Jul 31, 2018 8 min read

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Most fans know him as standing front and center, and head and shoulders above most folks, as guitarist and lead singer for the Clarks.

Away from his bandmates of three-plus decades, Scott Blasey delivers quite the performance on his own.

“I love doing solo shows,” the Peters Township resident said. “I do a lot of storytelling, and really open up and let people in on who I am, where I come from, what I do, why I do it, and tell a lot of background on where certain songs come from.”

With three solo albums released along with numerous Clarks recordings, Blasey has been writing songs since he and lead guitarist Rob James, drummer David Minarik and bass player Greg Joseph were musically inclined students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

“Spent five of the best years of my life there. Didn’t want to leave,” Blasey told the audience during a recent show at Spoonwood Brewing Co. in Bethel Park. “Dad pulled me aside in the summer of ’86, he said, ‘Let’s wrap it up here, bud. It’s not getting any cheaper.'”

And so came the impetus for his graduation and return to his native Connellsville, and for what he called the first real song he wrote, “On My Way Back Home.”

He’ll be back near his current home when Blasey joins James and Joseph for a three-quarters-Clarks concert Wednesday at the Peterswood Park Amphitheater. The Rhythm Section Blues Band opens the free show at 6 p.m., and Scott, Rob and Greg take the stage at 7.

“It’s definitely a little more casual,” Blasey said about the trio configuration compared with the full band. “We play more cover songs. That’s the big distinction.

“And we throw in a couple of obscure cover songs,” he continued, “bands like the Tragically Hip and some other things people aren’t as familiar with that we love and think are really good. And then we play a lot of the Clarks classics. So it’s a nice little mix.”

The Clarks last month released their 10th album of original material, “Madly In Love At The End Of The World,” their first such recording since “Feathers & Bones” in 2014.

“This project came about very organically,” Blasey explained. “We decided that on this record, we wanted to play these songs live. We wanted to write them, work on them, rehearse them and then get them out in front of an audience for a couple of months, a dozen or more shows, to see what works.”

Along with gauging audience response to songs, the process helped band members prepare to record them.

“When you go into the studio, you’re really well-rehearsed,” Blasey said. “You’re not deciding, should we do this chord change here or there? Everything’s really been decided upon, so you’re really just going in and recording the songs as live as possible.”

Sessions took place at Church Recording Studio in Overbrook, a venue that did once serve as a church before Dana Cannone bought the building and converted it into what Blasey called “really a world-class studio.” The resulting album is one in which the Clarks take pride.

“The thing I always tell everybody is at this point in our career, we really just try to make music that we like,” Blasey said, “And hopefully, other people will, too.”

Fans will have several opportunities to hear the full band perform this summer, including an Aug. 11 show at the Washington Country Fair.

This year marks the 30{sup}th{/sup} anniversary of the Clarks’ first album, “I’ll Tell You What Man …”. Three years later, the band achieved a breakthrough when WDVE-FM started playing Blasey’s song “Penny On the Floor.”

In 2004, the Clarks performed “Hell On Wheels,” the lead track of the album “Fast Moving Cars,” on “The Late Show With David Letterman.” Eleven years after that, another national audience heard the Clarks, including Blasey’s daughters, Sofia, Ava and Gracelyn.

“It was Sunday night, and they all gathered around the television and we watched ‘The Simpsons,'” he told the Spoonwood audience “I didn’t really tell them why. And at the end of the show, they played ‘What a Wonderful World’ by the Clarks. Their eyes got real big, and they’re like, ‘Daddy, Daddy! That’s you singing!’

“Suddenly, for a couple of seconds,” he said about their take on him, “I was actually cool to my children.”

For more information about the Clarks, visit www.clarksonline.com.

What’s In a Name?

In the year 1 B.C. (Before Clarks), in the little town of Indiana, Pa., there was this band called the Administration. It was me on vocals, Rob on guitar, Dave on drums, a friend named Mike on bass and another friend on saxophone.

It was Rob and Dave who started the band. Rob heard from a mutual friend that I played a couple Neil Young tunes at a bar uptown, and asked if I’d be interested in playing in a band. Dave thought I “looked” like a singer, what with my ultra-hip parachute pants and long-in-the-front, mid-’80s hairstyle.

We played one semester with that lineup – fraternities, mostly – doing covers by U2, the Cure, Joe Jackson, English Beat, etc. We basically played for free beer, and maybe a hundred dollars if they made a lot of money at the door. That spring, our sax player graduated and our bass player transferred.

The fall of ’86, Greg joined the band and we decided a name change was in order. “The Clarks” was someone’s suggestion at practice one day. The change came rather unceremoniously, and at the time, like the band itself, was not looked on as a permanent thing.

Our second gig was supposed to be at this big outdoor beer party in a field somewhere near Indiana, Pa. When we got there, we noticed quite a few drunk “townies” and an unorganized fiasco in the making. Rather than risk our own personal Altamont by playing “new wave” for a bunch of Skynyrd-lovin’ bikers, we drove back to campus and found a fraternity that would let us play their party that night. No money; we just wanted to play. I remember all of us feeling pretty good after that one.

The next spring, we wrote our first batch of original tunes and took second place in a band competition in Pittsburgh. Along with some free studio time came name recognition and new fans. Another name change at such a crucial time would’ve been ill-advised.

We also had a singer friend of ours at IUP suggest we get a real name. Maybe something more along the lines of his band’s name, Steel Heart. Yeah right! Maybe we should do more Rush covers, too.

These events solidified a commitment to our new name … and to each other.

We came to appreciate unforeseen qualities in our namesake. The name the Clarks is rather musically vague. It doesn’t give away what kind of music we play, and similarly, doesn’t restrict us to a particular style. It doesn’t attach itself to a particular time. It’s not trendy or clever, and as such, seems timeless.

It’s very Western Pennsylvania. There are Clarksburgs and Clarksvilles. There are plenty of Clark streets and avenues, not to mention more than one Clarks bar. A friend of mine bought the shirt off a guy’s back in the Upstage one night. It reads, “Clark’s, Cold Beer … No Flies.” I still have it with all my other Clarks paraphernalia.

Spelling is a no-brainer and it rarely requires explaining, although it has been misunderstood on occasion. A newsweekly in Washington, D.C., once printed The Clogs in the club listings, probably a result of the club owner’s Middle Eastern accent. Our friends the Epicurians send their newsletter to Das Klarken. And more than one Pittsburgher has asked the obvious: “Yunz named after that candy bar?”

It’s grown with us and now feels as familiar as my given name. I occasionally use “Scott from the Clarks” in certain phone/business situations. There is extended Clark family, and I’ve been known to refer to the crew as Team Clark. The name has fit nicely into those usages.

Maybe we should call the new record “The Name Remains the Same.”

– Scott Blasey, http://www.clarksonline.com, 1997