25 july 2006 -

EXCLUSIVE Interview: Clearlake
Chuck Norton, deadjournalist.com

With three albums under their belt, Brighton, England's Clearlake has spent most of this year touring Europe and recording tracks for their fourth album. With several highly touted albums behind them, the band has built a strong following in the UK and has a growing fan base in the US.

Clearlake exploded on the music landscape in 2003 with their second album Cedars which drew much critical acclaim - including a 9.1 rating by rarely generous Pitchforkmedia.com. After almost three years, the band released their much-awaited follow-up album Amber in January 2006 to strong reviews.

Consisting of lead singer and guitarist Jason Pegg, bassist Dave "Woody" Woodward, guitarist Jim Briffett and drummer Toby May, Clearlake continues creates its own version of folk-inspired indie rock. One of the biggest influences on the band's sound has been Neil Young. The band shows tribute to Young by covering his track "Cinnamon Girl" on their most recent album.

The band will release "It's Getting Light Outside", their latest single, on August 7.

For more on Clearlake, visit their Web site: http://www.clearlake.uk.com or their Myspace.com page: http://www.myspace.com/clearlakenoise.

DeadJournalist.com caught up with Clearlake's Jason Pegg for this exclusive interview.

How did Clearlake grow musically from Cedars to your latest album, Amber?

JP: We grew in every way as players. There's certain stuff that we've done in the past that we don't want to repeat. We've gotten better in knowing how to create a certain sound in the studio. Now we can work quicker so if something doesn't work on the first pass we have more time to try things a different way. In writing, as you get older and have more life experience - you want to talk about different things.

The band's upcoming single, "It's Getting Light Outside", is accompanied by a video. With the rapid success of YouTube, etc., does it make the music video important again?

JP: I think videos have always been important … if they get across the vibe of a band.

Clearlake's Web site has a rather extensive blog. Does this make it easier to interact with your fans?

JP: I still don't really know what a blog is but our Web site is totally important - it's the best way let people know what we're up to. It's the same with MySpace.

What can people expect from a Clearlake performance?

JP: It seems our gigs are quite conversational sometimes. I can rant sometimes and our audiences are quite chatty. Although to be honest I'm always trying to just get on with the music. It's a lot of us turning up and doing our thing. And hopefully there will be slightly different interpretations of certain songs.

Does the band have plans for a US tour?

JP: Yes, definitely. Perhaps before the end of this year Have you begun to work on a new album? JP: We're quite far into the new album - nearly half way. We've recorded what I think is our best stuff so far. We've just started achieving stuff that's structured but also improvised and quite loose in a kind of Neil Young way.

Is there an artist, or artists, with whom you'd like to work?

JP: We're just about to do some recording with one of my greatest hero's - Tim Smith from the band Cardiacs, I'm very excited about it. He's one of England's best kept secrets. There are always lots of people I'd like to meet, namely Polly Harvey and Kevin Shields.

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