August 18, 2025 • 18 mins
Bubba Startz welcomes Clementine Moss to discuss her background and career journey. The conversation delves into the challenges and deep respect she has for iconic drum parts, particularly in Led Zeppelin's music. Clementine shares insights into her creative process and spiritual experiences with the all-female tribute band, Zapparella. They explore how performing tribute music has influenced her original compositions. The episode concludes with Clementine offering closing remarks and a glimpse into her future projects, providing listeners with an understanding of her artistic path and ongoing endeavors.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Welcome in to another exciting episode of thescene.
I'm your host, Bubba Starts, and with me todayis singer songwriter and drummer Clementine
Moss.
Welcome to the show, Clementine.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me.
Well, I'm sure you live an exciting life justbeing in the Bay Area and playing music.
But before we get into all of that, give us alittle bit of your back story.
(00:23):
Okay.
Yeah.
My, back story is, I am the drummer for the LedZeppelin band, Zepperella, which has been
together for almost a couple decades now.
And, I travel all over The United States,playing drums, but playing John Bonham's parts.
(00:43):
And then in in my downtime, I'm also a a singersongwriter.
I have several albums out, and I'm also awriter.
I have a book out about my music career.
I'm also a spiritual counselor, anondenominational spiritual counselor, which is
what kind of what my book is about, how mymusic career is kind of a metaphor for some of
(01:07):
the contemplative practices that I do.
So, yeah, that I think that's as quick as Icould say my life right now.
Yeah.
Well, it's pretty awesome.
Incredible.
What a joy to make a living playing some of thegreatest songs ever written and then getting to
kind of tag along your own songs and careerwith that, I'm sure.
(01:28):
I'm sure fans of the band are also fans of ofyour career as well.
So very cool.
What what a challenge.
Talk I mean, we gotta start off with, you know,how challenging is it to to play for a living,
right, the some of the most iconic drum partsin rock and roll history.
(01:49):
Do you feel the pressure on a nightly basis?
It definitely keeps you humble.
Yeah.
It definitely keeps you humble, to play, youknow, the greatest, you know, rock drum parts,
you know, some of the greatest rock drum parts.
But, you know, it also you really have to giveover to the fact that, you know, I'm never
(02:12):
gonna be John Bottom.
Right?
No matter how much I try, I will neveraccomplish what he accomplished on the drums.
And that my job though is to do it justice asbest that I can, to show up as best I can, to
be able to convey the magic that I felt, youknow, from the time that I first heard those
(02:37):
songs.
And then, you know, convey that to people wholove this music the way that I do.
And recognizing that these are songs thataccompany people through their lives.
You know, they hear them when we're teenagers,and then some people say, oh, that was my
wedding song.
You know, they that was my wedding song.
That, that music was there at the birth of mychildren.
(02:59):
That was, like, the happiest times, the saddesttimes.
This music accompanies people.
So I take it really seriously that I really doneed to do my very best to, to bring across the
music that people love that way.
Yeah.
And I think it's even more important because,you know, losing John, you know, thirty, forty
(03:21):
years ago now.
Right?
Forty five 1980, I believe 8081.
Right?
'80.
Mhmm.
Right.
So, you know, people can't go out and, well,she's not as good as him.
Right?
Like, you are you are where the people arehearing these songs live, and especially
because of the reputation of Zapparella thatyou you've established that you may be the
(03:44):
only, you know, the only chance that some ofthese people have to hear these songs played
live.
Not a whole lot of, you know, rock and rollcover bands, have the ability even to cover Led
Zeppelin songs, whether it's the vocal range orit's the musicality.
The all of it coming together is verydifficult.
So I I kind of understand where you're comingfrom.
(04:05):
It's a duty almost and and an honor to do so,but, yeah, it comes with a little bit of
pressure, I'm sure.
Yeah.
It is it is an honor, but it also, you know,that that's kind of, you know, at one point, we
have to give over to the way that we wishthings would be to the way things are.
Right?
(04:25):
And, that's a big lesson for me is to, youknow, to really just realize, okay.
This is where I am, and this is all I can do.
And I'm giving this as a gift, you know, in away.
And if people wanna accept it, they can.
If they don't like it and it doesn't speak tothem, that's okay.
But as long as I know that I'm in my ownintegrity doing the best I can, I feel, you
(04:50):
know, I feel okay with it showing it that way?
Yeah.
Nice.
You got any videos on YouTube of you doing MobyDick?
Oh god.
Moby Dick is it it really is so brutal because,you know, here's this piece of music that, you
know, somebody wrote for, you know, twenty,thirty minutes, and I have to stand I have to
(05:13):
get up there and and do, you know, my littlefive minute deal.
And, you know, when I was approaching MobyDick, I was thinking, you know, a drum solo to
me is the most personal thing a drummer can do.
And, so I just I couldn't get my head aroundcopying his drum solo.
Like, I all the other songs, really try to copywhat he's playing so that, you know, it really
(05:37):
fits in well with what people expect.
But for the drum solo, I just it had to be myown.
You know?
It's like I play Moby Dick at the beginning andthe end of it, and then I have to go into my
own drum solo, and that's where I see all of mylimitations, all of the ways that I wish that I
was a better drummer, all of the ways that I,I've been working on things that just never I
(06:01):
can never actually make happen.
And so Moby Dick, it's like I could never watcha video of myself doing it, even though it
probably would improve it, for myself.
I just I can't bear it.
I like to just kinda give myself open over towhat happens in the moment, you know, and try
to play as freely as possible, and I feel likeit never is what I want it to be.
(06:23):
So, there are videos out there of me doing itthat I have never seen.
Well and I think that really speaks to the theartist that John was, but also the freedom that
it gave.
And inside of that band, is such a I mean,underrated.
Everybody talks about Page and Plant,obviously, but John Paul Jones is one of the
(06:43):
greatest musicians, baby Oh, man.
That ever lived.
Right?
Agreed.
Agreed.
I I don't know that that band is ever what itis without him, but it it spoke to the creative
freedom that the band kinda let each other havethat, you know, obviously, the the thirty
minute drum solo that's on the song remains thesame, that they didn't play it that way live.
(07:04):
And you're talking about a band thatnecessarily didn't make a living.
They weren't the Grateful Dead.
Right?
They weren't on the road for forty years.
I mean, the members of the dead are still onthe road.
Playing close in the Bay Area, I know, for abig sixtieth anniversary here soon, but that
there was that freedom.
It was always gonna be a journey, and each showwould have been its own journey.
And I feel like that you kind of adopt thatthat spiritual nature of it.
(07:28):
Right?
That, yeah, here's the kind of the the thebookends of it.
But in between there, Clementine has a story totell.
And and and you're given that freedom inZebarella to do that too.
That's just incredible where you're not alwaysgonna get that in a cover kinda and especially
a tribute band like you guys are.
I don't know if you would call yourself that.
But
(07:48):
Yeah.
No.
It is.
And and I think that, I think that's why we'vebeen able to do it for so long is because, you
know, we we we want people to be able to singthe riffs, to sing the song, to get you know,
have all of the words, have all of the piecesin place that you want to hear.
But then for a live show, there are places inthe song, say, in Whole Lot of Love or even
(08:11):
Immigrant Song.
Like, the there are these places that we get tostretch out as a band.
You know?
And we're not, there are bands that will copythe live versions of Zeppelin.
You know?
Okay.
This is the concert from this year.
You know?
But we've never done that.
We've listened to the live stuff, and then, youknow, we allude to things that they did live,
(08:33):
but then we really make it our own.
And I think that's why I've been able to do thesame music for so long is because it does keep
changing and morphing, and we become a tighterand tighter and tighter band within the
structure of this other band.
So it's kind of like I feel like we're a bandwithin a band.
Like, I I understand my who I am as a drummer,like, more within this structure of somebody
(09:00):
else's parts.
So it's a really interesting an an interestingthing, and I think that's why this music has
carried me along for so long because it keepsbeing interesting.
You know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just touching on so many things.
I mean, I've been playing a lot of the samecover songs for, you know, twenty five years of
(09:21):
my career.
And I I don't there's some that, you know, havegone in the set list and out, but there's so
many that still mean, just as much to me now asthe first time I heard them before I ever
learned them on a guitar or maybe some thatmean even more to me now because of the life
that I've lived with them.
(09:42):
And and, obviously, with twenty years ofplaying these these songs all over the world,
right, that, you know, now they're bringing upyour own memories, not just those those old
tunes, but newer ones too.
How cool.
Just love it.
Yeah.
And isn't it a trip to and so you know thisthis phenomenon, which is that you learn a song
(10:02):
at the beginning, And maybe it's a song whereyou're making a little bit of adjustments for,
like, oh, that player played it like this, butthat's not really comfortable for me or I can't
quite accomplish that, so I'm gonna play itlike this.
And then over time, over the years, you know,you get better as a drummer or you you start
hearing it differently, and then you reapproacha song that you learned ten years ago.
(10:25):
And suddenly, it's like the song feels brandnew, and it's like now it's like the song that
has all this energy in the set because you'vereapproach you're reapproaching it to a way
that is even deeper than the original way thatyou learned it.
You know?
It's like that's kind of what happens to us isespecially because sometimes we kick songs out
of the set because we only have a two hour set,and that's like, Seflon songs are fifteen
(10:48):
minutes long.
Right?
So, you know, every now and then we do a bigchange up of bringing other songs in or putting
them out.
And then if we bring back another song, it'slike I have to completely relearn it because
now my ability is different than it was when Ioriginally learned it.
And and same with the women and the other womenwho are playing the song.
(11:09):
So we go through this big kind of adjustment.
We just did that with, we're gonna groove, thesong we're gonna groove where it was like, oh,
okay.
This now I can play it like this, which is theway that it was it's more true to how he played
it than at the beginning when I was playing it.
So, yeah, it's it just keeps it keeps us on iton our toes, definitely.
(11:30):
God, I love talking about this band.
So when I was a kid, grew up around the Chicagoarea before we moved to South Dakota, and there
was a station there, one hundred point three,and they would get the lead out every night at
nine.
So about bedtime, that's kinda what the, youknow, not the snooze, but the the sleep would
would go off to.
I'd get twenty minutes of Led Zeppelin everysingle night as a, you know, seven, eight, nine
(11:53):
year old.
I see.
Songs are just ingrained, and I've obviouslybeen such a huge fan, but probably know a
little bit more of the discography.
I don't know just the hits.
Right?
I I've listened to a lot of these albums andand going deeper.
And then there's, you know, still songs thatI'm like, wow.
How?
Right?
And that's a reason why a lot of them don'tmake it into my set list.
(12:18):
I'm more of a a barroom kinda strummer.
And so, you know, songs like, hey.
Hey.
What can I do?
Or, you know, just songs that are easy to strumto and play and sing because I'm also the
singer, which put a lot of Led Zeppelin songsjust out of the vocal range completely.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
How exciting to just spend a career, you know,playing this music and and reintroducing
(12:41):
yourself to it over time and just sounds likeit's been such a blessing for you.
How has that part of your career now informedyour original music?
Is there a crossover in the style?
Is there, you know, similarities between whatyou do for a living with Zapparella as compared
to, you know, what what you kinda do foryourself with your music?
(13:05):
Yeah.
That's a really interesting question because,you know, I I don't you know, the kind of music
that really inspires me to write, you know,ultimately, I'm a I'm a songwriter, you know, a
lyricist, a songwriter.
Right?
And that's kinda I first started with lyricsbecause I always saw myself as a writer before
(13:27):
I even played music.
And so the the music that I a lot of the musicthat I really love is very lyrically driven.
And so and I don't see I mean, I love thelyrics of Led Zeppelin, but I don't see that as
lyrically driven music.
Right?
It's, you know, it's, like, it's rock and roll.
(13:50):
Right?
It's it's the whole band, the whole the wholepiece.
And I think as a as an original musician, whenI'm writing, you know, it first comes from the
drums, right?
I start with drum beats and then I hear vocalmelodies and lyrics within the drums, right?
And then kind of work with other people to kindof get the music written.
(14:15):
And and so when it comes down to it, none ofthe music that I play is sounds like Led
Zeppelin.
You know, it really is I think it's quitedifferent than than that genre.
I mean, it's still in the rock singersongwriting genre, but it's not like I'm, you
(14:36):
know, that I'm really drawn to writing.
A lot of that is because, you know, LedZeppelin was a band.
I think it's the input of four people, youknow, and I'm a soloist.
Right?
And I think there's I think there's somethingto writing from behind the drums.
I mean, one of the greatest lyricists of rockand roll music, I would say that nobody knows
(14:58):
was writing the lyrics, is Neil Pert.
Neil Pert.
Yeah.
I mean
That's right.
That's right.
It makes for a much different, a much differentwriting process.
It's completely removed kind of, notnecessarily from melody, but I imagine that
you're going to hear syncopations, you know,almost before you're hearing melodies.
(15:19):
You're hearing kind of how things should go ina cadence almost more than the melodies are,
which can it's just coming from a totallydifferent place.
I'm a guitar player and a lyricist as well,songwriter, but most of my songs kind of are
are always written around the melodies of theguitar lines and the lick that I'm hearing in
(15:40):
my head and not from another place.
I did play drums for a few years back in middleschool and high school.
I loved the concert band, but marching band wasmy favorite.
So I love playing drum cadence on the snaredrum.
That's great.
That's great.
Yeah.
I love it.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
It's it's, it's an interesting thing about, youknow, the way that the way that we write and
(16:04):
kind of where we where we come from in oursongwriting process.
So, yeah, I think that, you know, rhythm isimportant to me even in writing prose, you
know, even when I'm writing anything, I thinkthat my my writing always has, you know, rhythm
is important.
It's I wanna hear how it sounds when I it'sread out loud that it flows and and it works
(16:28):
well.
So I think that that has a lot to do with thethe songwriting that I do.
I guess if I were to think about one thing thatZeppelin really taught me is that as far as
song structure goes, you know, it's okay for itto be unusual.
(16:49):
You know?
I mean, when you're you know, you take a songlike like cashmere, you know, it's like, okay.
Those you know, it's like everything happensin, you know, seven.
It's not like, okay.
You know, two bars of two measures of four.
It's like, okay.
This this course, it goes for seven.
It's like, they really love seven.
(17:10):
You know?
They love that, you know, the number where youjust don't expect that that's what okay.
This one's gonna be 14.
I count to 14, and then we go.
You know?
Or, like in the levy, yeah, I'm playing.
You know?
You at 18, I go.
Right?
And, so it's it's just it's okay for things totake a little longer or to be a little a little
(17:31):
wacky.
You know?
And, I think that's the best lesson you canlearn from, you know, when you really parse a
Led Zeppelin song.
It's like, yeah.
Things are not normal, you know, a lot of thetimes, and that's what kinda makes them great.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Well, Clementine, I wanna thank you so much forcoming on the show today.
I'll give you an opportunity here to pluganything you want, the your originals, the
(17:55):
band, all of it.
Give us the links and and tell people where tofind you.
Thank you so much.
I honestly, if you just go to clemthegreat.com,everything is there.
Links to Zipparella and our upcoming shows.
We just played in South Dakota, actually.
So, unfortunately, I can't plug that song, but,that date.
But, you know, we're always playing around thecountry, so there's that.
(18:18):
My book is there.
My music is there.
My writing, everything is there.
So yeah.
Well, I'm very sorry I missed you on this trip,but I will make sure to catch you the next time
you're coming back through our beautiful state.
Clementine, Clem the Great, thank you so muchfor for joining us today, and thanks for being
part of the scene.
Thank you so much, Bubba.
(18:39):
Thanks for having me.
Welcome in to another exciting episode of thescene.
I'm your host, Bubba Starts, and with me todayis singer songwriter and drummer Clementine
Moss.
Welcome to the show, Clementine.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me.
Well, I'm sure you live an exciting life justbeing in the Bay Area and playing music.
But before we get into all of that, give us alittle bit of your back story.
(00:23):
Okay.
Yeah.
My, back story is, I am the drummer for the LedZeppelin band, Zepperella, which has been
together for almost a couple decades now.
And, I travel all over The United States,playing drums, but playing John Bonham's parts.
(00:43):
And then in in my downtime, I'm also a a singersongwriter.
I have several albums out, and I'm also awriter.
I have a book out about my music career.
I'm also a spiritual counselor, anondenominational spiritual counselor, which is
what kind of what my book is about, how mymusic career is kind of a metaphor for some of
(01:07):
the contemplative practices that I do.
So, yeah, that I think that's as quick as Icould say my life right now.
Yeah.
Well, it's pretty awesome.
Incredible.
What a joy to make a living playing some of thegreatest songs ever written and then getting to
kind of tag along your own songs and careerwith that, I'm sure.
(01:28):
I'm sure fans of the band are also fans of ofyour career as well.
So very cool.
What what a challenge.
Talk I mean, we gotta start off with, you know,how challenging is it to to play for a living,
right, the some of the most iconic drum partsin rock and roll history.
(01:49):
Do you feel the pressure on a nightly basis?
It definitely keeps you humble.
Yeah.
It definitely keeps you humble, to play, youknow, the greatest, you know, rock drum parts,
you know, some of the greatest rock drum parts.
But, you know, it also you really have to giveover to the fact that, you know, I'm never
(02:12):
gonna be John Bottom.
Right?
No matter how much I try, I will neveraccomplish what he accomplished on the drums.
And that my job though is to do it justice asbest that I can, to show up as best I can, to
be able to convey the magic that I felt, youknow, from the time that I first heard those
(02:37):
songs.
And then, you know, convey that to people wholove this music the way that I do.
And recognizing that these are songs thataccompany people through their lives.
You know, they hear them when we're teenagers,and then some people say, oh, that was my
wedding song.
You know, they that was my wedding song.
That, that music was there at the birth of mychildren.
(02:59):
That was, like, the happiest times, the saddesttimes.
This music accompanies people.
So I take it really seriously that I really doneed to do my very best to, to bring across the
music that people love that way.
Yeah.
And I think it's even more important because,you know, losing John, you know, thirty, forty
(03:21):
years ago now.
Right?
Forty five 1980, I believe 8081.
Right?
'80.
Mhmm.
Right.
So, you know, people can't go out and, well,she's not as good as him.
Right?
Like, you are you are where the people arehearing these songs live, and especially
because of the reputation of Zapparella thatyou you've established that you may be the
(03:44):
only, you know, the only chance that some ofthese people have to hear these songs played
live.
Not a whole lot of, you know, rock and rollcover bands, have the ability even to cover Led
Zeppelin songs, whether it's the vocal range orit's the musicality.
The all of it coming together is verydifficult.
So I I kind of understand where you're comingfrom.
(04:05):
It's a duty almost and and an honor to do so,but, yeah, it comes with a little bit of
pressure, I'm sure.
Yeah.
It is it is an honor, but it also, you know,that that's kind of, you know, at one point, we
have to give over to the way that we wishthings would be to the way things are.
Right?
(04:25):
And, that's a big lesson for me is to, youknow, to really just realize, okay.
This is where I am, and this is all I can do.
And I'm giving this as a gift, you know, in away.
And if people wanna accept it, they can.
If they don't like it and it doesn't speak tothem, that's okay.
But as long as I know that I'm in my ownintegrity doing the best I can, I feel, you
(04:50):
know, I feel okay with it showing it that way?
Yeah.
Nice.
You got any videos on YouTube of you doing MobyDick?
Oh god.
Moby Dick is it it really is so brutal because,you know, here's this piece of music that, you
know, somebody wrote for, you know, twenty,thirty minutes, and I have to stand I have to
(05:13):
get up there and and do, you know, my littlefive minute deal.
And, you know, when I was approaching MobyDick, I was thinking, you know, a drum solo to
me is the most personal thing a drummer can do.
And, so I just I couldn't get my head aroundcopying his drum solo.
Like, I all the other songs, really try to copywhat he's playing so that, you know, it really
(05:37):
fits in well with what people expect.
But for the drum solo, I just it had to be myown.
You know?
It's like I play Moby Dick at the beginning andthe end of it, and then I have to go into my
own drum solo, and that's where I see all of mylimitations, all of the ways that I wish that I
was a better drummer, all of the ways that I,I've been working on things that just never I
(06:01):
can never actually make happen.
And so Moby Dick, it's like I could never watcha video of myself doing it, even though it
probably would improve it, for myself.
I just I can't bear it.
I like to just kinda give myself open over towhat happens in the moment, you know, and try
to play as freely as possible, and I feel likeit never is what I want it to be.
(06:23):
So, there are videos out there of me doing itthat I have never seen.
Well and I think that really speaks to the theartist that John was, but also the freedom that
it gave.
And inside of that band, is such a I mean,underrated.
Everybody talks about Page and Plant,obviously, but John Paul Jones is one of the
(06:43):
greatest musicians, baby Oh, man.
That ever lived.
Right?
Agreed.
Agreed.
I I don't know that that band is ever what itis without him, but it it spoke to the creative
freedom that the band kinda let each other havethat, you know, obviously, the the thirty
minute drum solo that's on the song remains thesame, that they didn't play it that way live.
(07:04):
And you're talking about a band thatnecessarily didn't make a living.
They weren't the Grateful Dead.
Right?
They weren't on the road for forty years.
I mean, the members of the dead are still onthe road.
Playing close in the Bay Area, I know, for abig sixtieth anniversary here soon, but that
there was that freedom.
It was always gonna be a journey, and each showwould have been its own journey.
And I feel like that you kind of adopt thatthat spiritual nature of it.
(07:28):
Right?
That, yeah, here's the kind of the the thebookends of it.
But in between there, Clementine has a story totell.
And and and you're given that freedom inZebarella to do that too.
That's just incredible where you're not alwaysgonna get that in a cover kinda and especially
a tribute band like you guys are.
I don't know if you would call yourself that.
But
(07:48):
Yeah.
No.
It is.
And and I think that, I think that's why we'vebeen able to do it for so long is because, you
know, we we we want people to be able to singthe riffs, to sing the song, to get you know,
have all of the words, have all of the piecesin place that you want to hear.
But then for a live show, there are places inthe song, say, in Whole Lot of Love or even
(08:11):
Immigrant Song.
Like, the there are these places that we get tostretch out as a band.
You know?
And we're not, there are bands that will copythe live versions of Zeppelin.
You know?
Okay.
This is the concert from this year.
You know?
But we've never done that.
We've listened to the live stuff, and then, youknow, we allude to things that they did live,
(08:33):
but then we really make it our own.
And I think that's why I've been able to do thesame music for so long is because it does keep
changing and morphing, and we become a tighterand tighter and tighter band within the
structure of this other band.
So it's kind of like I feel like we're a bandwithin a band.
Like, I I understand my who I am as a drummer,like, more within this structure of somebody
(09:00):
else's parts.
So it's a really interesting an an interestingthing, and I think that's why this music has
carried me along for so long because it keepsbeing interesting.
You know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just touching on so many things.
I mean, I've been playing a lot of the samecover songs for, you know, twenty five years of
(09:21):
my career.
And I I don't there's some that, you know, havegone in the set list and out, but there's so
many that still mean, just as much to me now asthe first time I heard them before I ever
learned them on a guitar or maybe some thatmean even more to me now because of the life
that I've lived with them.
(09:42):
And and, obviously, with twenty years ofplaying these these songs all over the world,
right, that, you know, now they're bringing upyour own memories, not just those those old
tunes, but newer ones too.
How cool.
Just love it.
Yeah.
And isn't it a trip to and so you know thisthis phenomenon, which is that you learn a song
(10:02):
at the beginning, And maybe it's a song whereyou're making a little bit of adjustments for,
like, oh, that player played it like this, butthat's not really comfortable for me or I can't
quite accomplish that, so I'm gonna play itlike this.
And then over time, over the years, you know,you get better as a drummer or you you start
hearing it differently, and then you reapproacha song that you learned ten years ago.
(10:25):
And suddenly, it's like the song feels brandnew, and it's like now it's like the song that
has all this energy in the set because you'vereapproach you're reapproaching it to a way
that is even deeper than the original way thatyou learned it.
You know?
It's like that's kind of what happens to us isespecially because sometimes we kick songs out
of the set because we only have a two hour set,and that's like, Seflon songs are fifteen
(10:48):
minutes long.
Right?
So, you know, every now and then we do a bigchange up of bringing other songs in or putting
them out.
And then if we bring back another song, it'slike I have to completely relearn it because
now my ability is different than it was when Ioriginally learned it.
And and same with the women and the other womenwho are playing the song.
(11:09):
So we go through this big kind of adjustment.
We just did that with, we're gonna groove, thesong we're gonna groove where it was like, oh,
okay.
This now I can play it like this, which is theway that it was it's more true to how he played
it than at the beginning when I was playing it.
So, yeah, it's it just keeps it keeps us on iton our toes, definitely.
(11:30):
God, I love talking about this band.
So when I was a kid, grew up around the Chicagoarea before we moved to South Dakota, and there
was a station there, one hundred point three,and they would get the lead out every night at
nine.
So about bedtime, that's kinda what the, youknow, not the snooze, but the the sleep would
would go off to.
I'd get twenty minutes of Led Zeppelin everysingle night as a, you know, seven, eight, nine
(11:53):
year old.
I see.
Songs are just ingrained, and I've obviouslybeen such a huge fan, but probably know a
little bit more of the discography.
I don't know just the hits.
Right?
I I've listened to a lot of these albums andand going deeper.
And then there's, you know, still songs thatI'm like, wow.
How?
Right?
And that's a reason why a lot of them don'tmake it into my set list.
(12:18):
I'm more of a a barroom kinda strummer.
And so, you know, songs like, hey.
Hey.
What can I do?
Or, you know, just songs that are easy to strumto and play and sing because I'm also the
singer, which put a lot of Led Zeppelin songsjust out of the vocal range completely.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
How exciting to just spend a career, you know,playing this music and and reintroducing
(12:41):
yourself to it over time and just sounds likeit's been such a blessing for you.
How has that part of your career now informedyour original music?
Is there a crossover in the style?
Is there, you know, similarities between whatyou do for a living with Zapparella as compared
to, you know, what what you kinda do foryourself with your music?
(13:05):
Yeah.
That's a really interesting question because,you know, I I don't you know, the kind of music
that really inspires me to write, you know,ultimately, I'm a I'm a songwriter, you know, a
lyricist, a songwriter.
Right?
And that's kinda I first started with lyricsbecause I always saw myself as a writer before
(13:27):
I even played music.
And so the the music that I a lot of the musicthat I really love is very lyrically driven.
And so and I don't see I mean, I love thelyrics of Led Zeppelin, but I don't see that as
lyrically driven music.
Right?
It's, you know, it's, like, it's rock and roll.
(13:50):
Right?
It's it's the whole band, the whole the wholepiece.
And I think as a as an original musician, whenI'm writing, you know, it first comes from the
drums, right?
I start with drum beats and then I hear vocalmelodies and lyrics within the drums, right?
And then kind of work with other people to kindof get the music written.
(14:15):
And and so when it comes down to it, none ofthe music that I play is sounds like Led
Zeppelin.
You know, it really is I think it's quitedifferent than than that genre.
I mean, it's still in the rock singersongwriting genre, but it's not like I'm, you
(14:36):
know, that I'm really drawn to writing.
A lot of that is because, you know, LedZeppelin was a band.
I think it's the input of four people, youknow, and I'm a soloist.
Right?
And I think there's I think there's somethingto writing from behind the drums.
I mean, one of the greatest lyricists of rockand roll music, I would say that nobody knows
(14:58):
was writing the lyrics, is Neil Pert.
Neil Pert.
Yeah.
I mean
That's right.
That's right.
It makes for a much different, a much differentwriting process.
It's completely removed kind of, notnecessarily from melody, but I imagine that
you're going to hear syncopations, you know,almost before you're hearing melodies.
(15:19):
You're hearing kind of how things should go ina cadence almost more than the melodies are,
which can it's just coming from a totallydifferent place.
I'm a guitar player and a lyricist as well,songwriter, but most of my songs kind of are
are always written around the melodies of theguitar lines and the lick that I'm hearing in
(15:40):
my head and not from another place.
I did play drums for a few years back in middleschool and high school.
I loved the concert band, but marching band wasmy favorite.
So I love playing drum cadence on the snaredrum.
That's great.
That's great.
Yeah.
I love it.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
It's it's, it's an interesting thing about, youknow, the way that the way that we write and
(16:04):
kind of where we where we come from in oursongwriting process.
So, yeah, I think that, you know, rhythm isimportant to me even in writing prose, you
know, even when I'm writing anything, I thinkthat my my writing always has, you know, rhythm
is important.
It's I wanna hear how it sounds when I it'sread out loud that it flows and and it works
(16:28):
well.
So I think that that has a lot to do with thethe songwriting that I do.
I guess if I were to think about one thing thatZeppelin really taught me is that as far as
song structure goes, you know, it's okay for itto be unusual.
(16:49):
You know?
I mean, when you're you know, you take a songlike like cashmere, you know, it's like, okay.
Those you know, it's like everything happensin, you know, seven.
It's not like, okay.
You know, two bars of two measures of four.
It's like, okay.
This this course, it goes for seven.
It's like, they really love seven.
(17:10):
You know?
They love that, you know, the number where youjust don't expect that that's what okay.
This one's gonna be 14.
I count to 14, and then we go.
You know?
Or, like in the levy, yeah, I'm playing.
You know?
You at 18, I go.
Right?
And, so it's it's just it's okay for things totake a little longer or to be a little a little
(17:31):
wacky.
You know?
And, I think that's the best lesson you canlearn from, you know, when you really parse a
Led Zeppelin song.
It's like, yeah.
Things are not normal, you know, a lot of thetimes, and that's what kinda makes them great.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Well, Clementine, I wanna thank you so much forcoming on the show today.
I'll give you an opportunity here to pluganything you want, the your originals, the
(17:55):
band, all of it.
Give us the links and and tell people where tofind you.
Thank you so much.
I honestly, if you just go to clemthegreat.com,everything is there.
Links to Zipparella and our upcoming shows.
We just played in South Dakota, actually.
So, unfortunately, I can't plug that song, but,that date.
But, you know, we're always playing around thecountry, so there's that.
(18:18):
My book is there.
My music is there.
My writing, everything is there.
So yeah.
Well, I'm very sorry I missed you on this trip,but I will make sure to catch you the next time
you're coming back through our beautiful state.
Clementine, Clem the Great, thank you so muchfor for joining us today, and thanks for being
part of the scene.
Thank you so much, Bubba.
(18:39):
Thanks for having me.
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