The Maine comes to Pittsburgh

The Maine

Altar Bar

Thurs. April 19

6 p.m.

Altar Bar

Thurs. April 19

6 p.m.

Teen-pop band The Maine, still reeling from the success of its latest release, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, has stayed true to its album title.

In the midst of their last tour and in addition to preparing to record a new album, the Tempe, Ariz., natives published a book called “This is Real Life”.

One of the band’s guitarists, Kennedy Brock, who also lends his vocals to the band, explained the book was motivated by the fans.

“We wanted to do something for the fans that have been with us for a long time. We wanted to give them something they’ve never really had,” Brock said.

The book, which chronicles the band’s two-month stint at last year’s Van’s Warped Tour, showcased the work of the band’s friend Dirk Mai, a photographer for the Los Angeles-based digital publication, Cliché Magazine.

“Dirk Mai, who did all the photos in the book, became really good friends with us over some photo shoots we had done prior to the book, so we decided to bring him out on the tour,” Brock said.

The band hoped the book, which was the brainchild of drummer Pat Kirch, would offer its fans an inside look into their experiences while on tour.

“What we wanted to do was express what we were doing on tour in our own way and show kids what touring is really like from our words,” he said.

The book is a visual and written compilation of the band’s daily thoughts, feelings and experiences on tour.

“All of us wrote in journals every night and basically tried to sum up what we were feeling on Warped Tour, which is very up and down; it can be very fun and very hard at the same time,” he said. “Some of us wrote about what happened during the day, some of us drew pictures, it’s kind of just got a lot of random things.”

The Maine members recently found that covers were another outlet they could employ to express their creativity.

The band covered Akon’s “I Wanna Love You,” and Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” for Fearless Records’ compilation CDs, “Punk Goes Crunk,” and “Punk Goes Classic Rock.”

“Both those songs weren’t originally for the compilations, and [‘I Wanna Love You’] was going to be on a different compilation, but Fearless picked up the idea and we had just signed to Fearless when that song [was] recorded,” Brock said.

He explained that they covered the song at the suggestion of lead singer John O’Callaghan’s father.

“John was sitting with his dad going through a playlist of songs, and [‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’] came on and his dad shut off the iTunes and said ‘That’s the song you guys are doing,’” he said.

Brock believes the band’s upcoming album Black and White signifies the evolution and growth of its music.

“On Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop we were trying to find a sound that fit our band [so] we wrote a variety of different songs of varying styles and on this record it’s a lot more together,” he said.

The guitarist said the band drew inspiration for their upcoming record from their favorite aspects of the previous record.

“All the best things we liked about Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, we tried to really redo on this record and step past that,” Brock said. “I feel like we got down what we wanted to do with song writing and the tone of the record.”

The album name, which was inspired by one of its songs, was conceived by O’Callaghan.

“The concept in that song is finding your color in a black and white world when you’re growing up,” he said.

Although Brock said the name is open to interpretation, its main message encourages listeners to come to terms with their quintessence.

“We basically wanted to say that when you come into the world, things are a certain way and you grow up learning how to find your individuality in that world.”

The Maine, who is currently on tour with We The Kings, Cartel and Artist Vs. Poet, will play at Altar Bar at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 19.