CLEARLAKE ///
INTERVIEW CATONIA WHALEN ///
PHOTO EVA VERMANDE ///
DATE FEBRUARY 20, 2004 ///

Clearlake formed in Brighton, south of London, just over five years ago. And by the time this magazine comes out, the UK guitar mavens will be in the midst of their their first-ever U.S. tour which kicked off at the annual South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. Will they conquer America, the land that bowed at the temple of Coldplay?

While their first album, Lido, was released with tons of overseas acclaim, it was never released here. It did garner a lot of UK radio airplay, gaining the band some well-known fans like Jarvis Cocker, Stephen Malkmus and Radiohead.

Thankfully, their latest album, Cedars (Domino), is now available to the Yankee masses, a.k.a. people who were not lead singers of seminal '90s bands. It's a listening experience that may convince you not to see that therapist after all. You can get the advice you need to deal with life's frustrations and relationships from soaking in the lyrics. They are haunting, brutal and honest, yet pleasantly uplifting at the same time. It's all there for the taking in tracks like "The Mind Is Evil," "Keep Smiling," "Treat Yourself With Kindness" and "I'd Like To Hurt You." The band creates an overall plush, bittersweet environment using poignant lyrics, floating vocal harmonies, gentle guitars, gorgeous piano and strings. Even though they might live small-town lives, they've found the fantastic in the mundane living of the everyday. Yes, the world is full of pain, suffering and heartache. But every now and then there's a twinkle in the sinister places.

I spoke to lead singer Jason Pegg (voice, piano, guitar) on the phone from his home in Brighton about the concept of the album, who has influenced them, and if they are ready for their upcoming U.S. tour dates. Or better yet, if he'll be able to find a decent cup of tea.

I dig the overall menacing and brooding tone, but yet at the same time it's still uplifting. Was this a conscious decision?
I think so. We're getting to a point now where it takes a while to get to where you are going. We're developing some sort of style, and it's got those things in it, really. I'd say it feels quite optimistic but also there are some dramatic tones that you can hear. It gets more exciting when it gets a bit darker sometimes. Those are the kind of bands that inspire me.

Who are some of those bands that inspired you?
I really like a couple of records by a band called Talk Talk, who are sort an '80s synth-pop band. But they became this strange co-operative jazz-blues abstract band. And they made these two records before they started falling apart that I really loved.

Well, you know they are having a bit of a resurgence right now due to the No Doubt cover of "It's My Life".
Of course, yes! That track is the title track on the It's My Life record and the one they made after that - The Color of Spring is a beautiful record but it's still quite poppy. And there's the two they did after that - Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock - that are my favorites, really. And my goal was to set out to make a record that has some of that feel but also was kind of like an old '50s or '60s popular-music album. So it would be like Motown or Northern Soul stuff. Doo-wop stuff, even. And that's where we are going towards.

Who came up with concept of the video for "Almost the Same?" It's really clever.
What happened was the band had an idea to get two people together in a photograph that was taken in Brighton, to use as the cover on the Almost The Same EP. And then we tried to do some videos and we had less than moderate success. I'm getting more and more into the music. So I was just thinking that it would be great to have someone's impression of what the song lyrics mean and the photo together in a video.

So you're getting ready to do your first full-fledged U.S. tour. Are you looking forward to it? Have you gotten any tips from fellow Brits who have toured here already?
We're very much looking forward to it. We're very excited but we're a little scared as well. It's a bit long. It's about five or six weeks. Someone I was speaking to the other day had done an American tour and they said to bring some tea bags but I don't drink tea so I think I'll be okay. But I do drink herbal tea. I hope I can find it there.

Is there anywhere that you'd like to tour that you haven't yet?
Yes. A lot of these upcoming American gigs are wish fulfillment for me. There are so many cities on this tour that I've dreamt of going to. And it's like one by one - we'll get to play there and strike it off the list. Also some places in Europe as well. I wouldn't mind playing in Iceland. We'd really like to also play some other cities in France as well as some European festivals.

Speaking of France, you did part of your album in France. Where? In which city?
It was actually in a kind of house out in the middle of nowhere, which was fantastic. It was near a city called Rouen, north of Paris. Our old drummer's dad had a big house out there. It was an enormous place. We'd drive a tractor around and play archery and chop wood. Then we set up in the kitchen to record. It had a big kitchen with rooms off of it. For me, the most successful songs from the record like in "Mind Is Evil" - the rhythm section was recorded there. And "Wonder If The Snow Will Settle" was recorded in the bathroom of that old house.

How did you get to work with Simon Raymonde of the Cocteau Twins?
It came through Lawrence Bell, who runs Domino. We were talking about various people that we could work with to finish the record off because we needed a bit of a confidence boost. And we'd met a couple of people and then we met Simon and we got on really well. He seemed ideal mainly because he was coming in at the end of not doing a lot of the actual recording. We met a lot of people who wanted to be involved in the whole thing, really. He was saying you've done good work and we can do better work together. And he was great.

Were the Cocteau Twins an influence at all?
I don't know about being influences on the stuff we've been doing. But I used to listen to them about five or 10 years ago and I just loved them. I'd say less musically an influence but more about the kind of band they were. I thought they were an amazingly strange, distant and misplaced band. And I really loved that. They were very popular and one of the biggest independent bands really.

Is succeeding in the U.S. important to the band?
I think to be honest it's just important, whatever anyone does, to get better and succeed more at what you're doing. I'm struggling financially, yet creatively we're having a ball at the moment. All I want is for us to continue and to be able to get slightly more resources so that we can make better music. And that's it. Just to survive, really. We'll see what happens. ///