THE HENRY CLAY PEOPLE

L.A.’s “YES” BAND

By Kyle Lemmon; photo by Jessica Watkins

Proudly hanging on one peach-colored wall in Joey Siara’s Glendale, Calif. home is a framed poster of The Flying Burrito Brothers’ seminal album, The Gilded Palace of Sin. Nestled in the same corner are posters of The Replacements’ Let It Be, Television’s Marquee Moon and The Beatles’ Revolver. Walk around the corner and a television in the living room is paused in the middle of a documentary on The Byrds. This is surely the house of a music nerd, and the country-flecked indie rock band Siara fronts, The Henry Clay People, are all the better for it.

Taking its name from the 19th century American politician and failed presidential candidate Henry Clay, the band – Siara, his brother Andy (guitar, vocals), Eric Scott (drums), Noah Green (bass, vocals, acoustic guitar) and new helpers Jonathan Price (12-string guitar, vocals), Joe Napolitano (percussion, vocals, drums, piano, Wurlitzer) and Jillinda Palmer (piano, organ, vocals, harmonica) – doesn’t put too much stalk into the moniker’s importance. “What I usually say when I’m asked is that the selection of the band name was a compromise in the spirit of The Great Compromiser, Henry Clay,” says Joey.

The hardworking band, however, has skirted compromise at every turn. The unwritten rule that you can only gig so much in an area is putty in The Henry Clay People’s hands. The band’s four core members, the Siaras, Scott and Green, convened in L.A. two years ago and decided to engulf the live music circuit with their name. Previously spread along the coast from Santa Barbara down to San Diego and only able to play once every three months, they were just really hungry to play, according to Joey. “When we finally got a chance to, we really started hammering it out,” he says. “And I think the L.A. scene was really conducive to a band like us that was willing to play as much as possible.”

The sheer number of venues and sheer amount of space created a unique opportunity for the band to play as frequently as it liked without over-saturating any one market. “Even though Long Beach is part of L.A., the people that live in Long Beach aren’t going to Spaceland to see a show,” Joey explains. “Because of that, we can play a show in Long Beach, one in L.A. proper, one on the West Side … they’re all different places with different audiences.”

Saying yes to so many offers did lend itself to some strange – and fortuitous – gigs for the band, like the Motley Coffeehouse at the all-girls Scripps College in Claremont. Andy remembers the night well. “The theme was prom night. We were expecting something very shitty. Eric [Scott] had already been inside loading his drums and he comes out and says to us, ‘Oh my god, this is an all-girls school!’ I think there were maybe three guys in the audience that night. It was one of my favorites.”

Despite the low cash return and patience involved in growing your fan base, Joey sees it like this: “If there are only 10 people at each of our shows, as long as the eleventh person is new, we win.” That eleventh person grew them a rabid local audience that resulted in a trip to SXSW earlier this year. During their time in Austin, The Henry Clay People fostered new friendships and caught the attention of local indie blog site Aquarium Drunkard, whose founder, Justin Gage, will release the band’s new full length, For Cheap or For Free, on his Autumn Tone Records label this month.

For Free’s more stately classic rock sound occurred in the same friendly environs that fostered the band’s relationships with other emergent L.A. bands (Price and Palmer are from I Make This Sound and Napolitano is from Le Switch). “I think our old album [2007’s Blacklist the Kid with the Red Moustache] has more of that classic indie rock – Pavement, Built to Spill – sound, where I feel this new one is more classic rock,” explains Joey. “It sounds more like the bands we listened to growing up than the bands we listened to in college. I feel it’s a lot more honest.”

Where The Henry Clay People have already racked up a blistering number of live sets, they have yet to tour farther than Santa Barbara and San Diego. Hungry to get on the road, they’re also honest about it. “So much as we’d love to tour, we’re all pretty piss-broke,” Joey explains. So until that changes, The Henry Clay People will have to remain L.A.’s little secret.

www.thehenryclaypeople.com