The Claze: A folk-tinged band from Cornwall with a heart for the poor

Sunday 22nd September 2013

Tony Cummings spoke to THE CLAZE about their music and mission

The Claze
The Claze

It's probably most British grassroots Christian artists' dream to have a major Christian music festival in their hometown. But that's the situation for Wadebridge, Cornwall-based band The Claze. So it was hardly surprising that at this year's Creation Fest, held at Wadebridge's Royal Cornwall Showground, the band should launch their debut album, 'Breathing People'. It's been pretty well received, Cross Rhythms' reviewer calling it "a mixture of folk and pop songs which have been beautifully written." The band consist of Gareth Dix (lead vocals, guitar, harmonica), Dave Fowle (keys), Tom McIntyre (bass) and James Penfold (drums). Cross Rhythms met up with the band and began by asking Gareth to fill in a bit of band history.

"We've been going for four years - we started as a worship band. I've been playing in bands for longer than four years. We all met at a local church near here, Wadebridge Christian Centre, played on Sunday mornings. Tom - who wasn't actually playing at the time, wasn't even playing a bass guitar at the time either - gave me a call one day and said, 'I really want to play the bass guitar'. He's an ex-forces guy, wanted to do a gig for Help The Heroes. I said, 'You can't play an instrument'. And he said, 'Don't worry about that minor issue' so I said okay. We got together and played a gig. Tom was part of the church and he started learning bass during that time, played a bit of acoustic guitar. We played that gig; it was pretty ropey. We've just developed from there, effectively Sunday mornings and occasionally other stuff."

Gareth went on to explain the origins of the band's odd name. "We started off as The Cuffs. Then we found there was a punk band from Australia called The Cuffs that were doing reasonably well. So we were interested in the concept of Cornwall - from Cornwall clay. There's an area in Cornwall called The Clays but we couldn't be called the Clays because there was someone else called that, and then websites come into it and dot com. A guy who works with us, he's a designer, said if you've got an unusual name, even if it's a derivative of something, you're gonna get hits if it becomes a bit unique. So we took a derivative of clay and put it into The Claze as it is now. We've been The Claze for three and a half years."

Gareth spoke about the nicely crafted songs on 'Breathing People'. "About half the album was written six or seven years ago, more lyrically, and then when we came together as a band we looked at the musical arrangements. The other half of it was written as a band within six to 12 months. We had a collection of songs that we recorded: 'Henley', 'Cornishman', 'Mumbles'; then we had the situation where we sent them off to some producers at BBC Radio and Mark Radcliffe, the producer, liked them and passed them on to someone else. So we were contacted by BBC Radio 2 and asked if we could send them our album - which we hadn't done. We'd done three songs! So we thought we'd better get a move on and we literally went back into the studio and recorded within two or three months of that contact the remainder of the album which became 'Breathing People'."

The Cross Rhythms' reviewer's favourite track on the album was the haunting "Mumbles". Gareth lived in the Welsh town for awhile and spoke about the song's genesis. "There's a place called the Mumbles Mile which is loads of pubs and it was how far along the mile you could get till you fell off the end in a drunken stupor. It was during those days that I realised that there were all these people here and Jesus told us to be fishers of men. It was not an epiphany, it was just a realisation that I wanna be playing in these places, talking to these guys, and it helped me change my own life around towards what I did musically."

The Claze: A folk-tinged band from Cornwall with a heart for the poor

To the perennial question of whether The Claze are happy with the label "Christian band" Tom McIntyre responded, "We kind of think we're a band, we're Christians, we kind of want to be open to anybody. I don't think we label ourselves. We love playing music in pubs, getting out there to people who aren't Christians, showing them that Christians aren't just a bunch of freaks that go to church on a Sunday morning and that's it. We're normal guys, normal people. We give them an opportunity to talk to normal, random guys that are Christians as well, and our faith influences our music."

James Penfold added his thoughts, "A lot of the gigs that we do in pubs - we don't stand at the front and preach. Sometimes it's just as simple as bringing a bit of joy into an environment, 'cos we have a really good laugh. It's nice to bring some goodness and happiness into a place and get into some conversations after that."

The release of 'Breathing People' is intended to raise money and awareness for an important social action initiative. Explained Gareth, "A few years ago we set up a social enterprise which is a not for profit organization called Exhale - Breathing Life Into People And Places. The idea was to help reduce poverty in Cornwall and we felt it would be really interesting for The Claze to become a not for profit social enterprise project and to use music emotively to be able to connect with some of the projects that we were doing on the ground - like helping people in poverty or with major health issues."

The things Gareth is seeing during his time with Exhale has influenced his songwriting. He explained, "'Nathaniel' is written about a child who was a stillbirth and the coping mechanisms of that. Some of the work Exhale do is supporting people who have been bereaved, and cancer rehabilitation programmes. 'Tulips And Coffee' was written about someone in our town with cancer."

After the long wait for their debut Gareth is confident that their next release won't take so long. He said, "We're hoping to record again in the next 12 months and continue the mission that we're doing. Whatever it sounds like: we love playing music and that's the end of it." CR

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.
About Tony Cummings
Tony CummingsTony Cummings is the music editor for Cross Rhythms website and attends Grace Church in Stoke-on-Trent.


 

Be the first to comment on this article

We welcome your opinions but libellous and abusive comments are not allowed.












We are committed to protecting your privacy. By clicking 'Send comment' you consent to Cross Rhythms storing and processing your personal data. For more information about how we care for your data please see our privacy policy.

NAVIGATION
CONNECT WITH CROSS RHYTHMS
SIGNUP

Connect with Cross Rhythms by signing up to our email mailing list

A Step Change...
Cross Rhythms Media Training Centre
MORE ARTICLES
DISCOGRAPHY
ARTIST PROFILES
Artists & DJs A-Z
# A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z #
Or keyword search

 

PRAYER ROOMS
Watering Hole
Be heard in your pain and needs and cry out to your God in our Prayer Room