnishfeger said. “Whether it starts with a beat or a melody or a lyric I build the beat and the song around, it usually comes from a place of experimentation. … A lot of times I’ll come up with a groove and then improvise around that until something sticks.”

Harnishfeger does the lion’s share of the songwriting, while Ingersoll (who often performs under the stage name Scott Ryan) helps shape the finished product with his guitar accompaniments. Having played mostly supporting roles in his previous musical projects, Harnishfeger said that having almost total creative control over his music has allowed him to be shrewder and more exploratory.

“It’s more difficult because I’m a little more critical of myself,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like I have a finished idea, then I’ll want to tear it to the ground and rebuild it from scratch to see if I can get something a little more refined. … This is the first project I’ve ever been a part of where I’m the one steering the ship. It’s a little bit of a new experience in the sense that I’m the one making the creative decisions and deciding what direction to take it.”