A beautiful mix between Heart and Nirvana, or maybe just something all its own. Burlington based Clever Girls has been taking the Northeast scene by storm with garage rock riffs heavy enough to blow you knees out and beautifully golden hued vocals courtesy of lead singer and guitarist Diane Jean’s voice that will melt your heart. Its just really fucking awesome music.
All that said, the band eviscerates the need to place a musical act into a grouping or genre as their inspirations span the breadth of the entirety of that landscape (I read a VPR interview with Diane proclaiming Willie Nelson and 50 Cent as 2 of her “desert island” records). With the latest collection of songs set for release in just 2 weeks at a blow out bash at ArtsRiot in Burlington, VT the quartet picks up where 2017’s ‘Loose Tooth’ EP left off in terms of blending vulnerability with hard hitting emotion and grungy guitars, but also expands upon the sounds they are willing to explore in the studio when working on this latest record.
We caught up with Diane Jean to talk about all those things. How the band has evolved since that last EP and how the passions outside of the muse of music often times seep there way into music itself and the lines between art can be quite gray. Check it out.
(photo by Luke Awtry…check out his work. Seriously do it!)
RLR: I just want to start by saying I am super pumped for new music from you folks (and I hate when journalists blow smoke, but for real, I am!). “Loose Tooth” did something to me that a lot of music hasn’t been able to in the past two years. It invoked a sense of nostalgia for rock n’ roll with a grungy backbone but still felt incredibly fresh. On this new project can we expect more of the same?
DJ: I hope people will feel that the new record is fresh. We worked so hard on it, and spent so much time figuring out just how we wanted to sound but that doesn’t mean it will be well received. On both records, the engineers who worked on it very much became a part of the band. In the case of “Loose Tooth” that was Ryan Cohen and in the case of “Luck,” Chaimes Parker. The god’s honest truth is, each member of the band is hugely influenced by rock music- I mean don’t get stuck talking to any of us about it! I think in that respect, you can expect the nostalgia to hit again, but you will definitely hear some sounds and tones and instrumentation that wasn’t present on Loose Tooth- this record is a bit different.
RLR: How about in terms of that experimentation and evolving the sound of the band. Clever Girls is a fairly young band in terms of how long you guys have been together. A new member has even been added since the last record, right?
DJ: To me, it feels like a different band now. We have an idea of what we want to accomplish, both musically and in other ways. We all have such different things that we bring to the table, which has had the effect of evolving our sound, perhaps, even unintentionally. I mean, Rob is one of the best songwriters I have ever met- he knows exactly what each song needs in terms of percussion and arrangement. Winfield is a mean guitar player, he hears things that I don’t. Toby is able to reinvent the percussive palettes with his bass parts. I think that together we all are able to create music in a way that is reminiscent of things people love, but that is not the goal. The goal of our band is to create songs you don’t expect- musically, dynamically, melodically and rhythmically. We are young as a band, but we have all been playing and writing and recording music a pretty long time, so the project matured quick.
DJ: First of all, thank you! Loom is very close to my heart. It was written at the studio on the stoop outside the front door in about six minutes, but is truly one of my favorite songs on the record. I think the arrangement of our songs is definitely purposeful. We spend a ton of time thinking about how to create a song that is different than what we have already created. In this case, we thought the melody was really interesting. We also had never played around with just bass and vocal in a song before, I wanted to see what I could do and what I could carry with what essentially is just a vocal melody.
The funny part is, none of us wrote a single harmony on the record. Those harmonies you will hear are just different takes and different melodies I was trying out trying to keep things interesting. The only song we actually wrote harmonies for got cut from the record. You see, I like to do lots of vocal takes. To avoid everybody getting irritated, I rearrange the melody when I can. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
RLR: So, I have been in Vermont for going on two years now, but the Burlington community is still kind of an enigma to me. Its a beautiful city, I absolutely love it there but it can be a really hard place to be an artist with a lot of “tips based” venues and not as obvious of a community as say Cambridge and Somerville has around folks and roots types or East Nashville with songwriters.
I love seeing shows in Burly, but still feel a little on the outside. Do you think that is a totally false statement and it just takes a bit of digging to really find the golden path to community or have you all struggled at all as a band to find your place and your people?
DJ: I think Burlington is changing. Since we have become a band, I have noticed so many amazing bands popping up and while that statement may have been true 18 months ago, it is not anymore. The community here is everywhere. Noise Ordinance and Hope all is well have done so much for the music scene. And then you have trailblazing musicians like Francesca Blanchard who gave me hope in starting out. I remember there were SO few females in the music scene that when I first heard her record, I was STOKED because she was amazing and I knew there would be a home for our music in Burlington. It is daunting though. Burlington is not a place for bar bands anymore- it has truly developed its own wonderful music community that I am so proud to be a part of.
RLR: Off of this new record. If there was one song you hoped people would be listening to in 100 years which would it be and why?
DJ: Gosh! 100 years is a long ass time! I guess the songs that mean the most to me are the last two tracks, they are by far the most personal and most anecdotal songs I have ever written. But if any the songs on the record were still relevant in 100 years I would be happy- hopefully people will love it but ya never know.
RLR: Where did you guys record it and what was that process like? I know with the EP you guys recorded with Ryan at Robot Dog in Williston. But I read on VPR you recorded in Rhode Island and it was kind of like “rock-and-roll sleep-away camp” where you experimented a lot. What was the process like in terms of readying songs before going into the studio and how they took shape while there?
DJ: We recorded at Big Nice in Lincoln, Rhode Island in a studio is located just north of Providence. When we were still a three piece, we went on a couple tours. On one of them, we stopped in to see an old friend of mine, Chaimes, at his new studio. Chaimes and I had discussed working together about half a dozen times- back when my primary focus was a solo project. It never came to fruition.
When Clever Girls visited Big Nice, it was almost instant that the entire band agreed it would be where we would record our next album. It is the most special and perfect studio on the planet, not to mention the folks who run it are rad. We were at Big Nice tracking about two weeks in total. Since the studio was in Rhode Island, we spent about a week there at a time, sleeping there, eating there, canoeing there (they have a canoe), etc. We didn’t really get the songs ready before we got there. I mean, we had basic ideas of what we wanted, but we wanted room to experiment. My problem is, once I have an idea in my head about how a certain song is going to sound (before it’s recorded), I cannot hear anything else once it get’s to the studio. I really like to let those things happen naturally, which is the same approach we used for Loose Tooth. The major leads and all the production was written in the studio.
RLR: Tell me a little bit about Billie Jean Vintage. I feel like style plays it way into not just your artistic life as a way to express yourself, but also just in general, iy probably encompasses so much of everyday life in owning a vintage clothing store. I feel like fashion and music have always criss crossed over time in some manner. I recently saw a ton of photos your shot with Luke Awtry that were kind of stylized and had a real specific kind of aesthetic to them. Do you find that your art as a musician finds its way into your style in terms of clothing and vice versa?
DJ: Billie Jean Vintage is my heart and soul. I started the shop with my cousin and best friend, Meghan Jean. We both had a passion for vintage styles and clothing since we were teens- our moms would drag us to antique stores for hours on end. I remember one time our parents dragged us to colonial Williamsburg for a holiday- our family loves old shit! Another day in high school we painted our faces like Ziggy Stardust and decided to have a David Bowie tribute day, just because we were bored. We lived by 1980’s David Bowie, I mean we worshipped it.
I think you’re correct in saying that music and fashion do have a way of overlapping. Both are absolutely forms of creativity, forms of art. I will say that at this point I don’t know that I have a “style.” I think my main goal now is to wear the weirdest shit I can find. I spend so much time picking and stuff- I mean I come across so many weird and amazing things! Sometimes I know other people may never wear them, but they deserve their time to shine- I like to give interesting pieces that opportunity. Vintage clothes really have a life of their own, after all.
In that respect, there are parallels. Put weird clothes on your body, put weird noises on your records- ya know? But I would say for me, I try not to stylize too much. I try really hard not to have people concerned what I look like, or what I am wearing when I am on stage. I don’t want to speak for everybody but as a woman in music, I am mindful of that. While I love clothing, I don’t want that to be the focus. I don’t even want it to be a thought- so when I am on stage, I have noticed I tend to dress pretty boring.
I think that the Luke Awtry stuff came off stylized is kind of humorous, the band just got stoned and went to bowling alley and grocery store. I mean none of it was planned, really. We just knew we liked bowling. Then I got my period at Champlain Lanes and had to go to the store. Is that too much info? Sorry.
I love the way Luke uses colors, though. He really is such an incredible guy.
Get out and see Clever Girls if you are anywhere within 2 hours of Burlington on April 5th at ArtsRiot. 8 PM doors, 8:30 PM show. 8 bucks advance, 10 bucks day of. Rounding out the bill is Julia Caesar and Gestalt and its being sponsored by the wonderful folks at Noise Ordinance, who if you haven’t checked out you definitely should. TICKETS: http://www.artsriot.com/events-feed/clevergirlsalbumrelease