Clyde Lawrence, Lawrence / Film and TV Composer

Clyde Lawrence had already been on our radar thanks to co-host Paul, and the desire to speak with Clyde was cemented after seeing the band Lawrence perform live in Australia earlier this year. We chat to Clyde on his amazing career to date, some great road stories and some insightful perspectives from a player whose...

The post Clyde Lawrence, Lawrence / Film and TV Composer appeared first on The Keyboard Chronicles.

Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Welcome to the Keyboard Chronicles podcast.
For keyboard players, I'm your host David Holloway and I'm thrilled as always to be herewith you.
I've just come off an hour, hour and a bit chat with Mr.
Clyde Lawrence.
I know I tend to go into a bit of hyperbole with all our guests, although I'm sincereabout all of it because we have amazing guests.
But Clyde is part of a band called Lawrence.

(00:28):
although that's only one part of what he does in his musical career, Lawrence the band isthe reason that my brother in arms, Paul Bindig suggested I go and see Lawrence live,
which I did earlier this year when they toured Australia.
And from that moment onwards, seeing Clyde in action and the band in action, I had to talkto Clyde as you'll hear.
What an amazing band.

(00:49):
They're an eight piece that have been through a lot together since 2013 and they're reallyonly kicking off I'd argue.
They probably don't feel it after 13 years.
They're well and truly down the track but I can only see a huge amount of success in theirfuture as well.
So we talked to Clyde about Lawrence the band, his film and TV work and a whole bunchmore.
I think you'll enjoy this one a great deal and I'll talk to you after the show.

(01:24):
I cannot thank you enough for joining us sir.
You've had one hell of a year and I appreciate you fittest sin.
Thank you for having me.
So I thought we might start with the year you've had so far and then we'll go back alittle bit.
So you've already been to Australia and New Zealand, you've already done a lot of Europeand you've got about 50 shows or close to 50 shows coming up for the rest of the year.

(01:48):
How are you keeping busy?
Yeah, I mean, the beginning of the year was very busy with our first Australia leg ever.
We did a Europe leg and all that's part of our...
So our band, Lawrence, is on the Family Business tour.
Our album is called Family Business.
We did a Europe leg last year and a North American leg.

(02:09):
And then January, we did Australia and February Europe.
So it's been four legs so far and we've been pretty much touring straight.
And then we have the final two legs planned for later in the year.
But I actually have an unusually long break right now because my sister, Gracie, who's theco-lead singer with me, she is uh making her Broadway musical debut right now.

(02:34):
So she's about to be one of the stars of an exciting new Broadway show.
And so she'll be doing that for the next several months.
So I'll be hanging in New York, making some new music and got a bunch of
Bunch of exciting projects, definitely staying extremely busy.
I thought I wasn't going to be that busy and it turns out that I'm very busy, but acombination of some different projects, some Lauren stuff, some working on other stuff,

(03:02):
just so many different random little things.
I feel like it's going to fly by and I'm going to be back on tour before I know it.
Absolutely.
And I want to ask a little bit about the touring, because I think it's fair to say Clyde,I know you had a tour cancelled due to COVID, that this would have been the biggest series
of shows you've done consecutively since 2013.
Just tell us about psychologically, how you're getting through those and physically too,what have been the learnings for you with this larger scale tour?

(03:28):
Yeah.
I mean, I would say it's probably the longest stretch, although we pretty much like we'vetoured a lot our whole career since we started.
We graduated from college and then for the last like many years we've been.
Other than COVID just touring really consistently.
And frankly, like the funny thing about touring is that as you get bigger, the lifestyleof it gets more comfortable.

(03:54):
Oh, even if maybe you're correct that like the
number of shows we're doing now is as much or more than we've ever done.
At least for me, it feels a little bit easier, even though I'm a few years older.
So maybe I'm not as, you know, limber as I once was.
I'm still pretty young and certainly like, you know, compared to when we were like, on ourfirst couple of tours, we were packing in a full van and, you know, sleeping on couches or

(04:24):
sleeping in the van most nights.
Then we graduated to like, you know, sharing hotel rooms for people to a room in like thecrappiest hotel in town.
So as we have been lucky enough to get bigger and have both venues with better kind ofamenities and accommodations and just more, you know, financial flexibility to have a tour

(04:49):
bus and all those things.
I really enjoy it.
I like, I like touring.
think it's really fun.
And you know, it's a unique scenario because
For us in the band, this isn't like a group of musicians that Gracie and I like hired.
This is truly like, you know, every single person in the band, no exceptions, is like afriend from a point in childhood, whether that be some of them I've known since I was like

(05:14):
five, some of them middle school, high school, college.
But so it's really like on a road trip with friends.
It's obviously challenging physically and mentally sometimes, but I really enjoy it.
But everyone has their own different relationship with it in the band.
I would say that I enjoy it.
And I'd say that most of us really enjoy it.
And that enjoyment's obvious.

(05:34):
And I want to come back to the energy thing a little bit down the track, but let's go alittle bit back about to the formation of the band.
So I'm going to link in our show notes to your amazing docu-series.
So you yourself do a wonderful job of covering the history of how it formed, but just forpeople that haven't heard or seen you before, just a potted history of your musical

(05:54):
upbringing and then the formation of Lawrence the band.
That would be hugely appreciated.
Yeah, I mean, I appreciate you saying that about the documentary.
Shout out to these guys, uh Guy and James from Vagabonding Media, because it's reallythere.
You know, they filmed and produced and directed the whole thing.
And uh they did an amazing job.

(06:16):
But um yeah, I mean, basically, Gracie and I grew up playing music together in ourchildhood home all the time.
We come from a family of creative people.
Our dad is a filmmaker.
Our mom is a dancer and a dance teacher.
So I feel like talking about art, talking about creativity, talking about storytelling,both our own and other songs we were hearing or movies we were watching or whatever was

(06:44):
very much a part of our lives and very second nature to us.
So Gracie and I were like,
both thinking about that stuff and doing it and taking it really seriously from an earlyage.
And we have a younger brother Linus who's quite a bit younger, but he is also a verycreative person.
um So there was a lot of that happening in our own home.

(07:05):
then, um you know, just started playing together all the time, but then also with some,you know, friends of ours that were very talented.
When I was maybe about six years old, I think, and Gracie was maybe two.
we met a neighbor of ours named Jordan who became, who was a saxophone player and webecame like best friends, but also we were constantly playing music together.

(07:31):
know, I never really had a true formal music education.
Like I had a music teacher that I took private lessons with who was awesome named NickScarum in New York, but it was kind of a bit of an untradit, like it wasn't the typical
play your scales type of thing.
I never went to music school.

(07:54):
So I think like between a few key people in my life and Jordan being one of them, that waslike, you know, a big part of my own musical education was like talking about, why does
this chord feel like it leads to this chord?
And just having those conversations with friends or peers.
And then, yeah, met our buddy Sam in middle school and he was a drummer.

(08:16):
We were in middle school jazz band together.
And I played piano and he played drums.
then when I went to college, Sam and I both went to Brown University in Providence, RhodeIsland, which is not a music school.
um Although there's a lot of just very creative and artistically interested people there.
And we met the other four guys in the band.

(08:37):
Sam introduced me to several of them because he's older.
So when I got to Brown, he was already in school there.
And so he had kind of, you know, I think he had sort of
pulled some people at school, like his friend Johnny, who's a guitarist, and maybe acouple other people like, oh, you know, my friend Clyde, who's a really good musician is

(08:59):
coming to Brown next year.
He'll be a freshman and he's got all these original songs and he's going to want me toplay in his band and you should meet him and blah, blah, blah.
So Sam had kind of set the table a little bit for me in a way that was probably nottotally intentional, but was awesome.
So that when I got there, I met all these people and
we kind of formed this band.

(09:20):
So yeah, long story, I guess kind of long, all of us, all eight of us, this has been theexact same group of eight people that we've been playing with since we were playing
literally like basement parties at Brown University back in college, playing frankly, someof the same music that we play now, songs that are on our album.

(09:41):
Certainly all of the music from my first EP, Homesick, are like that came out while I wasin college.
So that was like our record.
But then even though Breakfast, our first album as a band and Living Room, our secondalbum as a band came out in the years after, some of those songs were songs that we were
playing in those college parties.

(10:02):
We just hadn't recorded them yet.
So that really was the genesis of Lawrence in terms of not only the band members, but theoriginal music itself that we were playing.
So it was kind of a natural progression when we graduated, we just decided to
try to hit the road and see if we could make something happen.
And we were lucky enough to, you know, be able to build this kind of grassroots followingthat was very pretty organic, honestly, like there wasn't some big overnight success.

(10:31):
We certainly put out music videos, we played shows, we put out songs and people seem tolike them, but it wasn't, it wasn't like it was before TikTok even existed.
It wasn't like some overnight.
situation.
was truly our first tour.
all got in the van and we were lucky.
We considered it a good night if there was 40, 50 people at the venue and a bad night ifthere was 10, and that wasn't uncommon.

(11:00):
And then the next tour maybe it was 50 to 100 people and then the next tour was 100 to 200people.
then literally it was just that over and over until now.
Uh, it's anywhere from, you know, a couple thousand to 6,000 people.
And, it's the same, it's the same general, same crew, same vibe, same spirit.

(11:23):
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I've got to ask, and this is a question I emphasise, Clyde, we ask a lot of artists thatdo a lot of touring.
It's a really difficult thing touring as far as just even, you know, as a group, you know,staying cohesive across a long tour.
And I think you've already given away the secret why you've managed to do that.
You've known each other a long time and worked together.

(11:46):
No matter how cohesive a group, there'll always be the little arguments and otherdownsides.
What are the ways that you do try and keep it as cohesive as possible across a gruelingtour?
Yeah, I I think that our band is very unusual in the way that it's structured because alleight of these people have been involved in it from the beginning.
So everyone has a ton of investment in it and no one, no one in the band is like, no onein the band is getting paid by the gig.

(12:15):
Everyone in the band is like in it to win it.
And, and, but, and at the same time, no one in the band is part of like 10 differentbands.
You know, everyone like this is their thing.
At the same time, think that like, hopefully like any good company or any good communityreally of any kind, there is some form of leadership and organization.

(12:39):
think that some bands, because it's like an artistic endeavor, think that to be in a, youknow, eight people's a lot, but say it's a five person band or an eight person band,
whatever it is, they think, we're a five person band.
So every single thing that we do,
should be a vote among five people and three votes to win on every decision and everydifferent area of the band, like all of us are going to be in charge of all of it because

(13:05):
we're a team and we're a community and that's what's fair.
And I think that like, and I think that that's not exactly our band functions.
Like I think that there's some ways in which there's some amount of clear
creative leadership from me and Gracie because you know the band name is our last name andwe're the two lead singers and we do the majority of the songwriting although not 100 % of

(13:28):
it but at the same time operationally other people in the band have areas that they reallytake ownership of and are really in charge of and do a great job with and I think that
yeah to answer your question of like how we make it function well I think a lot of it isabout setting up
it to be like a real functioning organization where everyone has a ton of buy-in, butthere's also structure to it.

(13:54):
Yeah.
And the structure is incredibly perceptive.
Clive, did you have good management guidance early on or just because of your familygrowing up in the industry or whatever?
Because there are a of bands that make all the mistakes that you've avoided to some extentaround structure, creativity and whatever.
What got you on the right path so early on?
Yeah, it's a good question.
I I would say I never grew up around bands.

(14:20):
um So there wasn't an exact analog to look at, but I certainly admired the way that I sawmy dad dealing with people on movie sets that he was in charge of.
So I think I probably observed and took a lot of really good lessons in like being the

(14:42):
organizational leader of like a creative endeavor from watching that.
So there's definitely an extent of that, but I also think that part of it is just aboutlike having a group of people that get along and have different skill sets, just like try
to form systems.
I'm a pretty, I don't know if I consider myself a type A person, but I'm a person.

(15:03):
I definitely believe that like good systems can really help make the world go around.
like
I definitely think that like, you know, all these little things that bands get tripped upabout like, oh, like, I don't know, I'm just trying to think of a random example.
There's like, there's creative ones of like, oh, what if I have a mix note that someoneelse doesn't have?

(15:26):
Like, what do we do about that?
Or like operational things like if I live further than you from the airport, so my Uber'sto the airport for every gig costs more.
Like, do we both, am I having to pay for that or are you?
Or should we split it and blah, blah, blah?
You know, like all of these questions and so many more we have answers to and we'vediscussed that we have like our own little band constitution of like how we do things.

(15:51):
And if someone makes a good point about it, actually think that this way is not fair.
Then we, then we amend it.
Then we adjust it.
I mean this in a praiseworthy way Clyde, not in a mocking way.
Do you have a policy and procedure manual?
We don't really have a policy and procedure manual exactly, but I do have like, I do havelike notes on a big band meeting that will be referenced.

(16:15):
That will be like, if you are late to the airport and therefore you need to take a Uberthat you would have split with someone else too.
Like I do, we probably do.
We probably should make a manual because we have all of the materials about like what thesystems we've created are written in a set of different.
notes and emails and places that and Google Docs that I reference all the time.

(16:39):
So we probably should have a manual is probably the answer.
We have all the materials to make one.
I think that's amazing discipline.
And for those that haven't seen Lawrence live, there's no risk of this sort of businessstuff overlapping onto stage as far as stifling creativity.
I said in the introduction, Clyde, I had the pleasure of seeing you live this year andwhat I saw was nothing short of a stunning performance.

(17:04):
And I know I've seen from around the world, you never fail to deliver on that.
I wanted to come back to the energy.
On an average gig day, like most bands, spend 23 hours waiting around or 22 hours waitingaround and a couple of hours playing.
What's your routine and then particularly regards to you as a piano player that plays hisbutt off for a two hour gig, let alone the singing that you have to do.

(17:29):
How do you approach a gig day?
Yeah, I mean, I kind of like being busier on a gig day, because to your point, it can be,you know, so monotonous.
A lot of the people in the band, not as much me, have a lot of like actualresponsibilities that normally band members wouldn't have towards preparing for the gig.

(17:50):
Like one guy in the band is actually our tour manager, one guy in the band is ourproduction manager, so on and so forth.
I don't have as many things like that because...
I think it would be hard for me to have that because some days I have like a full day ofpress before the gig.
So for that reason, it would be hard for me to have any like super mission critical day ofshow responsibilities relating to setting up the gig.

(18:15):
But, but I like to like, I'm a full day of stuff to do.
like, if I'm not, if I don't have anything like press or meetings or whatever it might be,I'll, I'll try to do something on my
computer, you know, catch up on emails.
I try to stay busy with like busy worky stuff that I need to do.

(18:37):
Um, and then I like to always like try to take a moment to take a little walk somewherebecause you can spend so much time not, you can spend so little time outside while you're
on tour.
That's a really important thing is like to get ideally like a little bit of sunlight atsome point during the day.
And then, um, I mean, I don't really have like a specific

(18:58):
routine.
like to just stay busy.
like to like not spend too much time thinking about getting into show mode.
Like I like my experience on stage to be an extension of my day.
like to remain in my, you know, sweatpants and t-shirt until just a few minutes before theshow.
And I don't have like a big warm up regimen.

(19:19):
I certainly have things that I try to do for self care.
Like I like to take really warm showers for my voice or like
drink tea and things like that.
But yeah, I try to keep it really loose and just let it be like, I had a phone call withthis person and now I'm walking out on stage and playing a two hour show.
Let's talk a little bit about your actual keyboard playing.

(19:42):
So I mean, on a typical show you're from memory and I apologize if I've gotten this wrong,but you play a lot of piano.
You do play some organ and other stuff on the noise.
Tell us a bit about your keyboard rigging, what you're actually covering across the show.
Yeah, so I use a Nord stage and I do something that probably a lot of keyboard playerswould consider blasphemy, but I'd like to think I do a pretty decent job of it, which is

(20:09):
combining organ and other patches at the same time.
90 % of the show exists on one of three patches.
I have
piano or I really have two different, I have three different piano presets.

(20:29):
And then I have two different electric piano presets.
And then I have a clav like a funky clav preset and I can combine up to two of those.
Like I basically have it that all my patches are one of those, but with other ones behindit.
So I could have like the clav and the piano or the clav and the Rhodes or the clav and theWhirly.

(20:51):
But I basically just these three pianos.
two electric pianos and one clav.
And I, and because I personally don't want it to be like, I have a different patch forevery song.
At least right now, I like the feeling of like, it feels a little more organic or real,even though I'm playing a keyboard that could have a different patch for every song.

(21:13):
I like the feeling that, I've got a piano here and I, even my three different piano soundsare basically the same.
It's just one of them has like a bunch of reverbs on it and whatever.
Um, but then for all of those sounds have organ, the same organ patch also permanently on,but connected to an expression pedal.

(21:35):
So, and if I have that expression pedal at 0%, then then it's like, it's like, I, there'sno organ.
I'm just playing piano, but then I can layer in the organ and I've gotten pretty good at.
Like most people that most keyboard players that I tell about that, they're like, Oh,that's going to sound bad.
Like.
layering an organ like, but you, you're not going to be able to like play independentthings with the organ and the not.

(21:59):
And I've gotten like, it's almost part of the instrument for me.
I've gotten really good and really fast at like adjusting the organ, changing thedrawbars, changing the octave of the organ during the song, turning off the piano in the
middle of the thing.
Also, like I have a really good feel for like certain velocities.

(22:20):
Like if you hit it really light,
you'll only get the organ through, then if you jack up the volume on the organ pedal,it'll still come out really loud on the organ.
So anyway, all that being said, I'm doing some combination of piano, clav, electric piano,and organ, and I'm often doing three of those things at the same time using my...

(22:43):
And look, it works extremely well.
And obviously you have the beautiful luxury too of an amazing brass section and everythingelse on stage with you, which it just flashes it out stunningly well.
So working up songs for tour, Claude, I mean, obviously my assumption and please challengethis is that the way you record in the studio, I'm sure there are overdubs and stuff, but
I'm guessing a lot of it is physical in the studio stuff and that the way you preparesongs for tour probably isn't a lot different to the way you've recorded stuff in the

(23:12):
studio.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
It's actually pretty different than that.
Yeah.
think that some people think that, but it's pretty different than that.
For a couple of reasons.
lot of it is that process wise, like I and Gracie and the rest of the gang have notnecessarily fully written songs when we're beginning to record them.

(23:33):
like it's, we're very rarely all getting together and being like, here's a finished song.
Here's everyone's part.
Also, sometimes I need to hear like 20 different versions of a horn part before I knowwhich one is the right one.
like now knowing how the song goes, if I now need to record the studio version of it, Imight do it more like the way you're describing.

(23:56):
But like when we record, you know, a horn part and there's an open slot in one of oursongs where we like, we know we need a great riff.
I might have the horns do.
we might all come up with 20 different ideas of parts and then we listen back later andpick the best ones.
Or we might be like, my God, it's actually the first note from this one, but then it's therest of this one.

(24:18):
So it's, it's actually quite not live necessarily.
It's a lot of live instruments, but it's not a group of us getting together and playing ittogether necessarily.
So it's partially because of the songwriting process where like we just haven't fullyfigured out what the song is.
And that happens over the course of the months in the studio.

(24:38):
The second one is just like a factor of space.
We record, we have our own little studio in Brooklyn and like, we just don't have room torecord everyone at the same time in it.
And we of course could like book out a big studio, but it's very nice to not feel likeyou're on the clock.
So what we prefer to do is like do a lot of most of our work in this small space where wecould only record at most a couple of instruments at the same time.

(25:03):
Or yeah, and then like once we know, we want to do a full day with drums and bass andpiano.
Then we book a couple of days in like a big studio and go in and do that.
So we try to walk the line between like the old school live instrumentation recordingmethod and sort of the new school sitting in front of a laptop programming things method.

(25:26):
No, that's great.
Thank you.
mean, rehearsing up for a tour.
mean, even now you've done so many shows over the last year for your current tour, you'vegot a couple of months break.
What will be the process when you're going back out in a couple of months?
Is it a day or two's rehearsals or how does it tend to work for you?
Yeah, I mean, I would say that we usually do a big chunk of rehearsing leading into awhole new album cycle.

(25:51):
So, and it's partially because of what I was just talking about, which is that.
Contrary to what you thought the tour is actually often the first time that we are allplaying these songs together.
So going into this family business tour, which the first leg of which was in July inEurope, we did like a full.

(26:12):
you know, probably five full days of getting together as a band, learning all of the songsfrom this album and not only learning them, but figuring out how we were going to make
them work because there's tons of, mean, you can go to a website that me and ourguitarist, Johnny actually created called splitter.fm and you can hear the stems of all of

(26:32):
our songs.
Like there's no way even with an eight piece band, there's full string sections.
There's
10 part vocal choiry things and even drums wise there's so much percussion there's oftenyou know many different keyboard layers synths and all of the above so a lot of it's like
creativity in the rehearsal studio of saying there's this string line hmm should i try tolike play that string line on my keyboard should johnny try to do something on his guitar

(27:03):
should we incorporate it into the horn line or like percussion wise like
How are you gonna adjust what you're playing to adapt from what the studio version is tothe not so, you know That's a really creative process and we kind of do all of that
leading up to the tour My guess is that going into the next leg of tour the setlist willbe like similar but different but maybe a little different but I bet we won't have to do

(27:27):
almost any rehearsal for it like I bet we'll do almost none maybe one or so at this pointlike we have probably hundreds of songs that we could whip out
Um, so it's really only when we're like dialing in a whole new body of work that we reallyneed to sit down and have like a lot of rehearsal time.

(27:48):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And last band question before we move on to the film and TV stuff, Clyde, one, there'sobviously the difference between the musical components of the show and actually having a
show that the audience love.
you managed to pull off both parts of that.
And one thing that I loved and I'm fully prepared to admit at risk of your lawyers, I'veripped it off in my own little cover band, Weekend Band is the whole, the audience

(28:12):
choosing two songs or in your case, getting your
pre-show meet and greet guests to choose two deeper cuts and then you're giving theaudience the choice of which of those deeper cuts they'd like to hear played on the night.
That's the stuff that makes a show great.
And was that just experience, Chloe?
Just work through and thought, how do we make this even more fun?
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, we like interactivity.

(28:35):
If you've been to a Laurence show, you know, we ask you to do a lot of singing.
We like to have fun games and activities and things like that.
We also at this point have a really deep catalog and we like to flex the fact that not tothrow shade at other bands that are in the pop music space.
Cause you know, we kind of walk the line between being a pop band and maybe not a popband, but I think that like

(28:59):
Most pop bands play with a heavy amount of backing tracks.
They maybe don't have as deep of a discography ready to just play immediately because anynumber of reasons, either the hired band for that tour doesn't know the back catalog or
the musicianship isn't there or whatever it might be.
And so I think like for us, we like to demonstrate that we are a real band that has theflexibility to play any song from our catalog.

(29:28):
And that that's something that we actually enjoy doing and find refreshing and that ourset list isn't as rigid as some other pop concerts that you might go to.
So we like to do that as much as we can.
And as we have more and more of a discography, we want to do more of it because, you know,there's so much music that we don't have time to play.
And when we only had two albums out, we couldn't do some fun lottery about what songsyou're going to play because we only had enough time in the set.

(29:54):
We only had enough songs to play pretty much every one of our songs.
So.
You know, we did a tour a few years ago that was really fun where we realized that we hadlike 50 plus covers that we knew really well from our days as a college band and that we
had all these really fun arrangements of them, but a lot of them we hadn't played since wewere a college band.
And so we did this really fun game where we have like a big bag of like balls that youwould find in like a children's ball pit and they all had different songs written on them

(30:25):
from
people, fans would write songs on them and put them in the ball pit.
So then we would like grab a random one out and then throw that into the audience and playthe song.
And we really had a lot of fun doing that.
ah We just always liked doing things like that.
So yeah, for this tour, we figured we have four albums.
We're to play almost every song from our new album.
So as you said, during the pre-show VIP event, we had a competition between the differentpeople that were at the VIP event and the winners.

(30:52):
got to pick one song from each of our first three albums that we weren't planning onplaying.
And then we let the audience vote between those three songs.
We love doing stuff like that.
We also did a, we threw our own festival a couple of years ago where we did three nightsof completely non-repeating set lists.
So we played over 60 songs across the three nights.

(31:12):
We love to, I mean, we love playing music and it's fun to play different songs.
Absolutely.
No, thank you for that.
Yeah, that's just superb.
And I understand for the sake of our listeners, I understand that's not a totally originalconcept and I know Clyde, wouldn't be claiming it is.
mean, Elvis Costello used to have a spinning wheel, it's just great to-
Totally, I would credit him with that inspiration for sure.

(31:36):
Yeah, the spinning wheel tour is like the coolest thing.
And Ben Fold says the paper airplanes.
That's a really cool one.
And you know, it's maybe not the same thing, but you know, if you go to see a band likeFish or something like they're going to play, think they did.
And I'm not super well versed in that world, but I respect like.

(31:57):
the fact that I think they did like 13 nights in Madison Square Garden and didn't repeat asong the entire time.
And I just think like that is a really cool concept because you just, are providing a wayfor your biggest fans to like really take a deep dive with you at your live show.
Absolutely.
No, brilliant.
Now I want to do, I definitely want to talk about your film and TV work, Clyde, and you'vebeen quoted yourself as saying that you love doing that sort of work because it makes you

(32:26):
leave your ego at the door.
So how does your TV or film work scratch a different itch or free you up musically indifferent ways to do what you like to do creatively?
Yeah, I mean, when you're working on, when I'm working on Lawrence, I'm totally in controlof every aspect of what the final product is going to be.

(32:47):
And like, there's no larger project that the music is serving.
The music is the project.
And there's something kind of fun about playing a more supporting role in an operation.
Like there's something really fun about making music for something where the projectitself
has so many moving parts and you can work with and collaborate with someone who you reallytrust, a great director or whatever it might be for them to say, here's how you can really

(33:15):
help me.
Here's what you can make that can support this thing.
like on a pure like working level, there's something very fun about when I think mostpeople who spend a lot of their life working for someone else crave working for
themselves.
But for someone like me who spends 90 % of my time
being like, can make whatever song I want and that's really great.

(33:38):
But it also is like, whatever.
It's kind of fun to work for someone, especially if you really respect them and work attheir direction of how can I make something that's going to help you create your thing to
the best, be the best that it can be.
So on that level, it's fun.
then musically, yeah, it just allows me to do a different, different types of things.
I mean, I think Lawrence luckily can be a lot of different things.

(34:00):
have so many different kinds of songs.
So it's not like,
Lawrence can only be this one thing, but certainly like the ability to make pieces ofmusic for all different kinds of movies or TV shows or things like that.
It's just like a really fun way to be versatile and to flex that muscle and to like dowacky fun, cool pieces of music that I would, that I probably wouldn't have had an

(34:24):
occasion to make for myself.
I also think that it's just fun to see, make music for a visual thing because like
So often music in life is paired with an activity or another thing.
Even the music that I make, the Lawrence music that I make, I think there's plenty ofpeople that are hopefully just sitting down and listening to it.

(34:47):
But for a lot of people, it's the soundtrack to their lives.
It's the song that's on while they're in the car driving down the highway.
It's the song that they are listening to while they're having a drink with their friend.
Music.
even that you make as an artist is a soundtrack for something.
But while I'm in the studio making it, I can only imagine what it's a soundtrack for.

(35:11):
So even though I can imagine while making a song, this would sound great to someone who'sdriving down the highway with the windows down.
Like when I'm scoring a movie, if the scene is showing someone driving down the highwaywith the windows down, I get to actually make the music that pairs perfectly with that
moment.
Does it scratch a different itch to Clyde as far as the, you've talked about type ofmusic, but I mean, obviously your music with Lawrence is so, I don't like, I'm a cynical

(35:37):
old bastard.
I don't like using the words like joyous and stuff, but it's such joyous, amazing,positive music.
Whereas in film and TV, have you had the opportunity to do some darker stuff?
I know a lot of your credits are, you know, not necessarily darker movies, but yeah, tellus a little bit about that.
Yeah, I mean, some I would say that like there is like this and there's like theself-fulfilling prophecy of like a lot of people that have asked me to make music for

(36:01):
things are like asking me because of what they think I'm likely to make.
But yeah, we definitely, I've definitely gotten to make some like stuff that feels, Idon't know if dark is the right word, but like, yeah, very different.
Dramatically like.
in your face joyous than a lot of the Lawrence music is.

(36:24):
And I'd like to think that there's a lot of stuff even within the Lawrence discographythat isn't necessarily as, I think our most popular songs are often the ones that are the
most upbeat and joyous, but there are plenty of, I mean, there's literally a song on ouralbum called Funeral that's just a piano ballad about what it would be like attending your
own funeral.

(36:44):
So that one's pretty dark.
And you know, we have a few songs like that on
most of our albums.
But yeah, no, love doing that stuff.
I mean, I'm working right now just starting work on like a, like a indie horror movie, forexample.
That's like super fun.
And frankly, like some of the sounds that are, that would be used for something like thatare things that make their way into some Lauren songs.

(37:07):
Like in the background of Lauren songs, you'll hear like crazy sound effects and thingslike that.
But like the way you can feature them when you're doing a score is different.
aside of
darkness as something that's a little different than what we might do in the Lawrencething.
It's like even the total opposite direction, which is like, I've gotten to make music forlike, children, orchestral children's cartoons, which as joyous and quirky as Lawrence is,

(37:36):
even, even Lawrence doesn't approach the level of like fun and silliness of some of thefun projects I've gotten to do in that realm.
So kind of, it kind of hits all the different ends of the spectrum.
I have to ask a keyboard related question there.
When you're working up stuff for film and TV, I understand 95 % of that's now doneremotely, except for sort of the really, really big movies.

(37:58):
Sometimes you might get an orchestral staging day and so on.
What are you using at home as far as plug-in synths, soft synths, whatever it is to pulloff what you need to?
Yeah, I mean, I've been lucky enough to do most of the projects that I've done that areheavily orchestral have ultimately been recorded with a full actual orchestra, which is

(38:21):
awesome.
But certainly, certainly a lot of the mocking up of that stuff is done.
Yeah, we just have like so many, I'd have to even, I don't even know off the top of myhead, but like so many of like the, you know,
the MIDI libraries that have like the great string things.

(38:44):
I know we were using like a lot of Spitfire stuff for one project and I honestly am likeforgetting the names of some of the brands.
can envision the interfaces in my, in my head, but yeah, we have all kinds of string andwoodwind libraries and all that jazz and outside of the traditional ones, there's just so
many fun synth patches and like, like one of my shout out to like

(39:09):
Spitfire makes, I think it's Spitfire, makes this thing called Labs that I'm going to lookup whether that's...
Yeah, Spitfire Labs, just release, I think it's like every week or something, just like anew free sound that's always like this weird, cool, random, cool, weird sound.
And like, I love Spitfire Labs.

(39:31):
I use it so much in my film scoring stuff.
like a shout out also to, so I do most of the film scoring with either
my buddy Cody Fitzgerald, who's an awesome composer, producer, or with Jordan Cohen fromthe band, from Lawrence.
So, and they, you know, in those roles, I know a decent amount about production.

(39:51):
I'm certainly a producer, but they are often the ones actually crafting the soniclandscapes of what is being worked on.
So credit to them for, you know, dialing in all of those sounds, whether it's MIDI orwhatever it is.
Great, thank you.
And I've just been aware of time.
I'm just interested in other particular highlights in the film or TV genres that havestood out for you so far.

(40:17):
And I do need you to briefly cover off, you know, your five year old Miss Congenialitytheme song anecdote, if you don't mind, but other highlights for you across all the movies
and TV pieces you've done.
Yeah, I mean, so you mentioned this, but like, I certainly got an earlier startprofessionally in this aspect of my career than like in the band side of things because my

(40:41):
dad is a filmmaker.
I've been able to work with him a number of times.
So I've done music for his stuff since I was a little kid.
And up until still now, he's, you know, my favorite person to work with.
I love working with him.
So.
I've done music for a bunch of his projects and that's always such a blast.

(41:02):
And everything from like wrote the theme song for Miss Congeniality when I was a very,very young child.
But more recently, like did the full soundtrack for this Disney movie, Noelle, which waslike such a fun combination of things because it was a Christmas movie and a Disney movie
and really got to like.
I know, I I love Christmas music.

(41:24):
I love Disney music to combine both of those and film music and kind of try to dosomething a little bit different in our own flavor.
I highly recommend anyone who's like a fan of Lawrence to listen to the Noel soundtrack,including all the instrumental score that Cody Fitzgerald and I did.
It's some of like my proudest thing.
But then yeah, outside of the song, I'm with my dad.

(41:45):
There's been a ton of fun stuff.
Jordan and I did a bunch of the songs for Animaniacs, the latest reboot of it.
which was really, really fun.
Like the craziest wackiest song assignments.
You know, we would just get told, can you write a song in the style of a seventies funksong from the perspective of Genghis Khan?
You know, can you write a song about, you know, the history of everything that's everhappened in science in the world in this, you know, like, just these crazy prompts where

(42:16):
it's like, yes, that sounds so fun.
Um, so that was really fun.
And I mean, a recent one that
that just wrapped up is Cody and I did the score for the latest project from this awesomedirector named Cooper Reif.
And it's a show called Howlin' Harper starring himself and Mark Ruffalo and Lily Reinhardtand a bunch of other really awesome actors.

(42:38):
And it just premiered at Sundance.
So that's kind of a different vibe than things you might hear in the Lawrence universe.
It's like more of like a indie.
I don't even know how to describe the show or the music, but it's like.
It's kind of like somewhere between drama and comedy and the music is just all thesereally like warm sort of flavors that were really, really fun and like, you know, really

(43:03):
fun to make.
So those have been some highlights working on a couple of fun projects right now that Iprobably can't talk about all the details of, but yeah, I love doing that stuff and
fitting it in whenever.
And speaking of fitting things whenever you can, Clyde, I know you tease on your ownwebsite that you may or may not be writing the book, music and lyrics for a stage musical.

(43:23):
that something, I understand you probably can't say much, but is that something that'sstill an ongoing project for you?
Yeah, there's a couple different, there's a couple different iterations of that, that arekind of bouncing around in our world over here.
Yeah.
The short answer is yes.
There are like steps being taken towards that.
If you know anyone who does that kind of thing, they'll tell you it takes a very, verylong time.

(43:48):
And the percentage of projects that start getting worked on is much larger than thepercentage that get finished.
So.
I don't have a timeline or any promises, but it's definitely something that we want to do.
And it's definitely something that there's actually like multiple different projects thatare being.

(44:10):
Hopefully getting some momentum towards happening.
No, great.
Looking forward to that.
We'll just move on to a couple of our standard questions, Clyde.
And the first one is our tag a keyboard player question.
we ask all of our great guests to tag another person that they admire who may play as wellthat they'd like to hear more about their story.

(44:31):
Yeah, I mean, definitely a shout in terms of like keyboard players that I'm friends withand always admire.
They're playing intensely.
Our buddy, Devin Yesburger is absolutely awesome.
Highly recommend uh you chatting with him and, and, uh, he's, he's the man.
If you watch our acoustic videos, he's in almost all of them and

(44:55):
He's just like a keyboard player that I always love jamming with because it's so rare thatget to jam with other keyboard players.
Another one is my friend Brynn Bliska, who is an amazing keyboard player.
And she has been on tour with Jacob Collier, Maggie Rogers, whole bunch of differentpeople.
But actually she went to college with all of us in the band.

(45:18):
like she has been part of our sort of Lawrence music community since.
since before any of us were professionals and she is an absolute badass.
So those are two keyboard players that come to mind in terms of like people that Iconsider not only like keyboard players that I really admire, but just like people that

(45:39):
I've been friends with for years and years now.
So those are two really awesome people that you should definitely get in
No, great picks.
Thank you.
And I did forget to ask you about an onstage train wreck.
Has something ever gone spectacularly wrong for you, Clyde, that can look back now andlaugh about it?
Great question.
I'd say yes, for sure.
I mean, there's a combination of like technical error and human error examples that cometo mind.

(46:06):
um Certainly like, you know, the fun thing about not playing to tracks and the fun thingabout hopefully the reputation we built with our fans is that like we just are a group of
real people playing on stage.
So like if things go wrong or if we mess something up royally, then like, you know.
then that's just that's that's like that's rock and roll.

(46:27):
is what it is.
I mean, we had a show on this past tour where all of the power to half of the stage wentout during the show.
So we lost like over half of the microphones and half of the instruments and everything.
And because we have a pretty small crew and a lot of it is our band, literally me andGracie just grabbed an acoustic guitar and a couple of mics from the side of the stage

(46:52):
that were working.
And we just played like three songs acoustically for the audience while the rest of ourband and our crew were just on stage trying to figure everything out because they couldn't
get the power back.
I think it was actually wasn't the power.
I think it was a full set of the inputs.
So they needed to like reroute the entire stage.
So that was kind of crazy.

(47:12):
Yeah.
I mean, certainly getting back to college, you know, we had with the, you know, we had somany shows in which that were broken up by.
the cops or that somebody spilled beer all over my keyboard or that one of us was maybehad a few too many drinks or whatever it might have been.
mean, we really like when you imagine like the crowdest, sweatiest, most fun collegebasement gig, that was our bread and butter for years and years.

(47:43):
there's more stories than I can even repair.
No, that's amazing.
And then we've got the Desert Island Disks question Clyde.
So five albums, if you have to go to a Desert Island, which five are you taking?
Wow.
Let's see.
I will just rattle it off.
I mean, I would think that I would have to go with Abbey Road.

(48:04):
Yep.
Sail Away by Randy Newman.
I'm looking up like track with right now.
Certainly something Stevie Wonder, but I am having trouble deciding between like songs inthe key of life versus something earlier.
I love like Signed Seals Delivered, like those early records like that album is I thinkmost people

(48:25):
when they talk about like the best Stevie Wonder era talk about like the songs in the keyof life and talking book and all of that.
But I love the early stuff too.
So let's see.
There's those maybe tapestry by Carol King.
Let's go with something modern or maybe maybe one of my favorite two others that just cameto mind are this is less modern but more modern than all the others.

(48:51):
I just said whatever and ever amen by Ben Folds five.
Oh yeah.
And Gumbo by PJ Morton.
He's like one of my favorite current artists.
And that Gumbo record is like probably my most listened to album that has come out in thelast 10 years.
Right.
get six Clyde.
I'm happy with that.

(49:11):
That's fine.
Yeah.
Thank you.
No, they're great picks.
And our last question Clyde is what we call a quick fire 10.
So 10 short and sharp answers to some very short questions.
So first album you heard that you recall making a big impact on you growing up.
The song, Take Me to the Pilot by Elton John.
I remember hearing that song and being like, I get it.

(49:33):
This is exactly what I want to do.
Hearing it was piano and it was upbeat, but it had so much energy.
I feel like people think of piano as whatever, but I heard that and I was like, that hitsme right in whatever part of my chest that I want to make music that is like that.

(49:53):
answer.
Most important pre-gig ritual what do you need to do to feel settled before a show?
Great question.
I kind of like to like jump up and down a handful of times.
works.
If you hadn't been a musician Clyde, what do you think your career choice would have been?
Probably something in the world of like solving puzzles, but I'm not sure whether I meanthat in the sense of like games and crossword puzzles or science or something like that.

(50:23):
I really love science and I love puzzles and I love like playing games and stuff.
But I also, whenever I hear about like scientists working on something really exciting, Iget like really jealous and I'm like, in another life I would love to like help.
Try to figure that out.
There you go, love it.
If it's possible, the favourite tour you've ever done over the last sort of 12 years.

(50:45):
mean, they've all been great.
think that this latest tour, the Family Business Tour has been the most exciting becauseit's the first time in our career that we've really been able to like bring people a full
show that's about so much more than just the music.
Even though we try to keep it being about the music, there are, there's, with this wholefamily business concept, we're able to almost have it be like a fun little, there's a

(51:11):
narrative to it and it's so seamless with what our band is all about.
It feels like we're able to in one show, not only have you understand what our music isall about, but have you understand who we are all about as people too.
So I'd say that that's the most fun tour, but the most fun live experience I think hasprobably been that three night festival where we did the non-repeating setlist that I told

(51:33):
you about.
That was called Stake-ation and we're hoping to do another, another one at some point.
Just to save you a lot of stress Clyde, I'll take that as your answer to the next onewhich was the favourite gig.
We'll say that three nights in a row.
Yeah, that three nights at Brooklyn Steel in New York staycation.
did three nights of themes.
The first night was wedding themed.
The second night was I2K, so like early 2000s.

(51:55):
And the third night was New York, New York.
So we did a bunch of New York related songs, songs by New York artists, Broadway songs,and we had different outfits, different stage designs, sorry about that, different merch.
All kinds of different fun stuff every night.
That was such a blast.
And definitely, think my favorite gigs we've ever done.

(52:15):
Great.
And it can be a cover, doesn't have to be one of yours, but name a song that you used tolove, but you've played it to death now.
Wow.
That's a great question.
I mean, it would have to be one of our own songs.
I feel like I don't really, I don't really get bored of songs that I love necessarily.

(52:36):
I don't know.
I'll have to get back to you on that.
I tend to not be like, I used to love that song and now I don't.
I just keep adding to the list of songs that I love.
Yeah, no, that's just as good an answer as any.
Favorite music documentary or movie?
Wait, one answer on your last question.
Yeah, I still love this song and I think it's like the greatest song of all time.

(52:58):
But I made the mistake in like high school of making I want you back by the Jackson five,my phone alarm when I wake up and then I and I love that song.
And I was like, what a perfect song because you can't not be happy when you hear thebeginning of that song.
And then after like two weeks, because I'm a really late night person, I hate waking up inthe morning.

(53:18):
I started to grow so resentful of the song because it was the sound of me having to wakeup from sleep.
So I actually changed it back to the default ringtone because I didn't want to ruin thesong for me.
Sorry, what was your next question?
That was amazing.
Our favourite music documentary or movie.
Wow, great question.
Non-documentary wise, things that come to mind are That Thing You Do is an amazing movie.

(53:44):
School of Rock is an amazing movie.
I'll give a shout out to one of my dad's films, Music and Lyrics is a movie I absolutelylove.
There's a lot of really good ones.
A documentary that I saw recently, I'll shout out two music documentaries.
One is um the documentary about um
the making of We Are The World.

(54:06):
forget the name of it, but it's on Netflix.
And I thought like, what a random concept for a documentary.
Like I'm not that interested in the making of the song We Are The World.
So I was like, I don't get why this needs to be documentary.
And I found it to be like the most incredible documentary because it's not about as goodas that song is.
It's not about the song.
It's about the creative and logistical feat of getting all of these.

(54:31):
people, these artists, these celebrities, and in a lot of cases, these like kind ofimmature people to all cooperate and make this song in one night together.
And I just like I love that.
And another really funny.
Yeah.
was going to the Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder segment alone is worth the price ofadmission.
It's truly incredible.

(54:53):
It's truly incredible.
And yeah, we've been lucky enough to become friends with a few people that were part ofthat process.
Like we're good friends with Greg Phillinganes, who played the keyboard on that and is inthat documentary a little bit.
And we're friends with John Oates, who was standing I think right next to Bob Dylan.

(55:13):
Yeah, it was fun talking, debriefing it with them after I saw it.
mean, like you got to tell me what that was like.
That's an awesome one.
also recently watched the documentary about Metallica making their, forget the name of it,but it's just like this album where they're trying to work through so much drama and

(55:34):
personal conflict.
Yes, yes.
And it's truly like an amazing documentary and it's so emotional and it's also there's somuch comedy in it.
And it's like, I think it's required viewing for any
Anyone who's in a band, maybe not any musician, because it's kind of unique to like, ifyou're in a band with your friends, you have to watch the documentary.

(55:57):
Yeah.
And the very last one, Clyde, is what's your favourite non-musical activity or hobby?
What keeps you sane outside of the madness that is the music industry?
Yeah, I I mentioned it before, but I have a few things.
The biggest one is probably like games and puzzles.
All my friends know I'm like obsessed with any kind of puzzle game riddle on a long drive.

(56:19):
Like I love a riddle.
I'm obsessed with playing like Settlers of Catan, the board game or like doing crosswordpuzzles or any kind of silly competitive game I'm very into.
I'm also a big baseball fan.
So I watched tons of baseball and I love watching movies and TV, spending time withfriends and family.

(56:44):
Those are kind of the main things I think.
No, great.
Look, Clyde, I cannot thank you enough.
And I just want to do a quick shout out to my co-host Paul, who was the one that quiterightly insisted that number one, I go and check out Lawrence and B he's devastated.
He's not here today.
Unfortunately, his day job has, has gotten in the way, but, seeing you guys live and theimpact you make on every audience every single night is amazing.

(57:07):
And I was one of probably
10 % of the audience that was over the age of 45, you attract a huge range of audienceages, but it was just absolutely mind blowing to see how you are making an impact on so
many people every single night.
And I get so tired of this.

(57:27):
I get so tired of the stereotypes that live music is dead and particularly pop rock, funk,soul, whatever.
And you are the living embodiment of how that is in the case.
So yeah, really appreciate your time.
I was at the Sydney show
yeah, that one.
And we did two nights, but both of them were great.

(57:48):
That was such a fun.
That was, yeah, such a great audience.
Well, I really appreciate you saying that.
Yeah.
it a hot night, Clyde?
Because to me it was a damn hot night.
I don't know in your experience touring about how you were feeling the heat.
really was.
yeah I know the Sydney, Sydney crowds were both really really great.
The whole Australia tour was great.
But no, I really appreciate you saying that and it's funny, every single audience memberthat we have who's over 40 or over, you know, whatever age always says, and I'm your, you

(58:19):
know, I'm your oldest fan or I'm, they always make a comment about how they're such anoutlier.
But the fact is we have tons of fans of all ages.
Um, and it's fun to see and we have tons of fans who are like young children seeing theirfirst concert and that's one of our favorite things is the the you know, diversity across
age there, but I really appreciate you saying that and tell your colleague that Iappreciate him introducing you to us.

(58:45):
Thanks having me.
And there we have it.
I do hope you enjoyed that.
I obviously did because I love Clyde's work and Laurence the band's work and some of thefilm and TV stuff is just plain amazing.

(59:05):
So yeah, I do hope you enjoyed that.
So much to learn out of that.
And as Clyde mentioned too, I've tended to go in thinking...
Lawrence, band's work is all very uplifting stuff, which in its own right is an amazingfeat, but he's quite right.
There is a lot of light and shade across their four albums.
And certainly if you listen closely to the lyrics, which I'm as a musician, I'm guilty ofnot listening to closely enough.

(59:28):
There's a massive amount of light and shade between the music and the lyrics.
It's just an amazing collaboration that that band.
So cannot recommend highly enough checking out some of their work and please do check outshow notes.
We do go to a lot of trouble to make sure.
you get some great links there to check out.
again, thank you for listening.
A big shout out to our gold and silver sponsors, the wonderful musicplayer.com forums,Dave Bryce and the team there.

(59:52):
If you'd like talking keyboards in a forum format, which I know I do, that is the place togo.
Mike at midnightmastering.com, amazing work if you need mixing or mastering of your owncreations.
The lovely Tammy Katcher from Tammy's Musical Studio.
Thank you so much as always Tammy.
And also the brilliant Dewey Evans from the Sunnyland of Wales.

(01:00:13):
Thank you sir for your ongoing support.
So we'll be back again in a couple of weeks.
Do reach out via editor at keyboardchronicles.com or via all the socials.
But otherwise we'll see you soon and keep on playing.