Last year, Max Frost had a creative awakening. Since becoming a professional musician and scoring genre-mashing hits including “White Lies” and “Adderall,” the forward-thinking pop maestro felt he hadn’t shown his true colors. “I realized I needed to completely change what I was doing and what I was trying to create into something a little bolder, a little bit more honest and less controlled,” he says. “I needed to take the veil off and let myself be a little more naked and a little more direct.” He’d spent nearly his entire life in Austin, Texas, so moving to Los Angeles in 2017 “was about having a fresh start -- reinventing myself as much as a person as an artist.” Once he touched down in LA, he immediately got to work creating what turned out to be some of the most inventive songs of his young career. “I finally had the balls to be vulnerable,” says Frost, who once in LA teamed up with Michael “Fitz” Fitzpatrick (Fitz and The Tantrums) and began constructing the songs that would comprise Gold Rush, his major-label full-length debut LP, executive produced by Fitz, with major help from Mick Schultz (Rihanna, Jeremih). Reflecting on the personal and creative journey he’s undergone in the past year, Frost says he’s finally freed himself of self-imposed restrictions and become “one-hundred percent honest” with himself as both a human being and songwriter. “I stopped trying to control how cool my music came across and just be myself,” he says. “I had to let it be open and direct and in-your-face.” Now the 26-year-old singer, multi-instrumentalist and dynamic live performer, who in a few short years has seen his star rise in a major way thanks to tours with everyone from Twenty One Pilots, Panic! At The Disco, Fitz and The Tantrums, and Gary Clark Jr., being featured on a recent DJ Snake single and having four consecutive songs go to Number One on HypeMachine, says he’s never been adamant about pushing the limits of what constitutes pop music. “I definitely care way less now about trying to be niche,” says the quick-witted singer behind the infectious, groove-anchored new single “Good Morning.” “I’ve realized that I want to make stuff that a lot more people can relate to and can be affected by. If you’re just trying to make these weird songs and if you’re consciously trying to be eclectic,” he adds, “I think that’s as cheesy as consciously trying to be commercial.” Frost admits there was a time he tried to talk himself out of making pop music. “I used to purposely avoid putting hooks in a song,” says the musician whose soul-infected sonic gems have soundtracked a global Beats by Dre campaign and been featured in television shows including “Power” and “Brave,” “But honestly I almost feel like you’re going against biology if you’re trying to make music that doesn’t have hooks. Because if you boil it down it’s like, what’s a hook?’ It’s something that hits your brain in this specific way.”