The Clause ready to rock Birmingham
It's been a rip-roaring year for Birmingham's The Clause, and they're not done yet.
Tomorrow night, at the O2 Academy 2 on Horse Fair in their home city, they will play their biggest ever headline show to around 650 mad-fer-it fans, friends and family members - and it's already completely sold out.
And as vocalist and lead singer Pearce Macca tells The Star: "We went a bit mad with the supports."
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They did - four of them in total. Meaning that joining the four-piece on stage will be Wolverhampton's Watermark, Brummie singer-songwriter George Pannell, Candid of Coventry and Walsall's The Assist. It's due to be one big celebration of the West Midlands scene.
That is if Macca, aged 20, can recover fully in time.
"The show must go on," he says, revealing that he has been struck down with the current bout of winter sickness bugs currently doing the rounds - this writer fell victim too. "And actually, because I've been ill there's not really that many nerves.
"I'm excited. I want to get the job done. We've done that many gigs now that I don't really feel any nerves. But I guess we'll see how I feel on the side of the stage tomorrow.
"It's a massive achievement for us after how hard we've all worked. It will be a special night.
"It's quite a nice story too. Liam [Deakin, lead-guitarist] used to work in the Lambretta shop and Watermark walked in one day and said 'oh man, you're that guy from The Clause'. We offered them the gig after he spoke to them. We'd love to have had somebody offer us that opportunity when we were starting out. Now we can help them. George Pannell is making waves in the scene, Candid are really, really good on stage and The Assist are a class act."
The Clause are all Brummie lads. Macca and Deakin, 21, are joined by two more 20-year-olds - Niall Fennell on drums and Jonny Fyffe slapping the bass. And they've known each other for some time.
"Me, Jonny and Niall were all in high school together," Pearce continues. "We actually started a band in Year 7 when we were 11 or 12 years old. It had like 12 people in it at the start and as we progressed we condensed that.
"We eventually became a four-piece and when we entered sixth form our original guitarist left. It was all fine, he is a great guy. Liam asked if he could fill the space and that's when we formally started.
"We released our first song - Shut Me Out - in 2016. It was written after one or two practice sessions, it just came together. We thought, 'that's not too bad', so decided to go and record it. We put it out and the tweet then went viral.
"So then we thought we'd put on our own gig. It was in the Cellar at the old The Rainbow Venues [in Digbeth], which held about 150 people. We did all the ticket selling ourselves with no help and actually managed to oversell as we didn't count it properly so people were cramming in at the back. The venue were not happy at all and gave us a massive wrap across the knuckles for that but it was a good start so we thought we'd give it a shot properly.
"That was a great venue," he adds of the defunct site which part of it has reopened as The Mill. "It was a shame it had to shut in such circumstances."
As mentioned, it's been a hectic year, Peaky-ing with a slot at the first ever Legitimate Peaky Blinders Festival in Digbeth this summer - or so they thought. It was a day they thoroughly enjoyed, although it wouldn't turn out to be the biggest highlight of their year.
"That was so busy," Macca remembers. "It was a fantastic festival and brilliant for Birmingham to have something like that repping the scene. We didn't get to meet any of the stars but I did notice Finn Cole [who plays Michael Shelby in the Birmingham-set, part-Black Country-filmed show] walk through and stop to watch us for a bit. We should have tried harder to get backstage afterwards but had to lug our own equipment back out of the site due to not being able to drive up behind the stage. We were pretty busy all day."
That was then topped in October when it was announced they had been signed to Universal Music, who Macca describes as "the biggest record label in the world". It's a huge coup for the rockers and points to even more success moving forwards.
"We were actually approached in July because we distributed our stuff through Spinnup, who are owned by Universal so they kind of use it to scout new talent. I think the hype around the release of our single In My Element this summer on social media got their attention.
"We held a few meetings and played them some of our unreleased stuff. We needed to get the right terms for us, but the deal was done and they announced it in October.
"It's amazing, absolutely huge for us, and we will be working on developing our brand. There's a great team behind us and they're not really allowing us to tell everyone our plans yet, but 2020 will be a massive year for The Clause."
They're not quite at the stage where they can quit their day jobs yet - Macca and Fennell are in university, Fyffe works for M&S and Deakin at Costa Coffee - but that is the aim when their album is ready to roll.
"We could release it tomorrow," Macca adds. "But we want to wait until it is the right time. The label has structures in place for these things and it won't be within the next six months. I've seen some great young bands release albums too soon when they haven't waited to build their audience enough first. We don't want that.
"We want to be the biggest in the world. If you aim any less, then you won't reach those heights. It might sound arrogant to some, but with hard work and Universal Music's backing we believe it can pay off."
And those lucky enough to have tickets or be on the guestlist for the sold-out show tomorrow night will be able to see the hype for themselves.
