The Cloves
Sumner, Washington, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2003 | SELF
Music
Press
"Vocal harmonies define the Cloves' sound. Layers on layers of them appear on this debut EP, sweet and expertly put together, like a Dilettante Cafe chocolate torte. The music harks back to the 1960s or early 1970s -- think the Beach Boys' quieter moments." - Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"The Cloves have a knack for soaring sounds, perfect compliments for beautiful summer days." - The Mountain 103.7 FM
The Cloves, Sunday night’s headliners at Jazzbones, appear to be on the fast track.
Childhood friends Michael Hochstatter and Kevin Poleskie formed the Sumner-bred band, which plays a melodic brand of rock that stylistically falls somewhere between the ’60s band the Byrds and the late Elliott Smith. That sound, built around the founding duo’s sweet vocal harmonizing, earned the Cloves – also guitarist Chris Walbridge and drummer Jason Maybell – two dates at The Showbox nightclub in Seattle, one as an opening act last fall and the most recent as a headliner in January.
Granted, the latter was a rental, put on by Seattle-based Epidemic Music and not organizers at The Showbox. But a bit of context is required when you consider the Cloves have been performing for less than a year and had played only six shows as a four-piece before the January gig.
Among the bands that have headlined The Showbox in recent years are Pearl Jam, Queens of the Stone Age and The Hives. Local headliners tend to be more established acts – the likes of Maktub and the Blood Brothers.
So it was no small feat for the Cloves to attract a few hundred fans to one of the Jet City’s most popular venues.
“I think their music speaks for itself,” said Travis “Tre” Straw of Epidemic Music, who booked the Cloves on the strength of their demo recording. “I thought they were a national act when I heard their music,” he said. “They have what it takes to make it. They could be the next big thing to come out of Seattle.”
The band’s founders maintain a low-key yet bewildered attitude about the whole thing.
“Don’t ask me how it happened,” Hochstatter said.
“We’d never played such a big place,” Poleskie said, recalling the fall gig. “Nothing even close, and we didn’t know what to expect.”
A broad grin crossed Hochstatter’s face as he put the show in perspective. “Take a couple of guys from Sumner, just a little town,” he said, “and we’re practicing at my grandma’s house in a spare bedroom with not even a proper PA system. It squeals if it gets too loud. … Then all of a sudden (we’re) getting a show at The Showbox.”
“That’s why the show was so great,” Poleskie said. “We could hear ourselves, and we were so pumped. The sound system was great; the crowd was so great. That was our best show, I think.”
The band has its roots on the Sumner street where Hochstatter and Poleskie grew up. The pair met when they were 6 years old and have been best friends since.
They started writing music together in high school after Hochstatter was diagnosed with chronic fatigue and, forced to quit playing sports, turned to music as an outlet. The friends continued writing together on weekends when Poleskie attended Western Washington University from 1998 to 2002, with no concrete plan for what to do with the songs they’d written.
“The reason we started the band was we had so many songs compiled,” Hochstatter said. “We were, like, ‘What’re we going to do with this?’ We probably had a hundred songs.”
They found Walbridge and Maybell through an ad in an alternative weekly newspaper. The Cloves played their first show last April and have since alternated between fully electric sets with the whole band and acoustic ones featuring Hochstatter and Poleskie.
Sunday’s show is in promotion of the Cloves’ new six-song CD, “Waiting for the World to Be,” which was partly recorded at Studio Litho, the Seattle studio owned by Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard.
The Cloves found both a sense of humor and awe regarding being on the recording schedule with the likes of part-time Seattleite Dave Matthews. “We had to squeeze in behind him because we wanted to get that piano done earlier,” Hochstatter said. “But he had it blocked out for a whole month or something. So we squeezed in like the day after.”
“The day we were recording was (Pearl Jam singer) Eddie Vedder’s 40th birthday,” Poleskie said. “A couple of the engineers were throwing a party for him.”
“So they weren’t there,” Hochstatter said. “So we had the studio all to ourselves.” - The Tacoma News Tribune
"Coming out of Seattle, USA... these are no grunge-kids. The Cloves come from the same mold as The Byrds and Teenage Fanclub to give you some classic songwriting with tunes that make summer great." - creation-records.com
"Their debut EP is a striking blend of harmonies, catchy hooks and clever wordplay, at times I forget that they are new and that it is not some long-lost classic album; it would fit perfectly alongside the Animals, The Beach Boys, or any other late sixties darling, in the modern world they blend alongside Travis and The Doves." - allalom.com
Discography
Revival (2015)
1. Revival
2. End of the World
3. Pass the Wine
4. Three Fourths Alive
5. Born
6. Last/Lost
7. No More
8. Rollercoaster
9. Revival (Reprise)
10. How Amazing
11. Absolve Me
Waiting for the World to Be (2005)
1. Ignored
2. A Million Reasons
3. Prescriptions
4. Smile
5. Love Will Find a Way
6. It's Not All Lost
Photos
Bio
The Cloves, led by childhood best friends Michael Hochstatter and Kevin Poleskie, are a folk/pop band that was formed in the small town of Sumner, just east of Tacoma, Washington. Since the band’s inception in 2004 The Cloves aspired to build themselves a passionate following in their community.
The band first produced a promising E.P. with lead guitarist Chris Walbridge and percussionist Jason Maybell titled Waiting for the World to Be which scored the new band playing time at the Showbox and the Crocodile, also receiving airplay on local radio giant KEXP. Their single “A Million Reasons” went on to be played around the world on TV networks NBC, CBS and ABC.
After an eight-year hiatus the band regrouped as an even more dynamic six-piece to record their first full length album with two new members, cellist Alec Duggan and keyboardist James Coates, who both add a classic twist to the band’s more contemporary vibes.
Now a staple in their community, The Cloves called on their fanbase to help them finance the band’s newest album Revival. This paid off for the group last December when they raised over $10,000 via their Kickstarter campaign, further cementing the importance of community in the band’s mindset.
During the decade between the release of their initial E.P. and new album, which was recorded with producer Martin Feveyear (Brandi Carlile, Damien Jurado, Kris Orlowski) at Jupiter Studios in Seattle, Michael and Kevin stayed true to the band’s community-fostering philosophy. They often organized smaller, intimate events that featured emotional performances, although they’ve also played sold-out shows like the Revival album release, held at the Triple Door on July 17th, 2015.
The band’s sound has been described as “modern Americana folk harmonized through a ‘60s pop lens,” taking influence from Crosby, Stills & Nash, Wilco and the Zombies in an effort to keep their music bitter-sweet and dreamy; like driving through your childhood neighborhood and seeing how everything has stayed the same but, paradoxically, has also completely changed.
With plenty of experience playing shows both large and small, the band pays close attention to the little details in their performances on stage in order to make the atmosphere of each show as special as possible. For example, The Cloves often build on their “homey” and “intimate” music by effectively using antique house lamps with Edison bulbs during live shows; the lamps dim and pulse along with their well-crafted setlist of songs.
The band also deftly controls their use of space, no matter what size the venue. They did just that when opening a recent outing by surrounding the audience from above and singing from all four balconies at their Tacoma Cathedral Show on August 7th, 2015. Then the band finished that set in a big way by playing their final two songs with the church’s built-in pipe organ which echoed beautifully throughout the cathedral.
Finally, the band often incorporates two violinists led by Maggie Booher into their live shows, further making their performances sonically diverse and a unique experience for show-goers.
Many of The Cloves’ songs are yet another extension of the band’s intimate and authentic personality. As the band’s songwriters, Michael and Kevin compose personal, even confessional, lyrics over a musical tapestry that combines rich classical sentiment with more conventional pop instrumentation.
Michael’s struggle with depression and eventual triumph over chronic fatigue is only one of the many emotional stories told through The Cloves’ music, highlighted in the songs “Three Fourths Alive” and “How Amazing,” both of which appear on Revival, officially released on July 21st, 2015.
Band Members
Links
