Seated in the booth of a Subway sandwich shop, I’m talking to a mad scientist about bread.
A second year chemistry student at Glasgow University, and a startling new addition to Glasgow’s music scene, Ross Clark will be opening and closing a gig at Stereo tonight, serving much like the bread of a sandwich.
It’s a fair analogy given the characteristics of the 20-year-old’s work. Hearty, comforting, and nutritious to the music lover’s soul, there aren’t any preservatives here.
At a time when too many fillers are clogging the arteries of music, with empty calories that leave you hungry for more every time, Clark is here to feed you.
Although just out of his teens, his songs are far from immature. Sure he explores the topics and themes found in most minds of university students, i.e. intoxicated love and feeling out of place, but what separates him is his style and execution. His bittersweet acknowledgement of the fleeting joys of youth, as in the song Books, suggest that he feels his youth running away from him.
“I know this won’t last forever, well I’ll stop to think when this is all over ‘cos right now I’m too busy staring right into her eyes.”
Brash and fearless in his yelps and coos, and even in his onstage dancing, he doesn’t hold back at all. His zest for sharing his work is evident and infectious. With a six string at his mercy, he really doesn’t need a backing band.
He started off much like most young male musicians, by picking up a guitar at age 16. His first proper gig was as a fundraiser for a student project at Clydebank High School when he was 17. That was the first time he played his own material.
Well versed in several instruments aside from the guitar, Clark plays the keyboards, harmonica, and the trombone. This month he got a banjo for his 20th birthday, which will undoubtedly be added to future gigs.
The trombone was Clark’s initiation into performing, as he played throughout his school years in various orchestras. He says the jump from school band to solo artist was a natural progression. The hardest part for him was bucking up the courage to play his songs to people. “When you play trombone you’re never in the limelight.”
Without a specific Litmus test for his work, Clark says he usually just plays new material for whoever is nearby, which is a bit surprising given that he also says his songs are quite precious to him.
“My songs are really dear to me, they’re like my children – like in Scrubs when the janitor says the floors are his children.”
The sources of inspiration that he sites are nothing out of the ordinary, with returning home after nights out being his first example. Otherwise he uses song writing as a means of airing grievances, or as he puts its, “Taking all that shit and putting it away”.
“Usually if I don’t really like something I’ll just scrap it and never play it again – just abandon all of it,” he notes. It’s easy to believe that he would be so cutthroat about it. Yet he is dedicated and thorough, compelled to finish songs even if he “knows” they are destined to be “shite”.
“I let my songs progress through me and if I don’t want to play something I won’t.”
Luckily Clark wants to play ‘Hopeless Romantic’, a song that has become his proudest accomplishment to date, and a crowd favourite. He only wrote it a mere month and a half ago, after being inspired by a Motown record.
Given his protective attitude towards his music, it’s no wonder that Clark won’t play games with record companies. He started Instinctive Racoon Records with a friend, which he prefers to focus his energies on.
Currently he’s the only act on the roster, aside from Lo Fi Disco Project, which he also has his fingers in.
Aside from homegrown labels like his own, most make him uncomfortable and suspicious.
“Sometimes I come across as this confident person but deep down I’m like ‘what do these people want from me?’ The paranoia is probably beneficial.”
Saddle Creek Records out of Omaha, Nebraska is a label that Clark admires. Their poster boy Conor Oberst is also an obvious influence on Clark, who gleefully shares, “I once met a girl after a gig who said she knew Conor Oberst and she said he’d like me.”
He’s quick to note that Bright Eyes was instrumental in his own early song writing: “the whole heart on your sleeve kinda thing”.
The energy of the Midwestern American label is what Clark hopes to foster with Instinctive Racoon Records. “I ‘spose that’s just the kind of energy of an independent label, with people who are doing things they believe in.”
A new album is in the works now, and Clark is hoping to use the profits from its eventual release to sign another artist to the label.
Until then he says he’ll keep writing and playing flat gigs.
(that said, see him on April 4th ’08 at Glasgow’s Beat Club w/ Bricolage)
www.myspace.com/electricpolyester
www.myspace.com/instinctiveracoonrecords