In the absence of the Next Big Thing competition during the 2020-2021 academic year and the reign of the pandemic, John Brown University bands have largely ceased to exist. However, one group has boldly faced the challenges that the last year has provided: Maple Street.
The band consists of lead singer and guitarist Colby Richardson, a senior entrepreneurship and finance major; drummer Ethan Stafford, who graduated in the spring 2021 with a music education major; bassist Carson Moon, a junior intercultural studies major with a minor in worship arts and guitarist Kaden Reed, another junior double majoring in intercultural studies and biblical studies. The group describes themselves as loosely within the R&B genre due to the presence of funk, jazz, and soul within their sound and their inspiration from artists Vulfpeck, Anderson Paak and the California Honey Drops. They have also taken influence from jazz and soul artists, including those from classic Motown and legends to the likes of Miles Davis.
Maple Street has its origins in JBU’s original music competition, the Next Big Thing. Richardson participated in the contest during his freshman year with a group of seniors. They lost the competition and decided the band wouldn’t go anywhere, but a seed was planted in Richardson’s mind. At the time, his instruments, both acoustic and electric, were all made of maple. He began thinking of a band that was “maple” themed. Also, the singer loves small towns, having originated from a small town in Iowa himself. “Every small town has a bunch of like trees that are the names of streets, like Elm Street or whatever. So, Maple Street sounded like a fun name.”
Richardson found two of his bandmates in the university’s jazz and pep bands, playing consistently with Reed and Stafford. Reed, a native of Siloam Springs, had always enjoyed watching the Next Big Thing and was full of aspirations to participate. He was met with apprehension from Richardson, who was hesitant to commit after his experience in the competition. However, after winning over the skeptical singer with his ability as a guitarist, Maple Street was assembled for the Next Big Thing competition in 2020. The group originally included members of the jazz and pep bands, including two trumpeters and a saxophonist. The contest, originally scheduled for March 14th, was nearly canceled due to the emergence of the COVID-19 virus. Rather than gathering a large live audience, the Next Big Thing competition was live streamed via YouTube on March 27th. Maple Street won the contest, but their reward had to be put on hold as a global pandemic and a nearly two-month-long nationwide quarantine hit the world.
The group re-formed during the 2020 fall semester, only to face a myriad of challenges. Three of the seven members remained, and one key instrument was lacking: the bass. Moon, a bassist who played in Next Big Thing as a member of a competitor group, was vouched for by word-of-mouth and his performance in the competition and joined early in the semester. However, although equipped with a bassist, university COVID-19 restrictions prevented the group from meeting to practice indoors. They were provided a tent for practice during the warmer months and negotiated an indoor space during the winter. The band also faced difficulty in finding venues, as community options were few and far in-between. Maple Street was finally able to hold a concert at the JBU tennis courts on March 26th, 2021.
As the iron grip of the pandemic has slowly loosened, the band has experienced far more opportunities this semester. They have already held a concert at Airship Coffee in Bentonville and were invited to play at SEA’s Fall Fest this October. Maple Street also plans on releasing four singles with the goal of eventually combining them into an EP. When asked about their future, Richardson said, “I think we’ll just play until it becomes impossible to play together anymore, or we decide we want to do things different. We’re releasing the EP, might do a little bit of gigging around depending on what our availability and actual capacity to do that is. And then I’m graduating this year, so who knows what I’ll be doing… We’re just living it as long as we can right now.”
Maple Street’s first single, “Alphabet,” will be available for listening on Spotify on November 5th, 2021. You can find them here on Instagram: @maple_street_band.