Portland Metro Pipe Band – Band Member Profile

Name: Craig Maxwell

Piper or Drummer? Piper

How long have you been playing pipes or drums? 15 years.

Provide some info about your piping/drumming background and other bands you’ve played with: Piping was a big part of my childhood. My father Robert Maxwell played with Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia Pipe Band under J.K. McAllister. It was my dad who taught me to play. As a teenager I played with the Trumbull Pipe Band in Connecticut. I stopped playing pipes for 10 years and then got back into playing when I moved to Oregon. I played with the Clan Macleay Pipe band before joining the Portland Metro Pipe Band. In 2006 I started taking Piobaireachd lessons from Dan Diessner.

High points of your band and/or solo career, including awards or trips: Traveling with the Clan Macleay Pipe Band to Nova Scotia to play at Gunderson’s plant in New Glasgow. Traveling to Scotland in 2001 to play with my father and uncle in the 1st Uddingston’s Boys Brigade 75th Reunion Pipe Band. We played down the main street in Uddingston, the town where my grandparents lived and my father grew up.

Misc. fact about you: As a child I had a parakeet named after Colin Gemmell’s brother.