Clear Static 'self-titled' album

The Maverick self-titled debut from Hollywood sensations Clear Static, evokes images of mascara, frilly shirts, flamboyance, and hedonism. Yet today their gigs draw throngs of eye-lined, glammed-out kids into places like the Viper Room and Key Club and onto the teeming sidewalks outside when not even one more fashion casualty can squeeze into the venue.

This band, then, has brought rock’s most excessive era back to life – and yet their determination to not mimic the past but to play what they want is something that artists from any era can understand.

Who are these guys? They’re still in their teens (mostly). They grew up close enough to Hollywood to qualify as suburban sprawl but near enough to start catching all-ages shows at age eleven.

And what about their sound? Its spacious production, the big drums, smooth bass stylings, the keyboards that wash across the mix or percolate in pinprick rhythms, vocals that drip with high-fashion attitude: It blends echoes of the Romantic era into a fully modern sound, adding up to a unique blend of depth and immediacy, trend-referencing and trend-setting, and spearheading what just may turn into the next wave of dressing and listening taste among club kids nationwide.

And their roots are American to the max: You can trace the birth of the band to one Fourth of July, when Tom Pederson and Michael David met amidst the sparkle and pop of fireworks in a neighbor’s backyard. Michael, a South African transplant, was just twelve, a year older than Tom, yet his guitar playing at the party caught Tom’s ear. The boys lived only two blocks apart, so it was easy for them to start doing music.

From the start they wrote their own material. “We weren’t good enough yet to play covers,” Michael laughs. “But our first song wasn’t actually that bad. That’s what started us thinking that we could put our own band together.”

The rest of the band fell into place quickly, through a network of relations (Rich Pederson is Tom’s brother) and friendships (Danny Kincaid and Michael are best friends; the Pedersons had met Jacob Shearer in a karate class when they were all three were eight or nine years old). But they had more than that in common; ultimately, their music bound them to each other and separated them from other young bands.

“A lot of them started off with punk,” Tom explains, “and that certainly had an effect on us too. But we were more interested in writing good songs. We wanted to be good musicians. And we were open to all kinds of influences. That’s what drew us toward the eighties, because bands like the Fixx, Naked Eyes, and Roxy Music played their instruments well and wrote great songs. We found that really intriguing.”

But Clear Static was never about imitation. Though they followed a clear course in defining their sound, each member brought his own taste to the table; the contrasts as well as the consensus energized their creativity. “I’ve always been into adventurous music, like Sonic Youth, the Pixies, and Spiritualized,” Michael says. “Tom was more in tune with what was happening on the radio and making sure I knew about that. Jacob was even into jazz; he’d been playing all kinds of music on sessions and shows since he was a kid.”

They shared ambition too. When they were ready to gig – around ages thirteen and fourteen – they started designing posters and putting them up around town. “Danny is totally pro at taking pictures and running Photoshop,” Michael says. “So while the punk bands were tagging street signs, we were putting up these elaborate posters. At first we got a lot of heat for it, but those posters also made us infamous and started drawing kids to our shows.”

Being underage, they were restricted at first to teen-friendly venues – high schools, rec centers, band battles, and parties. As word spread, clubs started booking them; often they’d have to wait in an alley, near the stage door, before being ushered inside for their set. Nights at places like the Viper Room, the Key Club, and the Troubadour intensified the buzz about the band’s triple-threat appeal: hook-driven songs, riveting performances, and an eye-catching, neo-romantic look.

That just set the stage, though, for early 2005, when Duran Duran invited Clear Static to open for them on dates in the U.K. and the U.S. “That,” Michael insists, “was unbelievable, especially because this was our first tour. We really look up to them. They influenced us a lot as musicians …”

“ … and they’ve got twenty billion amazing songs,” Tom adds.

“They’re such an amazing band,” Michael continues. “The funny thing is that after one of our soundchecks, Roger and John Taylor came up and said, ‘Watching you guys reminds us of when we were your age, doing the same thing.’ That just completely blew us away.”

Between legs of the Duran Duran tour, Clear Static returned to L.A. for a gig at the Key Club. By now they were drawing industry insiders as well as fans. On that night a delegation from Maverick showed up: CEO Guy Oseary, who had previously brought Alanis Morissette, Michelle Branch, and Prodigy, among others, to the label, and A&R legends Perry Watts-Russell, whose signings have included Radiohead, Damien Rice, and Everclear, and Scott Austin, with Tyler Hilton and All-American Rejects among his discoveries.

All three saw what Clear Static has to offer. Before the night was over they were talking with the band. “They got it instantly,” Michael says. “They were like, ‘Maverick could be a great home for you.’ And they were right.”

By this point Clear Static had cut a number of garage demos, which they’d been selling at their shows. Now, with Maverick in their corner, they hit the studio with Tommy Henriksen at the console. As a recording artist with engineering and production credits (Revis, Brooks Buford, Mighty Six Ninety, Balay), Henriksen understood how to pull the best possible performance from the group while also capturing its sonic power.

From “Tuesday on My Mind,” with its full-gallop chorus and irresistible vocal hook, to the teasing strut of “Make-Up Sex” .This self titled-debut delivers a one-two punch. Some listeners may focus more on the classic elements of its sound; others will hear it as a departure from the lock-step formula of contemporary pop.

Either way, it’s a knockout. “We’ve never tried to be a retro act,” Michael says. “There are lots of modern elements in our music as well as the big snare and kick drum and all those sounds we love.

In other words, Clear Static belongs on everyone’s radio. Tune it in, roll the windows down, and ride …

Tom Pederson: lead vocals
Michael David: guitar
Danny Kincaid: guitar
Rich Pederson: bass
Jacob Shearer: drums

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Clear Static - self-titled