Interview With The L.A. Maybe

How did the band come together?

We formed out of the ashes of a Journey tribute band. So, we can still jam out to Journey if anybody wants to hear some. And then we were sitting around one day at the pool in my apartment complex, and I was thinking, ‘We have everything we need for a band right here.’ So, we started. Originally, it was just four of us, and then we went through a couple of lineup changes. As they say, the rest is history. Our first show was New Year’s Eve, 2018. We’re really happy with who we have now, especially with the addition of our new keyboard player, Josh Thompson. He’s only been with the band for a couple of shows, and he’s just a great asset.

You guys can pull off Guns N’ Roses.

We actually just unveiled a brand-new Guns N’ Roses tribute band called Anything Goes to the World. The first show was February 21 at Amos’ Southend. It was basically sold out. And we just had such a blast doing that stuff. We’ve been doing Guns for so long. Of course, our singer, Goliath, can hit all the high notes. Slash is my biggest influence; I just have so much fun playing all those parts. We do a lot of cover shows, we do a lot of tribute shows, but original music is where it’s at for us. That’s where we want to focus and grow.

Would you say GNR and other ‘80s hair bands are your main influences?

Guns N’ Roses, yes, but then we skew a little older: Zeppelin, Aerosmith. And then newer with the Black Crowes, Chris Cornell, Soundgarden, a lot of the grunge stuff. Then all the way up to now, with bands like Dirty Honey. They’re a big influence of ours. I mean, we consider them our peers, but they’re much further down the road than we are. And it’s really cool to see that kind of old-school, swaggery rock making a return.

The bands today don’t put on a show like that anymore.

Yeah, and I think the timing is good. I’ve seen a lot of bands, especially Greta Van Fleet, rolling up, which I think was pretty surprising for most people, myself included. Seeing that kind of thing happen gives me hope that there’s a demand for rock music now that hasn’t been there of late. I think we’re kind of at the right place, at the right time. We’ve got to just keep doing what we’re doing and see how it all plays out.

You released your debut EP last fall.

Yep, that was October, and our newest single, “Fake,” came out February 25. So, between those two releases, we have five original songs available everywhere you listen to music.

You’re also the band’s lyricist, correct?

Yeah, I’m the primary songwriter and lead guitarist, and that’s pretty much my bag of tricks.

From where do you get your ideas?

We have a podcast, “The Reckless Podcast,” and we were just talking about this in the last episode. It’s so different for every single thing I write, but I actually do a decent amount of writing in my dreams. That’s how I’ve had some ideas make it to the final round. But, a lot of it feels like it’s been beamed down to me. I just get hit with this like, ‘Oh, you know what, that’s the lyric right there.’ Or, I’ll be writing a riff, and then I’ll say something, and that’ll be what winds up happening. Like when I blurted out, ‘She’s reckless,’ and then we kind of went from there.

How has the band been affected by the coronavirus?

We’ve had to cancel some shows. I don’t like to sit around and complain and play the victim, but yeah, we’ve been affected. We’re taking this time to be as productive as we can on the creative side. We have 10, 12 songs in the works from different people in the band. So, we’ve really used the time and turned it toward our advantage. We still meet every week for virtual rehearsals, which is where we send videos to each other about what we’re working on. And we do the podcast every week, and we’re on Skype calls, Zoom calls. Then, hopefully, when all this is over, we’ll get back in the room with a bunch of new songs ready to go, and we’ll be able to blow the doors down when it’s time.

What are your favorite Ballantyne venues?

Hickory Tavern in Ballantyne near the traffic circle – that’s one of my favorite places to play. We have so many good memories there. We love the management and the staff. It’s just a really good place to play. And one time, it was probably May 2019, Ballantyne Village hired us to play. We played right on the street. That was a fun show. Pretty crazy. We had people come up on stage; they broke one of our microphones. It was a good time (laughing).

We look forward to coming to one of your shows again.

Yeah, definitely, we’d love to have you. We’re looking forward to seeing our fans again.

Keep up with The L.A. Maybe: lamaybe.com