In this interview, we spend some time with Sheffield, UK based the clear to discuss their newest project, influences and much more.
Full Q&A plus links and a stream of “Maria Browne” can be found below.
Let’s dive a little deeper into You, the artist and your music. What attracted you to this genre(s) or style(s)?
I think as we are quite traditional songwriters it just sounds that way when you write in such traditional ways, add in some strings and some classy guitars and natural piano and harmonies and you’re already halfway there. As I type this ‘Bread’ has just come on the radio ‘Make it with you’ which is a nice co-incidence 🙂 Also our multi-instrumentalist Bryan Day really has a very classy touch on whatever he plays and has very good taste so when he adds his bits or indeed writes his chords structures its already got quite a nice retro vibe before me and Jules start writing the vocals and lyrics. Having said that, on the album we do have a few ‘other‘ type of songs… one to listen out for is ‘Man Mountain’ which starts with a Chinese violin 🙂 and has all the sounds of a yang lee film…. but in the end we come down from the mountain and we end up in the traffic of L.A. with car horns and Rhodes piano riff’s !
How long have you been creating and sharing your music with the public?
We met 3 years ago almost to the day , So its been 3 years and after we wrote America we threw it up to the BBC National station 6 music and they played it within 24 hours. We then took a year out to record the album ‘Patchwork’ and kinda all went mad and it turned out to be a very eclectic mix of songs themes and styles and so we called it patchwork.
Who or what influences your playing and/or writing? Also, what motivates you to keep going?
I guess we are influenced by the greats like everyone for me personally Jimmy Webb , Burt Bacharach and mainly writers more than artists, as I’m the song writer. Bryan is really into gypsy jazz at the moment and Jules loves melody. Keeping going is an interesting question as we’ve wrote 40 songs for the album and burnt out a bit so I’m having a rest from writing to build up my appetite!
Were you trying to accomplish anything specific on this new project? Creatively or otherwise?
For me personally, I do mix in a lot of themes and philosophies within the lyrics, they’re not always obvious, more inkblot but I guess as a writer you want people to appreciate the emotion you feel and the thoughts you have. We have a song on the album called ‘When you are far away’ and it’s probably the best representation of emotion we have, its dark yet pretty, it’s intro sounds like the theme to a Scooby Doo fun park episode and it’s about lost love… then in the middle there’s hope of the sun rising again and it burst into technicolour and Bryan’s guitar, which sounds like a swarm of butterflies swarming round a summer garden 🙂
What was the last song you listened to?
Sunday by Iggy pop, his new album is amazing !!!!
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Vinyl for sure I love the tininess of it, in days gone by when recording to vinyl you only had a small frequency range and not much bass and bad bass kills songs, we should know we’ve been fighting bad bass :). And this is because modern recording methods allow you to stray into bad frequency ranges 🙁
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
Bandcamp is fab, the artists keeps almost all the money and you can sell digital, vinyl, cd or people can stream from the player… it’s good all round!
Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what are one or two of the biggest challenges you face when trying to attract listeners to your music?
I think it depends on what type of artist/s you are, what your age is , whether you are crash bang wallop etc. I guess artists need to know the way it works for their situation and know what path will benefit them. For us Radio is our window in and recently we’re making a way through as we’ve just had our 6th National play on BBC Radio in 4 weeks so we’re hoping next for a play listing which over here in the UK guarantees so many plays a day or week. I’d advise any young artist to seek pro advice from tried and tested industry pro’s . But beware of the Bull*hit 🙂
Do you gig, tour or perform? Do you ever live stream? Where can music lovers see you live?
We did about 20 gigs last year and this year we are doing a few small shows and a festival ‘Towersey folk”. We are currently going out as just the 3 of us in an acoustic capacity, so it’s easy to tip up and play.
Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more of your music?
www.theclear.co.uk on there are video’s and music and other bits and bobs 🙂
Any last thoughts? Shout outs? Words of wisdom?
You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose…. but you can’t pick your friends nose 🙂
