Formed by three junior Ole Miss accounting majors, The Pinksheets is fresh to the indie rock scene. The group’s friendship, however, is longstanding.
Tupelo natives Bryson Heatherly and Carter Maharrey met in third grade, and Dylan Gray joined the duo a few years later. Heatherly and Gray harmonize and strum their guitars while Maharrey plays the drums.
Though the band officially formed in 2021, the three bandmates have been collaborating since 2017 when Heatherly and Gray began playing for Structure, their high school’s show choir band. In 2019, Maharrey auditioned for Structure, and from that moment, the trio shared a musical connection.
“We all just kind of fell in love with music there,” Maharrey said. “We all started playing together, and once we graduated, we were like, ‘Let’s keep this going.’”
Inspired by their interest in stocks as accounting majors, the band’s name is a reference from the film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” in which penny stocks are called pink sheets. Gray decided that would be the perfect name for their trio.
Maharrey insists that indie rock is simply a label and that The Pinksheets are meant for anyone who is willing to listen.
“Whenever we put on a show we try to have genres for everyone,” Maharrey said. “Anybody who likes alternative indie, college kids and there’s even some older people who just love what we’re playing.”
From recording their album in Tampa to playing at the Old Man Music Fest in Starkville, Miss., The Pinksheets have graced a plethora of crowds and places. The Pinksheets’ biggest moment thus far was getting the chance to play with acclaimed alternative band Hotel Fiction on Aug. 26 at Proud Larry’s in Oxford.
Even after the honor of playing with Hotel Fiction, Maharrey and Heatherly still insist that friendship is the most valuable aspect of their experience as members of The Pinksheets.
“We all live together, so if one of us is down, both of us will just help the other out,” Maharrey said. “The Pinksheets are three guys who are just there for each other.”
“The Pinksheets is like a brotherhood. We always have each other’s backs, and we can make a good time out of any situation,” Heatherly said.
The value of friendship and unity speaks even louder through their message to their listeners.
“Our slogan is peace and love. That’s just really what we want to spread — just everybody being together and having fun,” Maharrey said.
Friendship not only binds the trio together, but it also fans the flame of their creative sparks and onstage chemistry.
“There’ll be some days where we play a venue and there’s 10 people out there, especially during the summer, but some of those gigs are the most fun,” Maharrey said. “We love playing those because we’re all just having a good time with ourselves.”
The Pinksheets were not built in a day, and Maharrey shares that the members’ shift in priorities allowed them to take their band to the next level.
“We were focusing on school a lot, and then (we figured) if music is something we want to pursue, then that’s what we want to do,” Maharrey said. “So we really just focused a lot on starting to write songs and trying to find some more places to play.”
Along with the anticipation of their unreleased new single, “Just a Friend,” The Pinksheets look forward to gracing more stages and connecting with more crowds.
“We’d like to come up with a tour pretty soon. So we’ve got a couple of venues that we’re looking at. We’ve been in talks with a couple of other bands, like opening for them,” Maharrey said. “So we’re really excited for the future, and we’re ready to get going.”
