Pool Of Sound - The Maybes?

The Maybes?

'The Maybes?' were an indie rock band from Liverpool with all members close friends coming from the Anfield and Kensington districts. Their initial line-up was Nick Ellis on guitar and vocals, Lee Smith on guitar and vocals, Timo Tierney on guitar and vocals and Dominic Allen on drums and percussion. They attended Liverpool Community College and, judging by their name spray-painted a lot around the city, were quite well known, performing their first gig in the Casa in 2002.
With Nick Otaegui added to the band, playing bass guitar and vocals, in 2006 'The Maybes?' signed their first deal with London-based record label Xtra Mile Recordings. The label released their first record, 'Fantastic Apparatus' c/w 'Stop, Look & Listen', on a split 7" vinyl with 'Dartz!' in January 2006 as part of the Xtra Mile Single Sessions. They also brought out their debut EP 'Olympia' in October of that year.

The band had been one of the headline acts at the Liverpool Mathew Street Festival in 2006 and were again in 2007, when they also appeared at the Knowsley Hall Music Festival. They began recording their album 'Promise' in late 2007 and, when they had finished recording it in early 2008, set about touring Britain again playing for local and national radio shows. It was around the same time that their second single, 'Talk About You', was released on download. In April 2008, they launched their own club night at Nation, the home of Cream, called Sonic Temple and in the summer of 2008 played some of the big music festivals such as the V Festival, the Isle Of Wight Festival and the Reading and Leeds Festival. The year 2008 also saw the release of their debut album, 'Promise', produced by Head as well as the singles 'Boys' and 'Summertime'.

Performing live at the Mathew Street Festival 2006

Their single 'Promise' was also used as the theme song for the 2010 Friends Provident T20 cricket competition in England and Wales. The track was played when the teams took to the field at the start of the game and was played during the hand shakes.
In 2008 Paul Lester in The Guardian wrote, "The Maybes? are the first name on people's lips if you ask about current Liverpool talent, they have been around for a while, building up a live following and issuing the odd single, but they're only now about to release their debut album. They have the dual impulses of 'The Beatles' in that they do the chirpy, cheeky, upbeat three-minute jingling-guitar stuff as well as the longer, more experimental and exploratory stuff. Actually, they mainly do the former, but when they do the latter, boy do they do it well. 'Promise', their forthcoming debut LP, for which they have enlisted the services of a producer called Head (PJ Harvey, Massive Attack and Therapy? – he obviously has a thing about the interrogative) is full of those short, sharp, bittersweet guitar-pop songs: 'Summertime', the new single, is typical with its eager, rasping Scouse vocals and frantic drums that gallop towards the exuberant chorus. Their previous single 'Boys', sounds like a cover version of a Hamburg or Cavern-era Beatles tune and 'Talk About You', another earlier single that will also appear on the album, is about the breakdown of a relationship, but it actually captures well the heady sensation you get when you finally break free from a crap ex-partner – so far, so jolly. Then there's the title track of the album, and that is something else entirely."

Liverpool went mad for 'The Maybes?' as Nick Otaegui recalls, "The Bandwagon was a big thing, we used to get down one night a month and we're not talking like 100 people, it was like 300/350 sold out every month, with people waiting outside to try and get in."
The band went mad for it too at the time but, in true rock and roll fashion, they burned out around 2010 when very little of their potential had been fulfilled, even the new album they had in the pipeline with new songs they felt were a lot stronger and more focused than on the 'Promise' album. They also had a new member, Gareth who they felt had given the group a new dimension. Nick Ellis had said, "Getting Gareth in the band made us look at the tunes in a different way, it was like learning to play again."

As Nick later told Bido Lito, "We lived in each other's pockets, rehearsing five days a week, gigs, record companies, all that. We wanted to stay independent, which meant we did everything ourselves – but everything's got a longevity, a shelf life, and I think we'd just done what we set out to do and there wasn't, I don't think, anywhere left to go with it. It was a long time, 10 years, and it was full on."

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2020/05/pool-of-sound-wombats.html