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W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 79 Fact Book / Doing Business in Maine P H OTO E S S AY C O N T I N U E D F O L L OW I N G PA G E » conversation. So bands, take note: have kind people working your merchandise table. You never know which conversation might open a door. After the show, I saw Will Mallett standing near the merch table, still talking with fans as people slowly filtered out of the opera house. I debated whether to introduce myself. en, finally mustering the confi- dence, I walked over, shook his hand, and told him I was the guy with the photos of the band performing with his dad. ABOVE: Two days before the Fourth of July, Nick and I set out in his 16-foot Starcraft boat. After photographing him on Casco Bay, we escape the heat with a quick swim in the ocean. Nick owns three boats in southern Maine and two more at his family's camp. For him, boating offers a sense of freedom and endless opportunities to fish, swim and explore. ABOVE: Nick said the fans help keep the band moving forward by spreading the word and bringing more people to their shows. "They're the ones that keep us going," he said. "It's great, every bit of it. It's the whole point of it." ABOVE: Andrew tries to spend at least 45 minutes each day playing piano at the Yarmouth home he shares with his wife and three teenage sons. Raised in Portland, he takes enormous pride in being part of a Maine band. He sees performing songs about Maine and its people as "one of the most special things that we can give to Maine, because we're all Mainers." ABOVE: Brian shares a close bond with Aaron, his 15-year-old purebred cocker spaniel and former show dog. Brian spent more than three years in Florida away from the group. While there, he began caring for four former show dogs, all cocker spaniels, and Aaron quickly became attached to him. When Brian returned to Maine and rejoined the band, the dogs' owner allowed him to bring Aaron with him. Rejoining the band brought Brian back to a life in music that had never been about money. He was "kind of a nerdy kid" without many friends, and music gave him an outlet that suited his introverted nature. "Once you do it and once you get that feeling, you want more," he explained. "It's like you catch the bug of creativity." ABOVE: Luke lives on a farm in Gorham owned by his wife's family and shaped by her lifelong work with horses. Fifteen horses live on the property, most of them boarded there. In July, I meet Luke at the band's rehearsal space and "headquarters" in Portland, where he has a small recording setup for making demos and capturing ideas before they slip away. He often begins a song with a single phrase and builds outward from there. "Even as a little kid, I was all about words," he said. He filled notebooks with poetry and short stories and attended creative writing programs in high school. "He's kind of a man of few words, but he'll kind of go deep quickly lyrically, which is always cool," Will said of his brother's writing. For Luke, songwriting is part of a larger commitment to building his life around music. He said he is content living modestly, regardless of the size of the crowd, as long as he can keep creating and performing. "I feel most at home onstage and on the road," he said. "That's why I do it." He added, "The only way to make it work is to go all in and to hell with the money." en I told him the rest. I told him about the State eatre. About "Portland Town." About losing my dad. About listening to their music on the flight back to Portland while the lights of Casco Bay came into view. About that feeling that, for one night, I was exactly where I was supposed to be. When I finished, Will smiled and shared something they hadn't announced yet. e band had recently recorded their own version of "Portland Town."

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