John Maus
John Maus is an American musician, composer, singer, and songwriter known for his baritone singing style and his use of vintage synthesizer sounds and medieval music church modes, a combination that often draws comparisons to 1980s goth-pop. His early lo-fi music recordings anticipated and inspired the late 2000s hypnagogic pop movement. On stage, he is characterized for his intense displays of emotion while performing. He is also a former teacher of philosophy at the University of Hawaiʻi, where he later earned his PhD in political science.
Maus' early influences included Nirvana, a-ha, Syd Barrett, Jim Morrison, and composers of the medieval music, Renaissance music, and Baroque music eras. In 1998, he left his hometown of Austin, Minnesota to study experimental music at the California Institute of the Arts. When he befriended and first worked alongside classmate Ariel Pink, he took a greater interest in pop music. He produced most of the music from his first two albums Songs and Love Is Real on cassette tape with an early 1990s sound bank. The albums generally drew negative reviews upon release, and it was not until the success of his third, We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, that he became more widely accepted as an outsider music artist. Following a five-year absence from public appearances and releasing new music, he returned with the albums Screen Memories in 2017, and Addendum in 2018. His sixth studio album, Later Than You Think, was released in September 2025.
Writings about Maus frequently link his music to his academic vocations, although Maus himself denies composing with an aesthetic or political theory in mind. He says that on some of his songs, his intention is to investigate "forgotten" electronic palettes, harmonies that were historically associated with "the divine", and lyrics that follow certain social idioms to their "absurd conclusions". His dissertation, "Communication and Control", discusses the influence of technology on social control.
Biography
Early years
Maus was born and raised in Austin, Minnesota and had what he described as a "spoiled ass" upbringing. The earliest songs he could recall hearing was "Chariots of Fire" by Vangelis, and after that, early MTV hits such as Starship's "We Built This City". As a teenager, he listened mainly to Nirvana and Syd Barrett, 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 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.In 1998, Maus began his undergraduate in music composition at the California Institute of the Arts, by which time he had formed an appreciation for experimental music, such as the work of Michael Pisaro, as well as medieval music, Renaissance music and Baroque music. When he befriended and began to work alongside classmate Ariel Pink, he took a greater interest in pop music. The first time he heard Rosenberg play was at a concert put up by students from the visual arts department. He recalled thinking: "You know, Okay, maybe I’m not going to do experimental music anymore, because I was... doing all of these performances like Morton Feldman| Feldman and John Cage| Cage.... I left that aside and took up pop as the best bet, largely because of my encounter there with Ariel, and the early work he was doing." Rosenberg called Maus "arguably my best friend" 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. For a time, Maus was a member of the Haunted Graffiti stage band. They collaborated on the title track of Rosenberg's Lover Boy. 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
In 2003, Rosenberg signed to Animal Collective's Paw Tracks, and over the next few years, some of his early, self-released CD-Rs were widely distributed for the first time. Maus had also self-released CD-Rs of his work, which he submitted to several labels, including Paw Tracks and Kill Rock Stars, but was rejected. Both Maus and Rosenberg backed Animal Collective's Panda Bear for his solo tour of Europe, where Maus served as keyboardist. Sometimes Maus was also the opening act for these shows. Eventually, after a performance in London, he encountered agents from Upset the Rhythm, who agreed to distribute his music. Although Maus' first two official albums Songs and Love Is Real generally drew negative reviews upon release, he gradually built a cult following.After Love Is Real, Maus was awarded a scholarship to study political philosophy at the University of Hawaiʻi, where he had a day job as a lecturer. In the evenings, he continued working on music from his office. In 2009, Maus relocated from Hawaii to a secluded cabin in Minnesota, where he struggled to write material for a third album. He said that he eventually gave up, and instead began "doing lots of chemistry projects and chromatography experiments. I set myself on fire a few times heating inflammable solvents." Meanwhile, he continued his studies at the European Graduate School in Saas Fee, Switzerland and earned his master's degree. He did not live in Switzerland, "but would go out there in the summers. It's like that Black Mountain thing that they did over here years ago, where they bring out all of the heavy hitters and you can study with them yourself."
One of his professors from the university was the French philosopher Alain Badiou, who would originate the title of his third album We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves. Maus wrote the album in "search for the perfect pop song." After the album's positive response, he grew more widely accepted as an outsider music artist, and there was a critical reevaluation of his earlier work. In 2012, the album was followed with the compilation A Collection of Rarities and Previously Unreleased Material. Spanning recordings from 1999 to 2010, the collection selects outtakes from his previous three albums in addition to tracks which had appeared on other compilations. The album was conceived by Ribbon Music; Maus did not consider it an "official record" but was "grateful that they thought anybody would be interested in having it."
In a 2011 Pitchfork interview, Maus suggested that he was happy that music was increasingly becoming free to the public and that record stores were "coming to an end". The remarks embroiled him in an online controversy, after which he tweeted a lengthy apology which clarified that he was referring to "the Megastores of the world", not "the small DIY record shops".
2012–present
Maus envisioned that after he completed his PhD dissertation, he would return to teaching, stating in 2011 that he could not foresee a career in music. At the same time, he started experimenting with recreational drugs for the first time in his life, "going into sensory deprivation tanks and just trying any trick I could think of. I became solely obsessed with this at the expense of anything else." From 2012 to 2016, he did not release any new music, and spent the majority of the time in isolation. Two years were devoted to finishing his dissertation, while another two were spent learning how to build modular synthesizers. Completed and submitted in 2014, the 338-page thesis "Communication and Control" discussed the influence of technology on social control, and he was thereby awarded his PhD in political science from the University of Hawaiʻi, where his thesis advisor was Michael J. Shapiro. He immediately started building the instruments that were ultimately used for the recording of his next album. At least two albums' worth of tracks were finished shortly before the end of 2016.His fourth official album, Screen Memories, was released on October 27, 2017. It was followed by Addendum on April 20, 2018. In an October 2017 interview, Maus indicated a desire to record an album with Rosenberg: "We’re both swamped right now... but I've been talking about it for a long time, and he's been talking about it. It’s just a question of finding the right moment, which I think will be after this." To support Screen Memories and Addendum, he embarked on his first solo tour with a live band, featuring his brother Joe Maus on bass, Minneapolis musician Luke Darger on keyboards, and Jonathan Thompson on drums. The tour began on August 15, 2017 and lasted until the next year. On July 28, 2018, Joe Maus died hours before a planned show at the annual Cēsis Art Festival in Latvia. His obituary stated that the cause was a "previously undiagnosed heart condition". The remaining dates were immediately cancelled. Later in the year, Maus resumed touring without his backing band.
Since then, Maus has played occasional gigs, including a November 2021 performance at the music festival Substance in Los Angeles. Maus had invited Ariel Pink to be his sound engineer for this performance; however, one of the festival promoters recommended against this out of fear of controversy. According to Pink, Maus, who would have protested out of principle, went ahead with the performance due to financial troubles. Pink recalled, "I said, I’ll pay you the money. I know they’re not paying you that much." He and Maus have not spoken since.
In July 2023, George Clanton's ElectroniCON 2023 music festival removed Maus from their line up following complaints on social media and from other scheduled performers. Maus donated his cancellation fee to social justice charities and, in a subsequent statement, apologized for unintentionally making "the ElectroniCON artists & fans feel unsafe". In 2024, Maus completed a sold out European tour consisting of 43 dates. In June 2025, Maus announced his sixth studio album Later Than You Think, set for release on September 26 of that year, and also announced the 'American Pilgrimage' tour.