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| Featured Artist Link REALLYMUSICRADIO presentsTHE CLARKS
Bassist Greg Joseph could have said anything. He was given 20 words, but only needed 3. "American. Guitar. Rock." That's what it took to describe his band, The Clarks. Drums, bass, two guitars, vocals: That's the foundation of rock & roll's time-honored formula. Bands like The Clarks understand that truly honest music is made without pretense. It requires talent, energy, heart and soul. Great chops. Great songs. There's something so right about four guys playing rock and loving it. Those four guys are The Clarks. "We never realized we would last this long." Joseph explains. Guitarist and vocalist Scott Blasey, guitarist and vocalist Robert James, and drummer David Minarik Jr., along with Joseph are still getting along.
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. Quietly selling out 7500 capacity venues in Pittsburgh, and selling a combine total of 250,000 CD's like it's nothing, these guys are living the dream. And as much as the hometown success was always tremendously rewarding, it never stopped them from 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, Marc Broussard and Citizen Cope. But rather than waxing nostalgic about their "steel town" roots, (does anyone really care or remember that XTC, a band The Clarks cite as one of their faves, was from Swindon?) Joseph would rather draw attention to the here and now. "We're not a band from the slums of Pittsburgh who had hard lives. It's not about that. Or how old we are. We want to keep it fresh. You like the music, buy it." That's exactly what the band is hoping you'll do with their upcoming release entitled Between Now and Then, a collection of Clarks classics plus three new tracks. Why a classics collection now? "We weren't close to finishing a new record," Joseph explains, "and so many new fans come up to us at our shows and ask, 'What CD should I get?' So we asked our fans to weigh in [by voting on the band's website] and now we can say 'This one." Between Now And Then is damn near twenty years of great songs, put together to tell a very compelling story of four hometown heroes whose real goal was to entertain and have a great time doing it. Through all the years, they have never lost sight of that simple but lofty goal. Legendary rock historian and critic Dave Marsh proclaimed of The Clarks, "They've got first-rate songs, they play together the way only bands who've truly lived with each other's chops can, they can sing, and as far as I can tell, at the end of the story, they get the girl. What more do you want?" |
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