“I do believe we are one of the most versatile bands that are coming through the music industry at the moment, and even if people haven’t discovered us yet or listened to any of the new tunes we’ve been writing – I do believe it.” Lead singer Pearce Macca says, sat on stool with his hair slick back wearing a long black Crombie coat and Chelsea boots, sporting a 50s look.
Ready and confident, Pearce and lead guitarist Liam Deakin dominate the interview as we begin to unravel how they are one of the most versatile bands that are coming through the industry right now. We start to talk about; the band, new music, gigs, and what they’re doing to get noticed.
The Clause are a four-piece indie/alternative rock band, that were born in 2012 with members Pearce, drummer Niall Fennell, and bassist Jonny Fyfee until they bumped into soon to be new guitarist Liam at a JAWS gig in 2014, they then released debut single ‘Shut Me Out’ in 2016.
Since their debut, they have released ‘Golden Age’ and ‘Sixteen’ and have been spending the meantime writing songs, experimenting, crafting and perfecting new music.
Out of the experimenting came ‘Tokyo’ which is a lot more slowed down in comparison to their previous three releases which are very up-tempo, more traditional indie songs. ‘Tokyo’ has matured their sound into a more alternative groove, there is a late 80s pop/ early 90s rock sound to the track as to oppose an early 00s indie feel. Pearce says,
“I actually prefer ‘Tokyo’ I think… a lot more. The groove behind it is like an eighties groove, and then the actual tune gives off a kind of nineties attack.”
‘Tokyo’ was written because they had a gig and they needed to fill a set, Liam says “I had this riff and the song never come for like months, and then it just kind of naturally fell. I like it because we’re fucking about a bit more, we’re trying different things like using pedals and that. I think it’s our best tune.”
Pearce abruptly says “our earlier tunes were a bit fucking like Tweedledee, Tweedledum. Wasn’t it? It was a bit wet.” As everyone else continues to agree, maybe a change in musical direction is what The Clause have needed.
Niall discusses their listening statistics on Spotify and comments on how it is their most listened to streaming site - London sits as their most tuned in city. The Clause are also available to stream on YouTube, Soundcloud and iTunes, “iTunes is good though, we sold a lot of ‘Sixteen’ on iTunes, we do a lot on Spotify, and fair play to anyone that listens and watches us.”
The Manchester fan base appears stern and strong as Liam talks about their experience at Carnival Club and how the developing bands on the indie scene all across the UK support one another,
“Because Carnival Club had us on for main support, and we were able to meet all of these new people, we got some of them to support us at a gig at The Institute so we always help each other out all over the UK.”
“You can’t go to the end of a city and just hope to get noticed” Pearce says, “yeah it doesn’t work like that anymore” Liam agrees. As a developing band, social media is your right-hand man alongside promoters in order to get yourselves noticed.
After their sell-out Golden Age headline show didn’t go as well as they had hoped, with people going to the wrong venue and everyone being a bit too drunk, the boys reflect on it as an experience. With every cloud there’s a silver lining, Pearce looks back on the gig as a step to a better opportunity, their biggest break locally,
“I don’t know what it was. It was weird. I just don’t think that it sat right with the crowd and the people that were there. It was still good at the beginning though because if we hadn’t had done that headliner, I don’t think we would have supported The Pigeon Detectives, which was one of the biggest gigs we’ve ever done.” They supported The Pigeon Detectives at the O2 Institute, Birmingham in October 2017.
The boys try to avoid talking new music and gigs as they "don’t want to speak too soon” in case anything doesn’t fall through. Liam sits hesitant as he thinks they’re either going to lose or gain loads of fans due to the change in musical direction with their new tunes, on the other-hand Pearce remains confident and in no doubt that they’re in any sort of losing situation, he goes on to hint at an album,
“We’ve got enough songs for an album now, it’s just releasing them at the right time, when you’re writing the single you realise how important it is, because we’ve done so much for the songs.”
The Clause have created an acoustic rendition of ‘Shut Me Out’ and they’re in the midst of getting new acoustic track ‘Where Are You Now’ produced and released.
Guitarist, Deakin adds - "Our other few songs are kind of poppy-like, nothing you haven’t really heard before. These new songs are like let’s add some fucking mad shit to it and make it stick out.”
The wetness is gone, peddles are being added, songs are being written and The Clause are being reborn, it’s time to move on from ‘Sixteen’ – they will be twenty soon.
*Travel necessary for this feature was paid for by the band. *
Words and Photography by Lucy Wynne
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