Clay is a band formed around Justin Clayton, a singer songwriter originally
hailing from Liverpool. Justin moved to New York after meeting an American
girl in London. It was a short lived whirl wind romance so from there he
headed west on his own road movie ending in Los Angeles where he rented
himself a one room flat and set about writing and demo-ing an album’s worth
of songs.

Justin eventually missing the Olde Blighty returned to London to look for a
Band. In London he met up with Marty Wilson Piper, member of legendary indie
guitar band The Church and after a day together of talking music and rifling
through Marty’s vast collection of 60’s and 70’s vinyl Justin asked him to
produce some of his songs. They shared an appreciation of the warm edgy
sound of bands like Badfinger, Bowie’s Spiders from Mars, Peter Green’s
Fleetwood Mac, early Zeppelin and later, records by Teenage Fanclub, to name
but a few. Mix up the sonic pallet of all of these guys with the mood swings
of Jeff Buckley or Thom Yorke and you have something resembling Clay.

In keeping with the now seemingly international theme, Marty suggested an
inexpensive studio and engineer in Sweden that he knew and introduced Justin
to rhythm section J. Odelholm, bass, and Christer Bjorklund, drums. The
three musicians instantly gelled, dimmed the lights and proceeded to flesh
out the songs, recording live to tape at The Blue Room studios deep in the
forest a few hours drive North of Stockholm.

Clay’s first single release is ‘Collide’. Justin handles the vocals and the
guitars with Jerker and Christer supplying the foundation. Andreas the
engineer also pitches in on keyboards. "Collide is about meeting up with the
girl after it’s all gone south and the pull you still get when your not sure
about the whole thing but the chemistry is still there. I suppose it’s all a
bit self-destructive", says Justin.

The two other tracks on the single are ‘Tragic’ and ‘No Worries’, both
recorded in his flat on his 8 track home studio.

After a lot of travelling and a few false starts Justin decided to release
this single on Smallman Records and will be taking his band out live soon. A
Second Single and Album will be forthcoming in the New Year.

"I’ll just keep plugging away ‘till someone gets it. It’s all I know"

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