Guitars will wail this weekend at the Maintenance Shop with John Primer, the legendary bluesman taking the stage for a seated show on March 8 and new indie band ON AN ON coming on March 9.

John Primer will begin playing at 9 p.m. on March 8. 

Since John Primer was very young, he knew he wanted to play guitar.

When he began to learn how to play it, the feeling of affection grew.

“It felt good; I’d always wanted to play guitar ever since I was a little kid,” Primer said. “Even when I was younger than [eight], at two or three years old, I always wanted a guitar. Then a cousin of mine got one, and I would mess around with his and learned how to play on his guitar.”

Primer reminisced about how he learned the blues from people traveling through.

“I remember a lot of old guys would come walking down the road playing guitar on Sunday mornings and at juke joints,” Primer said. 

Primer said he believes that the blues are something to be felt, not described.

 “It comes from everywhere,” Primer said. “It comes from all over your body. You just have to feel it. Just like you feel any other type of music, you’ve got to feel it from your heart.”

A similar raw feeling is what propels ON AN ON’s vocalist and guitarist, Nate Eiesland on stage. ON AN ON will begin playing at 9 p.m. on March 9. 

Eiesland was struck with inspiration when he was given a special cassette on a family trip to northern Michigan.

“On the whole drive, my friend had this tape and it was Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” And I just wore it out,” Eiesland said. “Totally wore the tape out. I just listened to it over and over and that was an influential point for me.”

Not only did the music of “Nevermind” strike a nerve with Eiesland, its presentation did as well.

“There was such a connected sincerity and honesty that I had never heard before,” Eiesland said.

ON AN ON’s first studio album, “Give In” was released earlier this year and its recording took a different approach when the band began to develop their sound.

“The sound was more determined in what we were interested in capturing, which turned out to be [a] more flawed, less confident [sound],” Eiesland said. “There were a lot more energy in those takes.”

Eisland said depth is what ON AN ON strive for musically, from the guitar tone to the lyrics. Eiesland also commented that a balance must be achieved as well.

“Sometimes it’s an interesting balance because you have to also decide how understood you want to be as a songwriter,” Eiesland said. “Do you want it to be unmistakable? Do you want it to be open ended … there is a huge gray area as to how you put lyrics together … I think that is one of the last frontiers of songwriting.”