A Quick Conversation with....Maybelleen

I love finding out about great new bands, being able to do a Q&A and reviewing their recently released EP all at once. That great new band for me today is Maybelleen who are from Montréal and are comprised of Peter and Charles Camiré, a young brother duo. The boys have been raised surrounded by the music of their dad, a pop rock psychedelic musician who is now their producer.

Photo courtesy: Neelam Khan Vela

In 2012 they recorded their first demo “Gold In Our Hands” which was a proper release with stand out tracks like “Gold” and “Bring To Light”. Last year they completed their first independent tour of the UK.

With their recent successes and the new Stereotypes EP released today on cassette tape by Rubber Brother Records out of Phoenix, AZ and Little L Records from Carlow, Ireland – Maybelleen is an up and coming band you want to keep your eye on.

Maybelleen considers themselves dream pop but after listening to Stereotypes in it’s entirety, I definitely hear psychedelic influences in their sound and almost a throwback element that is paying homage to the greats like The Beatles. For myself, there is no genre box to check off to describe Maybelleen and that is what I find that I like most about them. While psych bands like Temples or Allah Lahs stick to just that genre and do it well, Maybelleen has formed a unique and fresh sound that combines the best of distorted guitars, dreamy reverb, lovely vocals and that perfected pop rock that you want to keep going back to.

My favorite tracks from the EP are “Emily”, “Stereotypes”, “Time Machine”, and “To Know Me Better Now”.

Now that I have my little mini-review out of the way..let’s get to a few questions so you guys can get to know Peter and Charles a little bit better.

With the recent success of bands like Temples and Allah-Las, the psych genre is prime for success these days. What I like about you guys is that you are melding pop/rock with psychedelic influences and it’s quite good. How did growing up in a musical household shape your sound?

First of all, since we’re babies and way before that, our father was always writing songs, recording in the house, studios or anywhere he could. He started as a singer songwriter and musician at a very young age, and joined many different bands and studios. When we were kids and we came back from school, he always had new ideas and new melodies. That was amazing and so we started to create together, collaborate on new ideas and things like that until today. And somehow, when we started to write our first songs, we were unconsciously imitating him. The Maybelleen’s sound is definitely something that has been alive for a long time. We also had a large vinyl library in our living room where we could put on some Beach Boys, Electric Light Orchestra, Tom Petty,The Cars, Boston and so on…

So you don’t have to reveal your age in this question, but just curious – how long have you two been playing music together?

As soon as we could get our hands on any instruments in the house. As brothers, we have always done everything together.

Since you guys are a family band, do you two do everything collaboratively or do each of you have different roles in the creative process?

The songwriting process is an individual thing for us but we don’t hide our melodies from each other… We like to share our ideas. And when it comes time to record, we are looking to get out the best of each track, and that’s where JF comes and keeps the songs united together and he gives that very wide sound to the band.

How did your UK tour go? I see the US is next, are you guys excited about hitting the road to the states?

The United-Kingdom has been cool, obviously it’s amazing for a first tour outside of Canada. We just want to move constantly to new places and get people to hear our music so, of course we’re excited. Anywhere we could play where people want to hear Maybelleen is an excitement for us.

I really like the Stereotypes EP and am excited to hear what you guys do in the future. Besides your debut EP and a spring tour, what else does Maybelleen have in store this year?

We got new t-shirts! No… Seriously, we want to grow as a band, as human beings and we have so many songs written, it would be cool to put out 3 or 4 records this year like The Beatles use to do haha. I wish It could be like the old days. We really want the Maybelleen entity to grow and push our future EPs to new levels.

I want to thank JF Camiré for influencing Charles and Peter and inspiring them to create their own musical path so that I can sit here and enjoy what they have created. The Stereotypes EP is available on cassette from Rubber Brother Records, or you can purchase the digital version on their bandcamp page.