12 years into their life as a band, after the point where bigger, more successful bands have cashed in their chips and retired to day jobs, Pittsburgh’s beloved Clarks finally hit their stride and are winding down from their best year yet, commercially and artistically.

The Clarks — singer/guitarist Scott Blasey, guitarist Rob Hertweck, bassist Greg Joseph, and drummer Dave Minarik — met at college in the late 80s, moved to Pittsburgh, and established themselves as a staple of the city’s culture over the next few years. After signing to MCA in the 90s alternative gold rush, the Clarks released just one record in the deal, 1996’s Someday Maybe, and were dropped in 1997. Unfazed, the Clarks released the Clarks Live in 1998. The project kept the group going through a tough time, and fan enthusiasm only grew. The Clarks continued touring, playing over 200 shows a year across the Mid-Atlantic and beyond, building loyal followings from Wisconsin to South Carolina.

Respectable concert attendance and continuing CD sales attracted the attention of bigtime indie label Razor & Tie (home to Dar Williams, Smartbomb and Graham Parker), and the band gave the majors a second chance, signing with the company. The shot paid off. 2000’s Let It Go saw the band team with producer Justin Niebank (whose work includes Eric Clapton, John Hiatt, and Blues Traveler), resulting in the Clarks’ strongest album to date, a CD with not one throwaway track. The release spawned numerous radio hits, sold nearly 40,000 units in Pittsburgh alone, and is still moving 600 copies a week over a year after its release.

Scott Blasey called Unsung Hero just after the band’s headlining show at Pittsburgh’s I.C. Light Ampitheater, where nearly 8,000 hometown fans turned up on a warm summer night for the venue’s best-selling concert of the season, which outsold Sugar Ray, the Go-Go’s, Everclear and the Warped Tour. That night, the band recorded three hits from Let It Go — “Better Off Without You,” “Snowman” and “Born Too Late” — for this month’s expanded re-release of 1998’s The Clarks Live (Razor & Tie), effectively a best-of compilation from their six studio discs, plus a cover of Prince’s “Kiss.”

“The intent is to have it available everywhere, all over the country,” explained Blasey, still pumped from the sellout crowd’s deafening reception, his deep speaking voice retaining the polish from undergraduate training in broadcasting. “Because at this point, there are Clarks fans everywhere, which is a wonderful thing.”

By the time you read this article, the Clarks will be in Tennessee, reunited with producer Justin Niebank, working on pre-production for the followup to the breakthrough Let It Go, aiming for an early 2002 release.

UH: The show was all anybody was talking about all week, and there was a huge crowd last night.

SB: The biggest show we’ve ever done on our own. We pretty much packed it. They said there were about 7500 people in there. And that was about as many as they can do. Everybody was completely taken by surprise. We had a huge walk-up. I mean, we sold maybe four thousand, forty-five hundred going into that day. Then everybody just showed up. Everybody said, “OK, nice weather, nothing else going on, let’s go to the Clarks show.”

UH: I missed the concert. How did it go?

SB: It was great. We video’ed it and recorded it on audio. And so there were a lot of other things to deal with that day and the days leading up to it. So it was a little more stressful than your typical gig, but everything came off without a hitch. The video looked great. Audio turned out great. The songs that we wanted to record, a three or four of the main songs, we played really well. So we were just happy overall.

UH: Tell me about the crowd.

SB: It was the loudest crowd we have ever heard. It hurt. I wear in-ear monitors, and I keep one out and one in. And it was louder when they would applaud. The noise was more deafening than when the band was playing. It was awesome. You get kind of emotional when you feel that outpouring of energy. And in that case, it was just a lot of love, because people love this band, and we love them right back. It’s still fun. That’s the main thing. We’re still having fun on stage, and I think that’s the main thing that people react to.

UH: Over the years, you’ve only become bigger at home, in Pittsburgh. But after almost a decade of being a band, when the major-label deal fell apart, did the Clarks ever think about calling it a day?

SB: There was a point right after... I forget what year it was, we had started doing some demos for MCA to do the next record when all that consolidation hit. Way Cool [Records] was no more at MCA, and we got dropped. It was at the end of a year, and we were coming up on the holidays and doing some shows. And then after the year, we were taking a couple weeks off in January. And when we came back from that, I think we all did a little soul searching and said “OK, what are we going to do? If there ever was a time to stop, it’s now. But it was so brief, so fleeting, you had to consider it. But as soon as you did, you realize: “What am I going to do? I love to play.” Fortunately for us, we had a big enough fan base and, therefore, a financial base, that we didn’t need a record company to still exist. The biggest thing that helped us: we had a plan. We decided right away to do the live CD. And what that did was that took everybody’s focus away from being dropped, and gave everybody a goal: this is what we’re going to do and we’re going to do it soon, in the next two to three months. We’re going to get the money and do this recording and put out a CD in the next four months. We were fortunate in that when MCA dropped us, they just dropped us. A lot of bands get stuck in this purgatory for a year: they’re going to get dropped, but the record company’s just very lazy about it. They don’t do anything about it. They don’t tell their lawyers to get it done. You can’t do anything. And that’s where everybody says “This sucks. Fuck this. I’m not gonna do that.” But we were lucky. They just dropped us. It was a done deal. We got a lawyer. It was over. It was clean. We were able to buy back the rights to Someday Maybe. We moved forward and had a new project to work on, a live CD. And when that happened, it kind of gave our fans the feeling that, OK, we’re not quitting, this is not over. And it gave everybody a new record. We got to play for a couple months on it. And then we started thinking on “OK, let’s do another record.” We had a bunch of great songs because it had been such a long time since we had recorded. “Born too Late” and stuff we had been playing live for a while. So everybody was ready.

UH: How did you regroup and reinvigorate? How did Let It Go happen?

Justin Niebank can be given a lot of credit for that, the guy that produced it. We had done demos with him when we were still with MCA. We met him through a guy at MCA. He lives outside of Nashville. Similar in age, similar in temperament, similar in taste. We all just got along as friends initially. He liked the band. He liked our music. And he just thought that he could add something to it. He thought that he could take what we do and make it better. He instilled in us this thing that was like, “Maybe this is what you do live, and maybe you’ve recorded all your records to this point the way you play them live, pretty much. I don’t care whether you can pull it off live. This is what sounds best right now, here in the studio. Don’t worry about how it’s going to translate. So he just had a lot of expertise. He’s a musician. He had a lot of great ideas. He was just great to work with. In fact, the next record, we’re going to work with him again.

UH: How does it feel to be having this success now, instead of in 1996, when you were first signed?

It feels really good, because — I feel, and I think all the guys in the band feel — that we’re playing better than we ever have. We’re having as much fun on stage as we ever have. And that’s probably the most gratifying thing, that you realize that you can still peak late, even though the music industry is still very youthfully driven. Artistic pursuits, people don’t mature as an artist until they’re well into their 40s, 50s and beyond, as far as painting and whatever. And musically, I think the same thing applies. You can still write great stuff when you’re young, but I think when you get a little under your belt — I’m 36 — I write stuff, and kids love it. I write stuff, and kids are obviously relating to what I have to say. I don’t feel that far removed from seventeen-year old kids anyway, even though I am a generation away.

UH: When I tell Pittsburgh people what my job is, they always ask me if I’ve interviewed the Clarks. When I told people about this interview, everybody asked me to ask you a question for them. So I have some questions from the fans. First, Jess from Uniontown wants to know if you’ll marry her.

SB: No. I’m not the marrying kind.

UH: Tim from West Mifflin says his wife thinks you’re hot, and he wants to know what your favorite Clarks song is.

SB: My favorite Clarks song is “Born Too Late.” I’m very proud of that song.

UH: Were the any historical figures that you wanted to include in the song but had to leave out?

SB: Not really. There were one or two more musicians that I could have given props to, like I wanted to say “Stevie Ray, how do you play that thing?” But it didn’t flow. But not really. In fact, I started out basically just with the first line, “Vincent...” and that’s really what was cool about writing the song. When I wrote that first line, I immediately knew how the song was going to end up. It’s kind of like a puzzle: You just don’t have all the pieces yet. Now it’s kind of like a game for the next two days, you think about “Who do I admire? And who rhymes?” Who can I fit in there and it flooows? So “Steve Ray, will you teach me how to play?” didn’t flow too well. He’s actually my guy. I’m not a huge Jimi Fan, but it just fit better.

UH: Jodi from East Millsboro wants to know: which town besides Pittsburgh has the best fans?

SB: We had a lot of radio play basically everywhere. It was scattered all over the country. Not in any huge markets. A lot of smaller markets. A couple of bigger ones. Cleveland has been a longtime somewhat of a second home. At this point now, the whole Philadelphia-Baltimore-DC corridor, we do very well down there. We definitely have our share of fans, and it’s growing. Places like Charlotte, North Carolina, we do real well. And Atlanta’s doing pretty good. I was surprised how many came out the last time we played there. We did this little tour two, three years ago with Someday Maybe, and I’ll tell you what: It was depressing. There was nobody. And now at least, there’s 75, 100 people at least. And in some places — Philadelphia, Cleveland, Philly, etc. — there’s 200, 300 all the time. Which is really encouraging. Milwaukee, we’re getting a lot of radio play up there. It’s a very shot-and-a-beer, blue-collar past , Pittsburgh-y town, and they love us.

UH: Kim from the South Side wants to know what your favorite pastime is.

SB: Lately, I’m into swimming. I swim in a pool and I swim in a river. I swim in the Youghiogheny in the summer, down near Ohiopyle... there’s a little swimming hole I frequent, the exact location of which will never be divulged. Swimming. I can’t explain it. It makes me feel so good. Something about the water is very calming. I’ve always been. I work out a lot. I bike. I rollerblade. I do a lot of stuff like that. It’s fun. I don’t really look at it as work. But swimming, there’s an extra element. I think it’s about being in the water. It’s very calming and natural, that when you’re exercising in it, it’s just terrific. I get out of the pool, and I feel great.

UH: Nikki from Carmichaels wants to know what the deal is with the Clarks album Strikes & Gutters.

SB: Strikes and Gutters is a collection of demo recordings that we had done prior to Let It Go. We had recorded 25, 30 songs in a friend’s studio over in Swissvale. Basically, it was just to have all the songs on a recording to give to producers, record companies, etc., etc., that we never intended for release to the public. After Let It Go was a success, we listened to those demo records — after all, there was a whole album’s worth of songs that wasn’t on Let It Go. And when we listened to the demo recordings, everybody said, “Man, these are really good. We should just put these out.” Thing was, it wasn’t another release, we couldn’t just do another big national release, it wasn’t that kind of record. What they did was: there’s this website called Starpolish.com, and the people that run it are friends with out managers. And Starpolish had this idea: “Why don’t we have contests and whatever, and you can sell Strikes and Gutters on our website?” And the record company agreed to let us sell X amount of units on Starpolish.com, and it would just be on the down-low, and we would just tell our fans. It would be a fan-club kind of thing. It worked out really well. We sold through X amount of units instantaneously. Our fans just snapped it up. It’s a good recording, so I can see why they like it. And our record company then was gracious enough to say, “OK, you can sell more.” So we’re selling more. But we don’t really hype it, and we’re not treating it as a regular release, which it isn’t, anyhow. It’s just a couple throwaway tunes that maybe were tacked on the end.

UH: Jenn from Mt. Lebanon wants to know what your favorite beverage is.

SB: Water. Water. Hands-down, without question, Water. A distant second: Jagermeister.

UH: Tom from White Oak wants to know if you drink at shows.

SB: Never. Never drink before I go on stage. I always have a little Jager when I’m singing, though. It’s real viscous. It’s great for your throat — I shouldn’t say that; it’s not good for your throat. It’s alcohol. Alcohol dries you out and generally isn’t good for singing. But there’s something about Jager. If I’ve got Jager and water on stage, I’m good to go.

UH: Nate from Charleroi wants to know who the band’s musical role models are.

SB: Let’s start with the mid 80s. When the band started, there was the holy trinity — U2, R.E.M. and the Replacements. When we started, those were the college bands, somewhat underground. U2 wasn’t discovered by the masses yet. Same with R.E.M., and the Replacements never really were. And they were probably our favorite. ***** As well as the Hoodoo Gurus, the Rainmakers and the Rave-Ups, and I could go on with Americana bands. I think we’ve all gone through phases with the Beatles at different points in our lives. I think we all love that music. But from there, it just goes everywhere. We all like different stuff. I grew up on soul music: Al Green, Marvin Gaye. My dad listened to that stuff, and that’s what I listened to, through him. And then I got into radio pop through the 70s and 80s. I was a huge Journey Fan, and I’m proud to admit it. Not that that’s informed my music at all. I loved that stuff, man. In the late 70s, early 80s, it was AC/DC, Ted Nugent, Journey, Foreigner, that kind of stuff. I’m sure somewhere you subconsciously take those things in and use them. I think sometimes on stage I like playing rock star. I saw a lot of shows at the Civic Arena, smoking dope and watching Sweaty Teddy come flying across stage in a loin cloth, on a rope. I love that stuff.

UH: Heather from Wexford wants to know what she has to do to get a copy of the band doing Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.”

SB: I’m sure at some point, if our fans are patient, that song is going to surface on a CD somewhere, somehow. We may try to record it in the studio and do something unique with it. We really don’t know, but it’ll come out eventually some way, because it’s hugely popular. People would love to have it right now. The obvious thing to do would be to throw it on the Clarks Live. But I don’t think we’re going to do the obvious thing. I think we’d all like to have a shot at it in the studio first. One thing we don’t want to do, we don’t want to milk our fans. But we did this video for the IC Light show, and it turned out great. So it’s possible that some sort of video would surface in the future, too. But that’s way down the line.

UH: James from Indiana wants to know what you got of college, besides meeting the band and finding a career with them.

SB: I grew up, socially, there. I’d never been away my hometown — I’d visited Pittsburgh — but I’d never lived away from home. I look back at it now, and it was so much fun. You forget about being stressed out about grades and tests, and I remember the great times that I had partying. I had a great time. I realized my life could be fun. And I discovered women and rock & roll and good friends and having a good time. There were stressful things in there, but that’s what I got out of it: I had fun. And I look back now, and I think, “What kind of real education did I get?” I don’t remember actual schooling. That part never stuck with me. I basically just put it on auto pilot and did the minimum that I had to do to stay in, to graduate. I discovered music and how to play music.

UH: Do you have any Dick Clarks gigs planned for the future?

SB: None at all. And I sorely miss them. Because they’re just a different thing, a different beast, and a really cool outlet. To play songs that we know from our youth. And whether we know them or not, we try them. Nothing anytime soon. But the schedule is just so busy. We’ve been going pretty had for the last year. I’m doing one solo gig with [ex-Gathering Field] Bill Deasy in Club Café. I enjoy those too, because it’s a different thing, way different, even, from the Dick Clarks. It’s as different from the Dick Clarks as the Dicks are from the band. It’s fun to step out of that comfort zone every once in a while and get nervous about some things.

UH: What’s the band’s writing process??

SB: It is very group-oriented. Generally, it starts out with me or Greg. I write a lot. I have to sing the lyrics, so I have an interest in that. I like to think I’m getting very good at that. Greg writes a lot. Rob contributes. He wrote the bulk of “Better off Without You.” But, that said, once we bring a song in to the band, everybody has ideas. Everybody has an opinion. And it’s very democratic and very open, and I have no problem with changing things around of the guys think it’s in the best interest of the song. I’ll sit around here, play my guitar, come up with ideas, and just start playing them for the guys, and see what they latch on to. If I have three or four ideas, they generally gravitate toward one or two, and we work on that, play it out live a couple times. And that’s the real barometer. You get a crowd reaction instantly. You can tell the first couple times you play a song how well it’s going to be received, if it needs work or if we should just shelve it.

UH: What are the band’s plans now?

SB: Let It Go has still pretty much run its course. It’s come to the end of its cycle, and it’s a wonderful cycle. And we’re pretty ready to do it all over again. Justin Niebank is going to produce the next record. We’ve all been writing a little lately, and I’m going to kick that into high gear. We’re taking the whole month of October and going to Franklin, Tennessee, and just hunkering down and doing it all over again. I can’t wait.