“Lights Down Low” isn’t just MAX‘s first big hit: it’s also the song he used to pop the question to his wife, Emily. But MAX says he never expected a song inspired by their love to become a hit, let alone one other couples would use for their proposals.
“I had no foresight of it being this ‘Lights Down Low’-on-the-radio kinda thing, that’s the most amazing part,” MAX tells ABC Radio. “That it just came from [love] and then…me using it to propose to her — it’s sorta been this through line of just staying true to who we are.”
As for that proposal, it happened in Chicago, on the site of their first date.
“I had a harp player,” he recalls to ABC Radio. “Because we would always joke about having a harp player that would wake us up in the morning on our balcony. And so Emily walked into this room where we had our first date, and I was standing there with a harp player.”
“She started playing, and I started singing [‘Lights Down Low’],” he continues. “Emily started crying, and I started crying, and then I couldn’t really sing the song! And then I got down on one knee and proposed.”
It wasn’t just the song that MAX incorporated into the proposal: his parents were also involved.
“My parents got the ring the day before, ’cause it was my great-grandmother’s stone,” he explains. “They got it made, and they flew to Chicago with it, so they were literally, like, Lord of the Rings-style bringing me the ring! …and they’re standing in the corner while I’m proposing to my wife and it was…just like…all things kinda came together.”
Copyright © 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.