Originally, the first songs were written while on the road to recovery from a broken right femur. I spent a ton of time by myself and in my room thinking about things that seemed omnipotent at the time. I was at a personal crossroads and had nothing but time to figure out what would come next in my life.
I had grown up with Dana Slay and we shared a similar taste in music, so it was only natural that we got together every once in a while to create. She would write keyboard and harmony parts to my songs and that lead to the earliest days of The Maitlins…our first show was at a place in The Valley called ‘CIA.’ Eventually Blake Peterson of ‘Slippers’ joined us to play bass for our first couple of live shows in Long Beach. I had spent time delivering pizzas with him and had a connection with him through reggae music. Blake Whytock also played guitar with us for the first two shows at ‘Que Sera’ and ‘The Knitting Factory,’ in 2001. At that point there was nothing serious about what we were doing and time with his other band kept Blake P. very busy. Eventually I hooked up with Andrew Parker through skateboarding…and then he introduced me to Sean Copeland. Sean and Andrew came over to my place on 14th St. in Seal and recorded my initial tracks on Sean’s Roland 1880. Several weeks later, Andrew and Sean would reveal that they recorded drums and bass lines over those original recordings- The Maitlins of today began that day. We’ve been playing shows and recording off and on since then, probably around 2003. We’ve recently made some time for each other and worked on some new music together. Making music with people you’ve grown to LOVE is something hard to put into words, hopefully by listening to our music you can identify with how much it means to me. The music has come a long way and has changed as much as each of our lives have…
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Here are two of the newest recordings. More on The Maitlins.
