I'm happy to report that Samantha was just as delightful as I thought she would be. The interview is split into two parts - this is the first - and tour dates appear at the end. I cannot recommend highly or strongly enough that you go to a McClymonts show - they are the great entertainers, seemingly incapable of putting on a show when they are not giving their audience an experience they won't forget.
How’s
Nashville going?
It’s been amazing. We had the big CMA [Country Music
Association] week last week, so that was kind of really busy with all of that.
We had a big booth in the Convention Centre and would do signings every day and
then we also had a big show out the front of the Bridgestone Arena, so everyone
who was downtown would stop and watch, and so many Aussies were there, which
was pretty fun and pretty cool.
But – yeah, really crazy, big week and now we’re just settling into the
touring, we’re going out on the road now and just doing a big tour.
Because
I pre-ordered your new album it came with a DVD, on your road to Nashville, and
it highlighted the hard slog, I guess, of trying to get noticed in a market as
big as the US. But I would have thought you guys were a natural fit for that
market. So are you finding more
and more larger audiences and more and more people knowing about you?
Yeah. It just takes time.
America is so big and there are so many markets to hit over here and people do
sometimes change, whether it’s from north to south, and where you travel. So we
haven’t had as much radio support as we would have liked; it’s a bit slower than
what we would have liked. So it’s just slow and steady and we’re kind of
creating, I guess, an underground following at the moment, by going out and
touring and getting people’s attention that way, doing all the live work.
It
does surprise me that radio doesn’t love you – but anyway, that’s their
business.
I think it just takes a
while, really. I think they play, generally, 25 songs in rotation. So as a new artist, [you’re] just
trying to break through the Tim McGraws and the Faith Hills and the Kenny
Chesneys and get them to play your songs.
Right,
of course. I’m now going to ask you a question about your bass playing because,
having seen you play live, I know you play with your fingers rather than with a
pick, so I’m wondering if you’ve always been a finger-playing bass player?
I have. I haven’t moved on to the pick, the
plectrum. I think with country, the sound is nicer with your fingers. It’s just
the sound, it’s just completely different with a pick, and I think what we do,
it just sounds a bit nicer. I know on a few of our records we’ve had double
bass come in and be played, but I haven’t taken the risk and gone out and tried
to to play that yet.
I
think that would be quite hard to tour with.
I already get enough excess
baggages as it is, with my bass.
So the double bass would be a lot more.
With
the three of you playing different instruments, was that a conscious
choice? Like Brooke takes guitar,
you take bass, Mollie takes mandolin - or it just kind of fell that way as you
were growing up?
It just fell that way because
Brooke had always just played acoustic guitar, so that was what she was always
naturally going to play and wanted to play. Mollie and I had always dabbled in
a few instruments, like acoustic, and she’d play kind of a few instruments and
I’d picked up bass for a little bit. And then we got the Lee Kernaghan tour
back in 2006 and we realised that we had to be our own band. So we kind of just
dusted off those instruments and started playing them again, and now I wish I
did play the mandolin because Mollie can just throw that on her back and go
anywhere and it’s so easy, and I’m trying to cart this bass guitar around which
doesn’t fit in any rent-a-cars and it’s quite painful. So, yeah, if I had my time again, maybe
the mandolin.
Or
even a ukulele, maybe.
Maybe. Something small.
I’m
really interested in your songwriting process as a band, because I think on the
first album, Brooke wrote most of the material, and then the second one, there
were a few co-writers introduced, and with this one, it seems – even though
there’s some co-writers, it seems more evenly spread between the three
McClymonts. Is it a fairly organic process for each song or do you divvy up the
duties?
Well, we never really sit
down and go, okay, we want to write all the songs or we want to do this or we
want to do that. A year or so out from making a record, we just start writing
and whether that’s with someone or with the three of us or just setting up a
point where it’s kind of natural just to go write, and then it happens that the
songs we liked were with certain writers or just the three of us – all that
kind of thing. Obviously there was a connection to certain people when we
wrote, because that comes out, that’s what songs we like the most. So we wrote
with certain people who got what we were about, maybe a bit more than others,
and that’s why we kind of went towards those songs, I guess. But we write a lot
and with a lot of different people, because you never know what’s going to end
up on the record at the end of the day.
And
I always think it must be such a challenge when you’re at a point, like you
guys are, where you’re touring a huge amount, to have even the mental space to
write, let alone the physical time to write. So do you tend to just fit it in wherever you can?
We do and we make sure it’s
so we aren’t going too crazy. If we’re out touring, we probably won’t write
because we’ve got so much to focus on with gigs, and we always do meet-and-greets
and rehearsals and soundchecks, so the day is kind of gone before you know
it. So it’s generally when we come
home and we know we’ve got a few days off or there’s a week off or some kind of
gap, that’s when we all kind of sit down and do it.
And
one thing I find interesting about your live shows – and I have seen a few of
them, because, as I always tell friends it’s a guaranteed good time, seeing the
McClymonts.
Thank you.
Well,
I’ve never seen you do a dud show. But what really interests me about the live
show is that, touring clubs and with the set-up you have, with the three of you
at the front and you perform every night, you don’t ever come out with a frown
or anything. So it would take a lot of energy. And it would be tempting to have
a set show, I would think, like, ‘Here is the set list, we do the same thing
every night’, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you play the same set list
twice.
Really? Well, then you come probably once a
year or something then, because we generally do kind of do a tour show. I’m
glad that you haven’t been catching the same show. That’s kind of perfect,
that’s how we like it. We were just sitting down today even, working out our
next tour for August, when we go back on the road. So we were all sitting down
today kind of throwing in – and the show will be completely different again and
if you come along, you will see a different show because we’ll be playing,
obviously, a lot of new songs off the record. So probably every six months we change up the show.
Right.
So you do get some hard-core
fans who will come to maybe five shows or six shows during that time, so they
might see the same sort of show. But the good thing about playing live is that
every night is going to be different, no matter what – we kind of go with the
flow and it might be that the conversation is different or we do throw in a
random song every now and then because it’s been requested – which sometimes
happens – and we go off the crowd as well. Sometimes it’s more energetic
because the crowd want to dance and have fun, and sometimes it’s more mellow
because they’re a listening crowd and we might throw in different songs there. So
every show is going to be different, depending on how we feel, how the audience
feel, just even if it’s a theatre, if it’s a club. So I think even if you do hear the same show, the feel is
going to be different.
I
tell people that I always see you guys smiling and I think you’re the only act,
solo or band, that I’ve ever seen who consistently come out and just keep
smiling and put on a show. And there must be some times when you’re just really
tired. But do you find that having that upbeat attitude kind of lifts you for
the show?
Absolutely. Well, people have been waiting to come
to your show, sometimes for a really long time, and you want to give them a
good show and show that you’re into it, and that’s what our show is about. All
of our songs are very – I don’t know, I guess a lot of them are probably even
very women-empowerment songs, I guess you could say, and strong songs, and
that’s kind of the vibe we like to give off. And no one wants to come along and
see a miserable artist up on stage – I mean, I don’t. I know some artists are
all about that. But we’re not about that.
So it’s really important to be energetic and fun and the thing is I
guess we do go out there every night and are enjoying it and having a good
time.
Therefore,
it must be important for you to select your touring band so that they can fit
in with that ethos, really. So do you have a hard time finding musicians who –
not a hard time, but it must be hard to put a touring band together exactly the
way you want it. Do you tend to just see people and keep them in mind for
future reference, or do you deliberately audition musicians for the band?
Well, we’ve been pretty
consistent the last couple of years now, we have the same band. Because once
you find musicians that click with you, you don’t want them to go anywhere,
because it is hard to come by in Australia. We’ve had the same drummer for
probably four years and our keys, guitar and fiddle probably the last two
years. So it generally only
changes if they get other gigs that might be bigger and better. Or they’re working
on solo projects a lot of the time, because a lot of these artists who play
with us might want to do their own thing as well. But we’ve been really lucky
to have a good, solid band stick by us for the last couple of years and it’s a
lot of fun because then they know all your stuff, and you can progress to new
stuff and you don’t have to go backwards. You can keep going forwards and
building on your repertoire and your set, so it makes it a lot easier on all of
us.
Part II of this interview will appear shortly.
Australian tour dates for the McClymonts
AUGUST 2012
Thursday 23rd August 2012
Gympie Muster, Gympie QLD
www.muster.com.au
Friday 24th August 2012
Twin Towns Services Club, Tweed Heads NSW
www.twintowns.com.au | 1800 014 014
Friday 31st August 2012
Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre, Nowra NSW
www.shoalhavenentertainment.com.au | 1300 788 503 | www.ticketek.com.au
SEPTEMBER 2012
Saturday 1st September 2012
Enmore Theatre, Sydney NSW
www.enmoretheatre.com.au | (02) 9550 3666 | www.ticketek.com.au
Thursday 6th September 2012
Panthers, Port Macquarie NSW
http://portmacquarie.panthers.com.au | (02) 6580 2300
Friday 7th September 2012
C-ex Services Club, Coffs Harbour NSW
www.cex.com.au | (02) 6652 3888
Saturday 8th September 2012
Club Forster, Forster NSW
www.clubforster.com.au | (02) 6591 6591
Friday 14th September 2012
Lismore Workers Club, Lismore NSW
www.lismoreworkers.com.au | (02) 6621 7401
Saturday 15th September 2012
Toowoomba Empire Theatre, Toowoomba QLD
www.empiretheatre.com.au | 1300 655 299
Friday 21st September 2012
Tivoli Theatre, Brisbane QLD
www.tivoli.net.au | (07) 3852 1711 | www.ticketek.com.au
Saturday 22nd September 2012
Vikings, Erindale ACT
www.vikings.com.au | (02) 6121 2131
Friday 28th September 2012
Deniliquin Ute Muster, Deniliquin VIC
www.deniutemuster.com.au
Saturday 29th September 2012
Evan Theatre, Penrith Panthers, Penrith NSW
www.penrith.panthers.com.au | (02) 4720 5555
OCTOBER 2012
Friday 5th October 2012
Newcastle Civic Theatre, Newcastle NSW
(02) 4929 1977 | www.ticketek.com.au
Friday 12th October 2012
The Palms at Crown, Melbourne VIC
www.ticketek.com.au | 1300 795 012
Saturday 13th October 2012
The Palms at Crown, Melbourne VIC
www.ticketek.com.au | 1300 795 012
NOVEMBER 2012
Saturday 3rd November 2012
Mud, Bulls & Music, Jimna QLD
www.mudbullsandmusic.com.au
Sunday 4th – Sunday 11th November 2012
Cruisin’ Country – South Pacific Cruise
www.thecruisecentre.com.au
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