Interview: Joe Clayton
Over the last few years I've realised that what was once the dream of touring everywhere and doing everything is less and less feasible and less realistic. I'm getting old, I'm getting grey and I need to buy a house. I can't be in an unsuccessful post-rock band forever.
If Joe Clayton wasn’t busy enough playing in and recording bands he found a new use for his limited time by starting up Floodlit Recordings. Gary Davidson caught up with Joe as he was gearing up for a run of shows in England and Europe with Pijn to talk about the new album, dropping out of a medical career to take up recording, the aims for the new label and the triumphant Curse These Metal Hands 2023 Arctangent set. Joe was also kind enough to provide the play of ‘Weave In’ live from the Boston Music Rooms, so loop it a few times and dive into everything Joe Clayton.
E&D: Let’s start off with Pijn, after playing the upcoming, and ridiculously stunning, Cvltfest resurrected in Manchester you are going on a wee tour. After being in touring bands for over 15 years, why do you keep doing it to yourself?
Joe: I’m not sure. I think there’s got to be some sort of desire for punishment. It’s this kind of thing where sometimes you play a show and it’s terrible but you don’t really want to be anywhere else in the world. Then you play a show and it’s amazing but it doesn’t really mean anything. There is a happy medium where everyone is kind of locked in and I’m hearing our music being played and it’s got a bit more of an edge than in the studio, more energy and life, it’s pretty intangible but like is insanely addictive as well. There has got to be some sort of bad addiction tendency, chasing that high.
E&D: You have some dates in England as well as through the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Do you still self book tours or use a booking agent?
Joe: No, we’ve got an agent now, Tyler (Hodges, Atonal Music Agency) who also plays in Tuskar. We have used him for a few years and it is so nice just not having to do some of that stuff myself and having someone fighting in your corner for a lot of things as well. It makes a huge difference and we’re very lucky to have someone like him.
E&D: You’ve been in a few bands over the years as the main songwriter. Have you found your writing processes changing and what has kept it going over a diverse range of bands?
Joe: I think the process is always the same and that’s something that I have realised a bit more lately when I’ve actually not been writing. No matter what sort of project or band it has to be kind of reactionary to something. I can sort of map out the things that I was going through, as I was really wanting to write those really aggressive stuff at this point, or I was wanting to create something beautiful at this point. I was wanting to try these things as it was this pretty clear reflex to what was going on.
E&D: The first Pijn releases came out on Holy Roar and at that time they were quite a big, little label in the UK sense, how did you come about getting those deals?
Joe: My previous band, Old Skin, had been about to put out an album on Holy Roar but it was quite a difficult time outside of the band and we ended up deciding that we just needed to stop. So rather than let them press however many copies and then not being able to go out and tour it we sort of declined their offer and just put it on Bandcamp and that was the band done. When I was back trying to sort out something with Pijn about a year later I got in touch. I remember a lot of conversations where they were wanting a certain amount of touring and a lot of things that possibly weren’t actually going to be feasible for us to do. So we actually ended up agreeing that we were going to press it and Holy Roar would distribute it. It ended up that it came out as a proper Holy Roar release but we paid for it and they sort of bought the copies off us, but it did well enough that they let us go completely ham and make a gatefold hour and a bit long album after that.
E&D: You had been announced as a signing on Prosthetic Records and you released ‘Weave In’ as a single but then nothing came after that. Can you sum up that period of time?
Joe: Well we changed our lineup a little bit, it was kind of overdue and that sort of set us back as we’d most of an album done. I felt that it would be nice to bed everyone in and let them take ownership with the record, so I basically re-recorded most of it and let everyone add their little flavour. For us it was the right thing but it took a lot longer and it kind of killed any momentum that we may once have had. Then it just wasn’t feasible for either party so it was a fairly amicable conversation as we hadn’t gotten to a point of it being finished, which happened to be a further five and a half months later so really would have screwed with too many cogs really.
E&D: You mentioned momentum, how important do you feel that is? Although not releasing much music you’ve done a few UK tours, have the attendances at those allowed you to feel your name is still out there?
Joe: Yeah, I mean for the most part they’ve been really good. In November we did our first proper headline run and they all felt really good. We haven’t done that much in the interim and it definitely does weigh on me, but over the last few years I’ve realised that what was once the dream of touring everywhere and doing everything is less and less feasible and less realistic. I’m getting old, I’m getting grey and I need to buy a house. I can’t be in an unsuccessful post rock band forever.
E&D: I guess another way of ruining your finances is by starting your own label. So what sent you down the road of starting Floodlit Recordings?
Joe: I think as soon as we were looking at mortgages I just thought, I should start a label, we don’t need to worry about a house (laughing and crying a bit). It was a couple of things really. Obviously Pijn found ourselves back where we were when we started and wondering how we want to go with releasing music, so self-releasing and maybe getting picked up by another label was the initial plan rather than actually setting up a proper label. Then I just started feeling like I wanted less pressure on time frames and wanted to get into the weeds of doing exactly what I wanted to do. Coming at the same time was a lot of really exciting things going on at the studio and I have had lots of conversations with bands that were looking for labels but didn’t really know who to approach. I think a couple of times people asked if I’d ever thought about doing something myself and I’d always brushed it off but it kind of planted a seed over a little while and I thought well I’ll just start a little thing and see how it goes.
E&D: Do you have any other bands lined up for the label?
Joe: There are some bands lined up but there’s probably no benefit in announcing them yet in case things change.
E&D: When will you be read to release the next Pijn album?
Joe: It’s done, I’m waiting on a little bit of artwork and then it’s off to the off to the plant and goodbye to all the money that I’d saved towards the label.
E&D: As well as being in bands and starting your label your day job is recording bands in No Studio in Manchester. How did you get into recording and mixing?
Joe: That came about because I didn’t get into the medical school that I wanted to get into and I wanted a break from doing all that. Also all the musical projects I was doing at the time had sort of come to a natural conclusion and so I got a teaching job in Manchester. A friend told me about this place where they teach you to do audio engineering that would basically give you a degree equivalent in the evenings around a day job and weekends. I kind of knew from the start that I just wanted to use it as a way to just do my own music and get better at that but I got the bug very quickly and just spent all my time there and all my money!
E&D: What would you say are your personal highlights from the studio?
Joe: There are a few that, when I look back, I’m just like yeah okay that felt like a really big kind of moment. The first Wode album I worked on (the band’s second album Servants Of The Countercosmos) was incredible. They’ve been a massive Manchester institution and they’re a brilliant band and so getting to work with them was incredible. The first Earth Moves album might not have been the biggest band or whatever but they’re all amazing musicians. We just had the most fun and I was kind of pinching myself that this is what I was doing at the time. The Tuskar album, Matriarch, was a crazy one because I did my first mix, they were really happy but then I must have had an accelerated period of self-hatred and I just thought I can’t release this and I just did it again. After that I felt I love this a lot more now so that was pretty good. But from every session I have a clear memory of certain bits on each. Each album kind of just ends up being locked to this period of time, dumb jokes when you’re five to seven days in and you’ve barely seen daylight, it’s amazing. Yeah there’s something from every release I’d say and that’s kind of how I want it to carry on.
E&D: So apart from Pijn, Floodlit Recordings and No Studio there is also your membership of the worlds biggest Baroness tribute band! How did that feel to play to a packed main stage at Arctangent in 2023?
Joe: I mean it’s mad, it is just crazy to think that some of these things that we did had enough legs in them for us to still be wanting to play them, however many years on and for people to still want to hear it. We’ve only done, I don’t know, five shows or something like that but the intention was only ever to do like one I think so we’ve already gone way above that. It was such an unbelievable honour and privilege to get invited onto that stage because it’s crazy, everything is the the top of its game but not at the kind of massive corporate level and we kind of got carte blanche to be idiots and print stupid merch and nothing was off the table for extra things to try to bring to the stage. If you’re going to be sort of considered the house band for anything I mean Arctangents a pretty good place to be.
E&D: Are there any plans for more Curse These Metal Hands material?
Joe: There’s little rumblings, we had wanted to do another sort of mini album, long EP whatever we called it but I don’t think we’ve got a full album, we’re nowhere near. It’s really difficult to juggle everyone’s schedules and it’s become even more difficult since Conjurer has blown up into the absolute UK riff behemoth that they are. It’s always just going to be this nice thing, we’re all just mates messaging in a group chat and ideas just instantly being poo pooed and that’s fine but there’s a couple of bits. There’s one fully formed song that we did live last year and we’re going to try and get that recorded fairly soon. We were going to try and get it done before last year’s Arctangent but that just wasn’t going to happen. We’re gonna aim to do the same thing this year but actually deliver, so fingers crossed for that. We’ll maybe try and do some bits but if we don’t it’s absolutely fine. I think leaving that one EP as our actual only recorded form will be fine by me.
Pijn play the opening night of Cvltfest with Dvne, Mastiff and Hundred Year old Man on Friday 23 February before heading around England and Europe on the following dates: Bristol 24 February, Norwich 25 February, Exeter 26 February, Nijmegen 28 February, Alkmaar 29 February, Tilburg 1 March, Liege 2 March, Lille 3 March.
