A Mighty Lion

A band is akin to a living thing. It is born, it grows and matures, just like any living creature. Every experience along the way helps to shape what it eventually becomes. And while it grows, it continuously evolves. Ultimately, if the right circumstances are present, it thrives and bears fruit. The beginning stirrings of that evolution is what is happening to A Mighty Lion right now. If you're a music fan, it's worth paying attention to. Because it's really starting to get good.

The four guys of A Mighty Lion are all in their early thirties. They're all involved fathers to young kids. And they're all are dedicated to seeing where this musical journey will ultimately lead them. Right now it's starting to lead them out of their native Lewiston, Maine and onto larger stages elsewhere in New England.

Their self-produced debut album of 2014, called "One Creation," recorded and engineered by Mike Krapovicky at Layitdown Productions, set out to establish the band as composers, performers and producers of original music. Done. Yes, they still perform a smattering of songs by others who inspired them to become musicians in the first place (from a remarkably wide range of artists) but they are now known first and foremost as a band that writes and plays its own music.

Along the way, AML has done what every band worth its salt has had to do. They cut their teeth playing tiny bars as they were just starting out in 2012. They've unloaded their gear from the van in freezing temperatures at 2 a.m. in February after a gig (and still do). They continue to hustle up new venues, put up their own posters, and add names to their fan base one show at a time.

And now, in addition to writing and performing their own songs, they're outgrowing those little pubs, where patrons want to hear songs they know by heart from bands they hear often on the radio. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld might say. It's just not what the band does anymore.

AML's original material is, however, scoring the band coveted opening slots for regional and national bands, putting them on new stages in front of new audiences, as when they opened for jam band favorites Pigeons Playing Ping Pong at Portland's House of Music in the fall of 2015.

​ They work out new material live on stage, at gigs. They record, listen and revise. It's a level of confidence only the best bands achieve. It takes chutzpah to play a song before an audience knowing that it might change before it's played again. But that's how a good song gets even better, and they know it. lots of practice, and a dedication to constantly writing new material.