Almost a decade ago, four high school friends joined together out of a love of music and became a band known as The Brew. Now the quartet from Amesbury, Mass., is putting the finishing touches on a three-album project called “Triptych; the first two albums — “A Garden in the Snow” and “Light From Below” — have been released and the third — “Hard Enough to Break” — is supposed to be out in February. The foursome will perform at Mainely Brews in Waterville on Friday, Feb. 3. To that end a telephone interview was arranged with guitarist/vocalist David Drouin (who is joined in the band by Chris Plante, keyboards/vocals; Joe Plante, bass/vocals; and Kelly Kane, drums/vocals).

Q: How did you come about deciding to do three separate CDs instead of one with a mixture of material?

Drouin: Well, when it came time for the new record, we pulled together the songs as we usually do and it proved that we were a little more prolific than we were for the album before — there was just a lot more songs. When we started really pooling them together and seeing what we had there seemed to be an aesthetic difference with the variety of songs — there was a cool divide in the influences of the band.

Q: How so?

Drouin: It came pretty quick that there were three slightly different albums that were all in the same kind of vein. The first one — “Garden in the Snow” — felt to us that it was more of an acoustic-driven, indie-art kind of album … a whole bunch of the songs right off fit into that kind of album. Then there was a more progressive rock — like improvisational — group of songs which became “Light From Below;” and the last one — which has yet to come out but is almost finished — is the only album of the set that we actually worked with a producer on and it’s definitely us tipping our hats to the golden age of the pop hits of Elvis Costello and The Beatles and more like radio-friendly material. But all three albums still sound like us, they just lean towards different areas that The Brew loves.

Q: Will you do mostly material from these three CDs at that Waterville gig?

Drouin: It’s funny about how we’ve been approaching our set list lately. We’re trying to do every other song being one off Triptych, the songs in between can be a cover that we learned that day on the way there, or some of our old favorites that we like to play, or maybe some rarities off early albums that we haven’t played in a while. So we’ve been writing up some new and interesting set lists.

Q: Just how many albums do you have out now?

Drouin: This is our seventh studio album — if you count each of the Triptych albums as their own — so it’s kind of tough to decide who we’re going to be live on any given night. But it does give us a freedom to really play how we’re feeling. If the night is more of a subdued sort of listening room environment, we can play two sets totally geared towards that of our own material; or it it’s a rage-r rock show, we can go full-epic prog rock and try to get arena chants going off.

Q: Have you ever done Mainely Brews before?

Drouin: Yes, I think so.

Q: Is there anything you’d like passed on to the readers of this article about your upcoming performance there?

Drouin: Well, we’re pretty proud of Triptych and we worked really hard on it. We think it is the best thing we’ve done. Everyday, I get an email about a new station spinning our first single, “When Darkness Comes,” and Sirius Satellite picked up “Birds on the Window” and “Going to California” off “Light From Below.” It’s getting pumped around the country and that’s pumping us up, so every time we get together and hit the stage, we’re just so happy that we made it 10 years together. We’re a really excited band. So, if any one wants to come see a band that is really excited just to be playing together, that’s us right now.

Lucky Clark has spent over four decades writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@megalink.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.