The Quiet Flame: Maxwell LeVan on Restlessness, Rebirth, and the Power of Pop

It’s almost midnight when Maxwell LeVan finally picks up. I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor of my apartment, half-finished coffee going cold on the windowsill, the city humming somewhere outside my cracked window. “Sorry,” he says, his voice soft but awake. “I’ve been in the studio. Lost track of time.”

There’s a calm to the way he speaks—like someone who’s been walking around with too many thoughts in his head for too long and finally found someone to hand a few to. We talk about everything and nothing: Virginia, growing pains, the weird limbo between dreaming big and trying to stay grounded. At one point, almost in passing, he says, “James Arthur followed me on Instagram this morning.” He lets it hang for a beat. “That was kind of surreal.”

He doesn’t linger on it, but the moment feels emblematic—like the universe nudging him, quiet and cool. A strange sort of confirmation.

LeVan, 21, is no stranger to the edge. Over the last three years, the Virginia-born singer, songwriter, and producer has built a quietly growing cult following on the back of songs that feel like whispered confessions wrapped in pop polish—and sometimes, punk grit. His 2022 debut Less Than Strangers painted the portrait of a young artist caught in the act of becoming. With 2024’s Journal Entries I Burned, he turned inward—peeling back every layer to reveal something raw, aching, and strangely triumphant.

Now, in a season that feels both transitional and electric, LeVan is entering what might be the most pivotal chapter of his career yet. He won’t say much on the record about the project he’s working on—except that it’s “something worth staying alive for.”

“I think Journal Entries was closure, in a way…” he says. “But not like, ‘here’s a clean ending.’ More like, ‘here’s what I’ve learned from the wreckage.’ And maybe also: ‘here’s what I still don’t understand.’”

That album was made in the middle of a lot of personal chaos—grief, breakups, the kind of stuff you think you’re over until you try to write about something else and your brain’s like, ‘nope, we’re still here.’

LeVan is the kind of artist who seems to carry other people’s pain with him. He writes with the voice of someone much older, but speaks like someone who’s still stunned to be heard at all. In conversation, he’s quick to credit others—mentors, artists he admires, even a random guy who gave him advice in a studio voice memo that might end up on a future EP. But in his music, he commands space like someone who knows exactly where he’s going.

“It’s less about being analytical and more about being sensitive to everything—your surroundings, your emotions, other people’s energy,” he says. “I write for the kids who couldn’t fall asleep because their thoughts were too loud. I write for my past self, honestly—for the version of me that was, and sometimes still is, alone in his bedroom, looping the same six-second voice memo at 2 AM, trying to make sense of something.”

“I think I used to write to feel better. Now I write to feel honest. That’s a weirder place to create from. But it’s real.”

His breakout tracks planet and radio both landed on iHeartRadio’s aBreak58 playlist in 2024, but he barely posted about it at the time. “I didn’t want to make it a big thing,” he says simply. “Maybe I should’ve. But those moments feel more like green lights than trophies.”

His songs haven’t exploded overnight. They’ve spread like smoke—through word of mouth, soft reposts, and the kinds of messages people send but never bring up again. Quiet. Unshakeable. Growing all the same.

“If Less Than Strangers was the beginning and Journal Entries I Burned was the unraveling,” I ask, “what’s this next era?”

“I think it’s the rebirth,” he says. “But not the clean kind—not like, ‘new hair, new me.’ More like… realizing you’re still here, and that means something. There’s beauty in not giving up.”

Right now, LeVan’s working on what might be his most important release to date. Details are sparse—by design. He’s dropped hints and hoodies here and there, enough to get people talking, but not enough to break the spell.

Still, something’s coming. And those paying attention can feel it.

He’s said this next project feels like “waking up after years of sleepwalking.” That it’s “the most myself I’ve ever sounded.” And if the past few years were about finding the words—this one might be about finally believing them.

He won’t confirm the album title. Not yet. But if the lyrics, visuals, and unreleased demos I’ve heard are any indication, Maxwell LeVan is not just waking up—he’s about to make sure the rest of the world does too.

“What’s something you know now that you didn’t know when you started?” I ask him before we hang up.

“That it’s okay to feel too much,” he says without missing a beat. “That feeling too much is actually a kind of superpower—if you can learn how to use it.”

He laughs softly, like he’s just admitted something he wasn’t planning to. “Anyway,” he says, “sorry for rambling.”

But I don’t think he was rambling at all.

— Written by Katie Miller for Pop Echo