Clover’s ‘Pariah’ sparks a rock revolution! In an exclusive interview, the band shares their electrifying journey & music’s powerful allure.
Meet Clover, the electrifying new generation of rock making waves with their debut album ‘Pariah.’ Hailing from Adelaide, Australia, this powerhouse quartet exudes a pulsating sound that redefines the genre.
‘Pariah‘ is a testament to their evolution, boasting raw honesty and an eclectic mix of influences. Fronted by the enigmatic Holly Hastings, the band’s bluesy riffs and emotionally charged performances captivate audiences, leaving them craving more.
Clover’s collaborative songwriting approach sets them apart, infusing each track with a unique voice. With relentless touring, captivating vlogs, and a gripping podcast, the band’s dynamic presence is unstoppable.
Clover’s music resonates with the raw energy of vintage rock while embracing modern sensibilities. As they set their sights on the future, this rock sensation promises to continue forging a new path in the music world, leaving fans eagerly anticipating what’s next.
Happy: What are you up to today?
Clover: It’s been a fairly standard day for all of us! Archie’s been at work selling guitars at Holden Hill music store all day, Holly and Molly have both had the day off from their day jobs and Brad’s been in bed recovering from a horrendous flu.
Basically, we’ve been recovering from our trip to Perth and regrouping for our next tour dates in regional SA and VIC.
Happy: Tell us about where you are from? What’s the music scene like in your neck of the woods?
Clover: We’re all based in Adelaide, South Australia at the moment! Archie moved over here from Warrington, England when he was eleven, but Brad, Holly and Molly have been in Adelaide their whole lives.
The music scene over here is fairly small, Adelaide is pretty much like a country town so everyone knows everyone over here. The scene is based almost solely in Indie and Alternative, which is why we think Clover stands out so much; no one is really doing it how we do it anymore.
Happy: Describe an average day?
Clover: An average day for each of us varies. We’ve all got day jobs– Archie works at a music store selling guitars, Brad is an apprentice chippy, Holly works at Bunnings and Molly is a barista!
Holly likes to hit the gym after a shift while Molly and Archie go swimming. Then typically we have band rehearsals at Molly’s house. We spend three nights a week practising and nit-picking our show, writing songs and organising tour dates.
On our off days we’re editing vlogs, brainstorming content ideas and keeping up with any admin for the band. Self managing a band is pretty hectic, and we’re all learning as we go, so it doesn’t leave much room for down time with our music!
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Happy: What about your ultimate day?
Clover: An ultimate day for all of us would be show days on tour. Nothing beats the feeling before playing a big show, the lead up, excitement, and the adrenaline– as a rock band it’s what we live for! And then getting to be up on stage for two or so hours bringing our music and stage show to the fans really is one of the best feelings.
Happy: What did you listen to growing up that fuelled your passion for music?
Clover: Growing up we all had very different tastes in music.
Molly took heaps of inspiration from Nirvana in her early teens, as well as Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. Around seventeen, she discovered Guns N’ Roses and immediately learned the whole of Appetite For Destruction on drums.
The Foo Fighters have also had a huge impact on Molly’s passion for music– Taylor Hawkins has always been one of her favourite drummers.
Brad grew up on the classics– AC/DC and Led Zeppelin. He discovered metal in high school and is Clover’s self proclaimed metal head. Motionless In White, Alice In Chains, Shinedown, have all played a massive part in shaping Brad’s bass style and fuelled his passion to keep picking up the bass.
Holly grew up enraptured with Micheal Jackson and the energy he brought to his live performances, it’s an energy she has tried to let bleed into her own stage show.
Suzie Quatro fuelled her passion for that gritty sort of rock vocal style, while listening to Amy Winehouse taught her how to let her soul and emotions bleed into her song writing.
In more recent times, Nothing But Thieves –particularly Conner Mason’s vocals– have played a huge part in how Holly writes her melodies.
Back in England, Archie’s music journey started with listening to bands like Travis and Stereophonics. He had his roots based in English Alt. bands before discovering a love for metal and later Mississippi blues that would shape his iconic style on guitar.
Happy: How does your debut album ‘Pariah’ represent the evolution of Clover’s songcraft and the forging of a new generation of rock?
Clover: We really put ourselves on the map with our debut EP ‘One More.’ It was raw and honest and really showed the hearts of four young rockstars. ‘Pariah’ basically kept this same heart – which is the message we’ve always wanted to put out into the world– but gave us a chance to hone our songwriting. We’ve spent the last two years playing live and learning more about our instruments, and we think that individual growth and musicianship is evident on this album and the maturity you can hear in each track.
We genuinely haven’t heard another band putting out the music we are, with the production we’ve got– something that walks the line between old school and new school. This album really has something for all generations of rock lovers and enough other influences to draw in new fans too. That’s how we’re forging this next generation of rock.
Happy: Can you elaborate on the diverse musical dimensions explored in ‘Pariah’ and how they contribute to Clover’s unique sound?
Clover: Clover has always been about saying it how it is, laying our hearts on the line. If that’s through our heavier tracks or in our more vulnerable songs, we want to show our fans what we’re feeling.
We all bring our personal influences to the table, Archie with his blues riffs, Brad and Molly with their grungy rhythm section and Holly with her pop/blues vocals.
‘Pariah’ was a chance for us to explore all the sides of music that we love! Brad love’s metal, and was able to express this through our heavier tracks ‘War’ and ‘Silenced,’ while Archie got to inject dirty, bluesy riffs into ‘Take 26’ and ‘Outta Your Hands.’
We weren’t afraid to slow things down and get a bit more personal with ‘Catch And Release’ and ‘Alaska’ which appealed more to our emotional side and tell deeply personal stories.
‘Pariah’ goes on a bit of an emotional journey. We wanted to show fans all the facets of Clover, so no matter what mood they’re in, we’ve got a song to match.
Happy: “Take 26” and “Underground” showcase bluesy riffs within Clover’s music. How do these tracks embody the bewitching allure and what role do they play in the overall album? And where does this bluesy passion originally stem from?
Clover: The passion for blues all stems from Archie. Around the genesis of Clover, Archie really found a true love in Mississippi blues. He discovered Robert Johnson, R.L. Burnside, Muddy Waters– all the classic blues men and just started pouring their influence into his riffs.
It was crazy how listening to the blues changed our sound, but it’s been at the core of every single riff we’ve recorded and released since then.
Take 26 and Underground really are the core of our blues rock sound. They’re driven and hooky, and out of any songs on the album these would be the two to stick in your head. It’s Clover’s blues rock sound at its best, really.
When we play live, these two songs are always at the start of our set, because the groovy blues riffs get the audience hyped up and dancing around!
Happy: “Alaska” stands out as a vulnerable offering on ‘Pariah,’ delving into grief and introspection through folk acoustic terrain. Could you share the inspiration behind this track and how it showcases Clover’s ability to convey heartfelt sincerity?
Clover: This track really slows things down on the album. It’s a chance for listeners to take a break and sort of feel some of the pain we felt as a band during the making of this album.
Archie was stuck at home with Covid when he wrote the riff, so it was born from this place of isolation, of being trapped. It was so different from what we were used to writing, but as soon as the rest of us heard it we knew it was the missing piece to ‘Pariah.’
2022 was a tough year for all of us, but especially for Holly and Archie, who both lost a family member. That’s what the lyrics are about, losing loved ones and using music as a way to connect with them.
Holly was in a vulnerable state after losing her papa, and this was the best way she knew to connect with him and with those difficult emotions.
Archie performed the song at his nan’s wake. So, while the riff was born from isolation, for Archie it turned into something closer to grief. It’s an expression of our rawest emotions, a song that all of us, but especially Archie and Holly find hard to perform live.
Happy: A for production! Can you share any insights into the recording process?
Clover: It was our second time in the studio– after recording our EP ‘One More.’ It allowed us to build on the experience we had the first time around and learn how to improve on our recording process. We took more time to get each part right, we went back and re-recorded everything until it was perfect.
We also spent more time with the post production to try and find a balance between the rawness of 70’s rock and the more radio-friendly production of modern rock. It’s a fine line between sounding too boxy and too overproduced, but we found the balance. And we think this has a big part to play in making our sound!
We Recorded ‘Pariah’ over the course of about seven months, spending eight hour days on and off in the studio. Playing your songs in the studio is a whole different beast to playing them live. It requires a certain attention to detail and critical mind that there isn’t really room for live.
On stage is almost like running a sprint, just one burst of energy and then you’re done. But in the studio it’s more like a marathon. You’ve got to conserve your energy over the eight hours, and by the end of it you’re honestly just about ready to pass out.
Happy: How did the collaborative songwriting process among the four members shape the overall sound and vision of ‘Pariah’? What advantages did collective songwriting bring to the album?
Clover: Collaborative songwriting is really what makes our sound. At our roots, Clover is a rock band, but if you listen to ‘Pariah’ it’s hard to pin it to any one specific influence. That’s all because of our collective song writing and giving each other a chance to bring our individual voices into each song.
It takes a little longer than just one person writing, but it really allows us to all have our say and to make each song the best possible version of itself that it can be. It gives everyone a chance to be creative and it keeps our sound unique.
Happy: Could you provide some insight into the transformative journey that led to Clover’s formation and the specific qualities that each member brings to the band’s dynamic?
Clover: Clover technically started out when we were in year twelve, but we don’t really count the start of Clover until we found Holly.
In high school, we were the same band with the same name, but we were nothing compared to what we became when Holly joined.
She really was the missing link we needed. We’d had this sort of mindset shift when our last singer left, and Brad, Archie and Molly were moving in this more seventies blues influenced direction, but the puzzle pieces didn’t fall into place until Holly started putting melodies to it all.
That’s when we knew we had something.
Our stage show had this whole new energy, everyone started taking their instruments more seriously, we grew as songwriters, it was crazy!
In terms of what we each bring to the band, it’s this collective drive and passion to get our music out there that creates our dynamic.
It’s less about each member having ‘specific qualities’ that they bring to Clover and more that we’ve all just got the exact same passion for music.
We all want this desperately, more than anything.
That’s what you can hear in the songs we write, it’s what you can see when we’re up on stage, it’s what you can feel in the content we put out.
It’s a hunger for music and for the stage and a desperation to have our music heard.
Happy: What was the significance of Holly Hastings joining the band as the enigmatic frontwoman?
Clover: Holly joining the band is what made us Clover. Like we mentioned before, Brad, Archie and Molly had been playing together since high school, but we didn’t consider it the start of Clover as we are today until Holly joined.
Happy: How has her presence influenced the creative direction and energy of Clover?
Clover: Holly brings a whole lot of heart to Clover. She’s not afraid to get vulnerable with her lyrics and bare her soul through her melodies. It was a creative transparency we hadn’t had in a frontman up until then, and it totally changed the course of our song writing.
Live, she’s just got so much energy it makes us all want to play harder. The first gig she played after joining Clover was the most energy any of us has had on stage, and since then we’ve become known across the country for having a super high energy show. It’s shaped the way the world sees us.
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Happy: As a new rock powerhouse, how do you feel ‘Pariah’ represents the genre at its best?What elements of the album do you believe set Clover apart from other rock acts?
Clover: ‘Pariah’ really is the antithesis of Indie rock, which sets us apart completely from the Alternative acts making waves in the mainstream right now. We’re bringing back guitar based rock, we’re bringing back blues –which is something we haven’t heard from many rock acts these days– and we’re bringing back a raw unfiltered sound.
We don’t use effects live, we’ve never touched backing tracks and we don’t oversaturate our recorded music in post production.
With Clover, what you see is what you get, and that’s what sets us apart. A lot of artists these days are afraid to bare their souls to an audience, unfiltered and without effects.
We wear our hearts on our sleeves in the studio and on the stage, and you can really hear that in ‘Pariah.’ We walk the line between old school and new school like we said before, which is something none of us has ever heard.
‘Pariah’ is full of in your face guitar, wild drumming, thumping bass and soaring vocals. It gives each member their chance to shine– that’s something that’s getting rarer and rarer these days too.
Happy: Looking forward, what can fans expect from Clover in terms of future music releases and live performances? How do you envision the band’s growth and evolution in the coming years?
Clover: We’ve been touring ‘Pariah’ around Australia since its release in April! Moving forward we’re hitting Whyalla, Port Lincoln, Mildura and Woomera– all of which are being documented in a vlog series that we’ve just started releasing called ‘The Pariah Tour Diaries.’
We’ve got a bunch of video content lined up, including a documentary series about our debut album called ‘Talking Pariah,’ the first episode of which is dropping in the next couple of months.
We’re aiming to hit all the major cities in Australia towards the start of next year, and we’ve just started writing songs for our next album! While fans are waiting for the next album to drop, we’re also releasing a podcast. The podcast will detail everything from our experiences with ‘Pariah’ to our personal lives and the process of writing our next album.
We’re bringing rock back, so that’s what fans can expect from us in the coming years!
