Written by: Jo Ann L. B. DugginsPhotos by: Jo Ann LB. Duggins **Photo above provided by Zac Clark
Full Name: Zachary Alan Clark
Age: 19
Currently Residing: Essex Junction, VT
Currently Listening to: Pet Sounds, the new Paulson re-release, Tusk by Fleetwood Mac
Anti-Mag can't get this song out of my head: "On My Way"
Sometimes people really surprise you. This is very much the case with Zac Clark. Young he may be, but talented he so is. I never expected to meet a 19 year old with his shit pretty together. This guy not only sings, songwrites and plays piano but he plays all the instruments on his new EP "Elipsis". I was fortunate enough not to just meet Zac, but to actually hang with him and listen to him play.
He has a very Elvis Costello sound about him. His songs are heartfelt and honest just as he is. He is definitely someone I would describe as an 'old soul' yet there is an innocence and sweetness about him you just don't get in a lot of people. He's kinda a smiley guy. On stage, he's very funny in interacting with his audience. I would like to see him with a band personally because I think his sound would lend itself to a rounder and fuller set. Don't get me wrong, his voice is incredible and he hits a myriad of octaves, but I would just like him presented in a bigger way, a more powerful presentation if you will. I really am looking forward to a full length from this guy because I think his sound will only progress and mature. He's a nice guy who makes nice music. His songs are ones for all generations and it is refreshing to meet such a person who is young but his presence is prolific.
It seems you've been doing this music thing for a while...how long have you been doing it and what was the catalyst?I was blessed with a mother who constantly listened to ridiculous amounts of music and exposed me to new (and old) music from day one (and allegedly before birth, with a large pair of headphones, though I cannot corroborate this due to the fact that I was, at the time, at best, barely a human being at all.) I think with music always playing around me, I was just inspired to sing and play from the beginning. I had a little tape recorder when I was 3 or 4, and a plastic toy oven set (a failed attempt to domesticate me) that I would bang on while singing, and so with these primitive "instruments" I guess you could say I started my recording career very early.. as soon as I could, I got my hands on a drumset and got rid of the oven, taught myself to play the piano, drums and bass, and kept going from there.
What music did you grow up on?
A lot of older stuff when I was young, for some reason I think I became the youngest Dan Fogelberg fan ever until about age 12. James Taylor, Elton John, Billy Joel, the Beatles, the Beach Boys.. then when I was old enough to go out and buy stuff myself I started to listen to Blink 182, which ultimately led me to the bands that consumed the rest of my life so far in terms of music, Saves the Day, Jimmy Eat World, the Get Up Kids, Northstar, basically too much stuff to mention. I still also owe a lot to Third Eye Blind, Counting Crows, Gin Blossoms, all of those bands that blew up in the mid-90s.. I think it's safe to say though, in the end that somehow the pop singer/songwriter stuff I was immersed in early on just blended with the energy and emotion of the live music I started going to see later on, and that's what I've been trying to capture with my stuff.
You play all the instruments on your EP "Elipsis"...was that challenging?
Actually, to be honest, the challenge is going to be letting go of some of those musical responsibilities in the future in order to let some players who are truly masters of their individual craft shine in one spot or another.. I always played everything out of necessity, since there was such a lack of kids my age where I was growing up that really seriously had a love for putting pop songs together, and it's just become habit. I think, though, that it gives some of the instruments an interesting feel, like only someone who really isn't a trained drummer would play some of the parts that I play the way that I do.
You recorded at Strangeways Recording studio ... what was that experience like?As crazy and exaggerated as this might sound, that was an experience that changed everything. Recording with Mike Poorman gave me just what I needed at that point; someone I could trust in helping me to deconstruct the music I was writing and recording and get it to work exactly right..before that I had been in the studio with people who would be like "Alright, I'm going to turn this on and go eat something, just let it run till I come back, and if you mess up, it's cool, we'll fix it after.." With Mike there was always an extra sense of discovery in the recording process, almost another round of writing; every so often that extra take that I really would have rather not done would just be the one with a totally different vocal ad-lib that would make us both stop and realize: we're watching this stuff evolve right before our eyes here. Mike was also the one that pretty much sat me down and said, "What do you really want to do with your music?" and brought me back to that place in the back of my mind that was always saying "I just want to play music for people, all the time, all over the place."
Any hopes for a full length?I'm hoping to get into the studio to start recording some new stuff soon to get that process rolling.. I want to take this one even slower though and make sure we can get some people in there to help make this one another step up. Hopefully we'll be able to have some string arrangements in a couple of the new songs, I'm hoping to get some guys to come in and do some guitar stuff here and there, some pedal steel.. I told Mike the other day that with this new stuff I really want to get inside the songs and make sure we try them every way we can to make sure the end product is something that sounds like a huge amount of care was put into getting every track's sound, choosing where to use what instrument, and when to just lay off and strip a song down to just piano and vocals.. Basically I want this record to be able to represent me for the next couple of years before I can think of where I am at that point, so I want to make sure we go as crazy as possible with it.
Have you been touring and if so, where and with whom?I have yet to actually embark on a full-fledged, full-length tour, which at this point has been good because I've been able to play with a bunch of different bands everywhere I go.. I've played with my friends The Sketches from DC several times, in NYC, Maryland and Virginia, and it's always a great experience. They're a great group of guys and their new record, Secret Alphabets, is absolutely insane. I played a couple of weeks of a residency at the Paradise Lounge in Boston recently with a great singer/songwriter named Jenny Owen Youngs, who was a lot of fun and someone that people should definitely be looking out for if they aren't already.
Your songs have a very heartfelt energy about them, where do you get your inspiration from?
Thank you, I'm glad to hear that it's apparent.. When I write, it's almost always to fix something or break something, to stop thinking about something that's consuming me, to get over something.. it's constantly been an important form of therapy for me since I started writing, so there has really yet to be a point where I've recorded a song that doesn't directly pertain to my life and what's going on somehow. Some of the material on the EP was born out of the happy beginning of a relationship, and the multiple sequels to those songs, which emerged from the later wreckage of said relationship, will probably show up on the new record.
One of my favorites of the new stuff, and I think almost out of everything I've ever written, is a song called "Ink" that I wrote sitting on the beach in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, 4 years to the day after my mother passed away.. sitting there in a place that reminded me so much of her just forced the pen to the page, and I found myself just writing her a letter. The song starts with "We aim for progress, but we're met with complications.." and ends with "..I just thought I'd let you know that I see something good ahead." That kind of experience, just sitting somewhere and feeling like something needs to be written, something is dying to get out, is how most of my music is written, so I'm happy to know that it came through when you listened.
Have you ever played in a band or has the solo thing always been?
I played in a couple of bands in my really early years, in middle school and early in high school.. For the most part we were always more interested in nailing a song the first time than perfecting it in more rehearsals, so as a result it never felt like we were all on the same page playing live. I always did demos of songs by myself in my basement, so eventually I decided to just strip it down and play solo shows, which I actually didn't do for the first time as Zac Clark, the solo artist until about two years ago, when I was 17.
What is the Zac Clark sound and how do you feel you are leaving a mark in the music world? if there is one thing you want people to know about Zac Clark what would that be?
I feel like part of my sound is always going to be the pop/rock singer/songwriter type thing, but a huge part that I hope comes through, and might show more with a full backing band, is the huge part of me that grew up later on listening to punk bands and going to rock shows in tiny little clubs.. I guess the thing I'd want people to know about me in terms of my music is how insanely different music influenced me to play what I'm playing now, and hopefully anyone who comes out to a show or listens to the songs can find something, even if it's the tinest thing, that they can relate to with whatever musical background they come from.
Who would you most want to play with and why?
Hmm.. I would love to be able to be a random dude with a piano doing an opening slot on a Saves the Day tour. That would be insane for me, I would kill to be a part of something like the Vagrant America tour they did with Dashboard and Hot Rod, and just be up there for a short set every night with a group of insane bands like that.
What's your favorite piece of artwork and why?
I found myself drawn to "Pipe, Glass, Bottle of Vieux Marc" by Picasso a few years ago at the Guggenheim in Venice and it's always been a favorite of mine. For some reason I'm a huge fan of mixing mediums, and I'm into anything that combines some element of collage with painting.. I'd love to have something like that in the album artwork for whatever comes next. Who knows..
If you would like to know more about Zac Clark and his amazing songwriting abilities then check out his website or say hello to him on his Myspace page.
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