COURTESY PHOTO
Barry Goudreau’s Engine Room: from left, Tim Archibald, “Old” Tony DiPietro, Barry Goudreau and Brian Maes.
By BILL BROTHERON
Brian Maes and Barry Goudreau, a couple of “Lynn kids,” have been friends and musical partners since the early 1980s. That’s when an employee at the E.M. Wurlitzer store in Boston told Maes that Goudreau was leaving the band Boston, starting his own band and was looking for a touring keyboard player.
Maes got his hands on a tape of the debut album’s keyboard music, played by local pianist Steve Baker, practiced it and auditioned for the job. Before he knew it, Maes was a member of Goudreau’s band, Orion the Hunter, which would spend that summer of 1984 on tour opening for Aerosmith.
Saturday night, Goudreau and Maes will unveil the latest chapter in their musical partnership. Barry Goudreau’s Engine Room will release its debut album, “Full Steam Ahead,” at a Lynn Auditorium concert. Goudreau (guitar) and Maes’ (keyboards/vocals) bandmates are Tim Archibald (bass) and “Old” Tony Dipietro (drums), with a vocal assist from MaryBeth Maes, Terri O’Soro and Joanie Cicatelli. John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band and Charlie Farren will open.
It was when he played keyboards for Robert Ellis Orrall, the Lynnfield hitmaker, when Mae’s life truly changed. David Stefanelli, Kook Lawry and Don Walden were members of that band, which opened for U2, the Kinks, Robert Palmer and other biggies. Lawry is guitarist of The Brian Maes Band and Stefanelli joined Goudreau, Maes and former Boston singer Brad Delp in the post-Orion the Hunter band RTZ (Return to Zero). Archibald, who is now in both Barry Goudreau’s Engine Room and The Brian Maes Band, was also a member of RTZ.
When Orion the Hunter was dropped by its label, Goudreau called Maes and said “It’s over.” Maes said “I write songs, always have. It’s over only if you want it to be over.” They kept going. Stefanelli signed on as drummer. Maes recommended Archibald to fill the vacancy at bass; after watching Archibald for 30 seconds with New Man at Bunratty’s, Goudreau said “I want that guy.” The band auditioned in Brockton for music industry honchos, hoping to land a record contract. Maes said it was arranged by Aerosmith’s management. The next day, Aerosmith’s people phoned Maes. “They were going on tour and wanted to add a keyboard player. They offered me the job. I was torn. I called Barry and told him. I asked what he thought. ‘A part of me says you should take it,’ he told me, ‘and a part of me says I wish you wouldn’t.’” I turned it down … and have never for one second regretted that decision.”
Around that time, the band Boston ruled the charts with its “Third Stage” album and hit “Amanda.” The band sold out the Worcester Centrum for nine nights. “Barry, Tim, Stef and I all went to the show, and saw Brad Delp and the guys afterward. A few months later, the tour was over and Brad phoned Barry and said ‘I’m free to do what I want to do.’ ” With Delp onboard, Giant records signed the band and Orion the Hunter morphed into RTZ.
“By the third grade I knew what I wanted to do,” said Maes. “One day a man stood on the stage at the Callahan School and demonstrated instruments. I loved the trumpet. I ran home that day and told my folks, ‘I want to play the trumpet.’ They had one for me the next day. The Lynn Public Schools Band was one of the biggest building blocks for my whole career.
Maes has worked steadily in music since his early teens, when he and two chums taught themselves songs by Three Dog Night and Grand Funk Railroad. Maes sang and played trumpet.
One day, when he was 14, a group of older kids from his Lynn-Saugus Walnut Street neighborhood invited him to join their band. “We played a block party on Walnut Place, a cul de sac near where one of the members lived, and the next day they called a band meeting. ‘Brian, we love your singing, but you gotta lose the trumpet.’ And I guess I didn’t look cool enough, because they stuck me behind a keyboard, which I learned to play and took to like a duck to water.”
He was hooked on piano and keyboards, practicing constantly. One day during his junior year at Classical, he was poking through the Music Town store in Saugus’ Cliftondale Square trying out various keyboards when an employee, Joe Carlton, praised his playing and suggested he go to Berklee College of Music and then helped him achieve that goal. Emanuel Zambelli, a Berklee teacher, took Maes under his wing and changed his major to traditional performance classic piano. “He and Berklee changed my life,” said Maes who graduated in 1979.
Peter Wolf called in 1996, and Maes, Stefanelli and Salem’s Johnny A were part of the J Geils Band frontman’s Houseparty 5. Maes, Stefanelli and Archibald recorded an album “13”; Wolf, Delp and Goudreau all showed up for the record release party at the old Classics nightclub at the Holiday Inn on Route 1 in Peabody.
Goudreau, Archibald and Sib Hashian, the former Boston drummer who recently died, were members of Ernie Boch Jr.’s band Ernie and the Automatics. Maes climbed on board to play keyboards and sing. He also wrote and produced the band’s well-received album.
And now it’s “Full Steam Ahead” for Barry Goudreau’s Engine Room. Maes said concertgoers can expect a bunch of the bluesy rock songs from the debut album, plus tunes from all stages of Goudreau’s career, including the band Boston. “This is a Lynn thing. Barry’s from Lynn and I’m from Lynn. He wrote the music and I wrote the lyrics. It’s going to be one great show.”
Tickets, $27, are available at lynnauditorium.com or by calling 781-599-SHOW.