THE CLARKS ARE:
Scott Blasey: Lead Vocals, Electric & Acoustic Guitars Robert James: Electric & Acoustic Guitars, Vocals Greg Joseph: Bass Guitar, Vocals Dave Minarik: Drums, Vocals
“After all this time I still believe/With a few tricks hidden up my sleeve” “Fast Moving Cars”" ~ Scott Blasey
Since forming the group as students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where they were recently honored as Distinguished Alumni, The Clarks have been one of the best-kept secrets in rock & roll.
With Fast Moving Cars, their third album for leading indie label Razor & Tie, The Clarks are prepared to further transcend their Pittsburgh origins (the city, which Esquire magazine praised as boasting the finest rock scenes in America – specifically citing The Clarks as a primary contributor) where they can routinely sell out 13,000-seat venues.
But as much as they love and appreciate their roots, The Clarks have spent the last several years expanding their turf. The band who tours year round (averaging 150 shows per year) has performed nationally with contemporaries such as John Mayer, O.A.R., Gavin DeGraw, and, as part of their own “Rubber Meets the Road” national club tour with Interscope’s Pseudopod, Columbia’s Ari Hest and Hollywood’s Ingram Hill.
The groups Let It Go album sold more than 40,000 units in the Pittsburgh area alone (a sales figure that only multiplatinum artists come close to in “the burgh”). Their entire catalog has sold more than a quarter million to date. They’ve also seen their sales base spread nationally. Their last album, 2002’s Another Happy Ending, was the first to crack the Billboard Top 200 and was #2 on the Heatseekers chart, selling more outside their home region than ever before.
With Fast Moving Cars, The Clarks continue to mine individual songwriting contributions from all four members: vocalist/guitarist Scott Blasey, guitarist/vocalist Robert James, bassist/vocalist Greg Joseph and drummer Dave Minarik.
“Over the last two albums, we’ve been able to get everyone involved,” says Blasey, who has been the band’s chief tunesmith in the past. “It’s been a really good thing. We all encourage each other. It’s allowed us to put out a new album every two years.”
Like Another Happy Ending and Let It Go before it, this new album was produced in Franklin, TN, by Justin Niebank, one of Nashville’s most in-demand studio pros, with credits including Faith Hill, Keith Urban, John Hiatt and Eric Clapton.
Fast Moving Cars is typically eclectic in The Clarks tradition, with forays into punk-rock (James’ nods to Husker Du and Elvis Costello in “You Know Everything”); psychedelic pop (drummer Minarik’s Tom Petty-by-way-of-Rubber Soul homage, “She Says Don’t Miss Me”); and pedal-steel country twang (Blasey’s plaintive “Train”). Of course, there’s also a healthy dose of The Clarks’ soaring rock & roll on Joseph’s “Hell on Wheels” (slated as the first single), his Bic-flicking arena rocker, “Shimmy Low,” and jangling, guitars-like-ringing-a-bell spiritual, “Blue,” as well as Blasey’s churning, classic “Anymore.”
While several songs have a melancholy, nostalgic feel—the folky, midtempo “Fast Moving Cars” has Blasey musing about the ennui of touring and “drinking until the pain is all gone”—the rousing “Hell on Wheels” and cathartic “Shimmy Low” are rock anthems delivered with The Clarks’ patented conviction.
“I’m looking for ‘Hell on Wheels’ to be on the NASCAR channel,” smiles Greg. “Part of the inspiration was being on the road, doing a cross-country trip. Driving through New Mexico and Arizona with the rest of the guys inspired me to finish that song in a really cool way. I’m really enamored with the songwriting process”
“There was a need to get back to some very in-your-face, straight-ahead Clarks-in-the-room-playing-a-rocker,” says James. “Which means the guitar solos are a little louder and a little more frequent.”
“Things all came together in the studio for us,” nods Blasey, whose rocking “Happy,” a collaboration with Joseph and James, features lyrics that are anything but, while “Anymore” combines “downtrodden” sentiments with an uplifting chorus. “At this point, it’s like family. Once we begin playing, any differences go out the window and we’re just four brothers in a rock band.”
Indeed, The Clarks’ individual members brought together their various influences and came out with something purely its own, though not without their share of “arduous” moments.
“We’re usually in several musical places at once when we record,” says Joseph, “Someone will be listening to country, another R&B and still another rock. And those things all get spewed onto the table at once.”
“I think we’ve done some of our best songwriting on this record,” adds Minarik. “Doing a new album always breathes new life into us.”
Lyrically, the band shows marked maturity as well. Blasey’s “Train,” for instance, is the story about his uncle, a tail gunner who flew 30 missions during World War II, earning several medals, only to return with emotional scars.
“With a picture of him smiling at the armory/The colors in that flag all washed away/It’s just black and white and a hundred shades of gray,” sings Scott over a mournful country melody, laced with steel guitar. The song’s genesis came from a mandolin riff he heard Kathy Mattea play when The Clarks met her during a Detroit music retail convention.
“The whole point of the song is, sometimes in war it’s not all about life or death. It’s not black and white,” says Blasey. “There’s a gray area. Yeah, he came back, but he was not the same person who left.”
Similarly, Scott’s “Fast Moving Cars” is a rueful look at the boredom of playing one too many gigs in one too many joints, adding that it’s too late to stop now: “I’m driving fast moving cars and drinking/Old in these bars and thinking I could/Paint all those stars.”
“This is what we love to do,” says Scott. “We’ve got the best of both worlds. It’s not like I wouldn’t want to play in front of big crowds around the world, but I don’t particularly care to be recognized. I’m not into celebrity.”
Indeed, The Clarks, arguably one of Pittsburgh’s greatest pop culture exports, continue their rock ‘n roll excursion, and with Fast Moving Cars, serve up a hell on wheels performance.
Source: http://clarksonline.com
