7 Questions with The Clientele

I can't decide if The Clientele's Alasdair Maclean thinks I ask jackass questions, or if he supplied us with short answers because he is busy on a tour and sick of answering questions, or if I'm just being overly sensitive about the whole thing because The Clientele is one of my favorite current bands. Either way, I was very happy to get the chance to ask him some questions via email, and his answers are below. The Clientele plays Saturday night at Hailey's with Theater Fire, and it should be fantastic. If you haven't heard The Clientele before, you should pull your head out of your ass and do so as soon as possible.



To start with, for all the people that were at your last Denton show at Hailey's: What was up with the sound? It sounded like the reverb wasn't working at all, and there seemed to be several other problems as well. Do you remember what caused this?

The sound on stage was a little strange but it didn't stop it being a great show. We heard a recording of that night and it sounds pretty funny.

One of the positive things that came from the problematic sound at the last Hailey's show was, in my opinion, the revelation that your voice sounds just as strong without any effects at all. It seems that Strange Geometry also hammered this point home, since there is a noticeable lack of the strong, hazy reverb that was present on Suburban Light. Why did the band chose to move towards a cleaner sound on Strange Geometry?

We left a lot of the decision making in terms of recording to Brian O'Shaughnessy, the producer. Whenever we asked for more reverb he'd give a lingering hard stare over the top of his glasses, then ignore us.

It seems that the way in which your early material (the stuff that appears on Suburban Light) was recorded had such a huge impact on the way those songs felt, producing a quite dreamy experience for the listener, mixed with the warmth and familiarity that lo fi recordings bring. How important was this aspect of the recording process to the band?

The early recordings were done on the only equipment we had which was pretty basic so the sound we got all came through guitar amps - we stuck the vocals through the reverb on our guitar amps which gave us the hazy sound you describe. It wasn't important, it was the only way we could make records that didn't sound totally amateurish.

To me, as an American living in Texas, your music sounds foreign and distant in some ways. More than just about any band, your music inspires visual scenes in my mind... visions of things and places that I've never experienced, mostly revolving around England and rain and a sort of modern mysticism. Do you intend to inspire visualization in the audience with your songwriting? Or is this just me?

We just write songs about what we see - canals, buses, semi-detatched houses, football fields. If this seems exotic or mystical to a Texan then that's great.

I read that you have a fondness for Arthur Lee, and he seems to be something of an inspiration to the band. How has his death affected you? What do you think Love's significance is in rock today?

Love is my favorite band. We played Signed DC in Chapel Hill the night he died.

Who are some of your favorite musicians of all time? Are any current records getting a lot of play right now amongst you guys on tour? If so, which ones?

My favorite musician is Arthur Lee. Others include Boards of Canada, Neil Diamond. We've all brought our ipods with us so we're all listening a loads of different stuff at the moment.

Are you guys currently planning on going back to the studio any time soon? Can we expect any new Clientele material or other projects from you guys in the near future?

Yes, we're heading straight to Nashville after the end of this tour and making the next record there with Marky Nevers. It should be a lot of fun!