Porn Valley- Here’s the second part of my Max Hardcore interview – www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=28369 which was conducted back in the day. After ten years, this is its first time appearing anywhere.

Max, who’s originally from Racince, Wisconsin, talks about how he first got into photography as a hobby.

“I started working for newspapers- and as you know the pay’s lousy, really bad unless you’re with the LA Times or the NY Times,” he’s commenting.

“I made some connections and talked to people out of Miami. I was in Key West at the time. This guy comes down and is looking for me to shoot a parade. I said I’ll shoot for you and do you have any fashion work? He says, we do. I didn’t know you shot that. I said, yeah, I shoot that. They sent some models down for some clothing line. I shot ‘em. They loved the work. We took some shots out on the beach. I thought this is easy and I’m getting paid ten times the money.”

According to Max, the gig went on for awhile. Then Max started doing some nudie photography.

“Then videos got worked into the mix and we started doing private parties,” he recalls. “I got a couple of scenes which could never get released. This was all in Key West. There were these tourist girls- all they wanted to do was fuck and get drunk. It was like shooting fish in a barrel down there, it was so easy.”

“I saw a great opportunity and I was completely happy with that,” he says. “I was getting fucked all the time. I’m videotaping it. We’re having parties. It’s great. But when you live in Key West they got a thing called rock fever. There’s no place to go. You’re trapped on this island, and that was driving me nuts. But I was going off to Miami regularly so it wasn’t too bad.”

“Then it happened. I saw a John Stagliano tape. I saw Buttman I said what the fuck is this shit? It was nothing I had ever seen before. I was watching stuff and shooting on my own for private collections. I thought his stuff was horrible but interesting. I said jeezus, man, if this guy can get these tapes distributed anybody could do it. So I talked to my older brother Mark [who has since passed away].

“I said what do you think about this? Meanwhile, Mark had some adult video stores back in Wisconsin so he was doing business with a lot of guys in Los Angeles,” Max continues.

“He knew Peter Davy. So he asked Davy if he thought he could use anything from me. He said, sure, send him out. So I went out to see him, Bobby Genova and Bobby Hollander. Those three guys at LBO were the first people I met. And we came up with Mr. Peepers. At first I didn’t have an identity then I started focusing. I wanted to do a few scenes but I also wanted to get other guys into the mix. We were doing amateurs so we had to use new guys. I’m using these guys and they’re fucking deadbeats. They can’t cum or they can’t get it hard. It was terrible. Half the scenes turned out like that.”

“I said, fuck, I’m going to do it myself. Then I jumped in and the first couple of scenes were rough but I got the hang of it. Then I started doing the same thing Buttman was doing- on some of the scenes, not all. I thought, Christ, this is easy. No problem.”

“I had been into the business about a year, and we were watching one of my tapes,” Max continues.

“I had already created Analvision which was more like vignettes- one of the first pro-am based series back in 1992. I was looking at one of my tapes. I thought this is tired. Then I looked at some Rodney Moore stuff and thought this is way tired. We got to come up with something new. Bingo. Get a regular cameraman. Come around to the front of the camera, get people talking into the camera, speaking directly into the camera. First of all it sounds better, and then you can do more interesting editing with it. And it was what I saw them doing on MTV at the time. They were experimenting with it, too.”

“I knew we hit on something and it exploded since then,” continues Max.

“And we really got a strong grip on it and I didn’t think anyone was going to catch up with us because we were routinely knocked off by other people- both in technique and style. But that didn’t bother me.”

“I don’t know anyone who can do it as nimbly as we can do it. I saw something Peter North did on a Jim Enright shoot. They did it with this bodybuilding guy Tony Little and I thought this is good. But I decided early on that we were going to establish an identity for Max. It was going to be different and in bold relief.”

“How many girls would shit themselves when you’d fuck them in the ass?” I ask Max.

“Once in awhile,” he replies. “It happens but not too often. Mostly you’d get a little crap on the dick. But it’s no big deal. It doesn’t bother me at all. The fumes bother me more than anything. Like when you’re in the doggie position and up above them and doing the cradle, then the butthole starts opening and the fumes come up- that bothers me more than anything else. But a little bit of shit on the dick, no problems. Wash cloth and move on.”

“How was your success ratio with girls back in high school?” I ask him.

“I would say I was average,” Max replies. “At the time I didn’t have good focus. Except I liked working on projects. To me an idea of a good Saturday night would be out in the garage with the boys listening to ZZ Top and working on the hot rod. That was my idea of a good time. As we all know, girls don’t like sitting in garages looking at the hot rod. They prefer to be in the hot rod driving up and down Main Street.

“Once I figured that out I started getting really good. If high school kids are reading this- and they shouldn’t be- the easiest thing in the world is get yourself some wheels. And fast wheels at that, because the girls come running as fast as they can.”

“The fastest set I had was probably a Chevy Nova,” Max continues. “It was a dark blue, nice metallic. It only worked good going in the straight line. You tried to turn, that thing would flip over. We punched out the engine, bored and stroked it, put in new pistons. I had guys who would do all this work for me after hours. This was like 1973. And that fucker would burn rubber in all four gears. It was a pussy magnet deluxe. I’d take it to school.”

“As soon as I got out of high school I got out of Wisconsin because that was a dead end,” says Max.

“What I saw happening there was death. Factories were closing at the time. Industry was moving to Taiwan and Mexico. It was a blue collar area- a lot of German immigrants up there. I said, fuck, I got to get out of here. It was brutally cold, and like warm weather. I don’t know why anyone would want to live there to be honest with you.”

From there, the first place Max went was Albuquerque, New Mexico. He went because he heard Albuquerque was cool.

“It’s just a big city and not particularly warm,” he recalls. “In fact it gets very cold in the winter so I fucked up. I worked for the Santana band for one tour at the time. Then I went back to Wisconsin, regrouped, built a van with a cab on the back. I loaded it up and headed down to Florida. I got smart- I did a little more research this time.

“Key West was a cool place. Probably in retrospect I would have been better off in Miami. But Key West is nice with all the girls. All the pussy would come down there. I moved there with a girl but she left shortly afterwards to go back to Wisconsin for some fucked up reason. But I couldn’t stay there because obviously I belonged here.”

“I might not appear at first glance, to the untrained eye, but I really made a serious study of my craft,” he insists.

“I was a photographer to begin with. And once I decided to get into movie making, I studied every shot. What is it and why do we do this shot and how can we make it better, tighter and more concise. On the editing, at first I had no control over it. I would possibly talk to the editor while he picked up the tapes but I was so disappointed with some of my early work for just that reason.

“As a filmmaker you just go out and chop down the trees and drag them back to the mill. It’s the guy at the mill that makes the lumber and puts the house together, makes the movie. It’s especially true with our new series, MaxWorld where we’re working on as many as 20 different source tapes. I do most of the principal photography. I’ve never gone to school for it but I’ve read a lot of books and I studied every film on television.

“I look at the way they light it. How they do their shots. What certain things mean.”

To which Max says he loves movies and goes every week.

“Jackie Chan- Super Cop, it blew me away,” he comments. “I love that stuff. I’m not much of a drama guy. I love action. Fast paced, big budget Hollywood action. That’s entertainment to me that takes you on a roller coaster. To see a movie where they’re just talking back and forth, I’ll pass.

“I want to see car chases, gun play, explosions, that type of thing. Parachutes. The opening of Golden Eye was one of the most tremendous five minutes anybody put together for film. And that’s what we endeavor to do now.”

Max said he’d love to make a real movie but at the same time he wasn’t going to live in a trailer in Pacoima for five years trying to pedal a project.