DESPITE THE NAME, the drawl and the drinkin' songs, for alt-country singer-songwriter Clint Maul, the emphasis is on "alternative." The Richmond, Va., singer-songwriter earned his doctorate from the school of Paul Westerberg.
Maul's acoustic set on Monday at The Red and the Black -- his D.C. debut -- won't turn the small room into a honky-tonk so much as a time machine, taking the audience back to the halcyon days of alternative rock -- when acts overtly indebted to the pure-pop genius of Westerberg's Replacements signed to majors and dated Wynona Rider. Even Maul admits on his MySpace page that he's "more haggard than merle."
After growing up in a rural area near Virginia Beach, Maul played guitar in a bunch of punk and hardcore bands (Bladecrasher, Bombs Away) that "never really went anywhere," he said. But Maul never wrote lyrics or sang until about a year and a half ago, when he started "out of boredom." He began recording demos and gigging steadily -- that is, when not working as a guitar-tech with Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven or holding down his day job as a courier.
"This whole project is fairly new to me," Maul said. "I'm still figuring out what I want to do. It started off as an experiment, I got some good feedback and I decided that I want to stick with it."
In fewer than two years as a solo artist, Maul's signed to Toxic Pop Records -- which will release three 7-inches (one acoustic, one electric and one straight country) and an "amped-up" album -- acquiesced to autograph requests and played the big No Idea Festival in Gainesville, Fla.
Maul also has another surprise in store: "I haven't told many people yet, but I'm planning on moving to Austin, Texas, in September. I guess if you put that in this interview a lot of my friends are gonna find out that way. That's where my friend lives and we're going to try to put together a full band and make a real big push on it, turn it into a full-time thing. We'll see what happens."
EXPRESS: What are some of the most memorable or influential concerts you've been to?
MAUL: I guess the things that really stick out are going to see Superchunk in Richmond when I was about 15. Bands like that really stuck out -- the pop stuff. I was always into hardcore and stuff like that, but even from when I first got into music I was always into the more melodic stuff. The whole Chapel Hill scene was [nearby], so I got to see bands like Archers of Loaf, Superchunk and that sort of stuff. It always really stuck with me. I remember seeing Samiam on the "Clumsy" tour. That was when I was like, "Man, I really want to do music" -- they sounded so great and were having such a great time. Let's see: Dinosaur Jr., Ramones, All, Bad Religion.
EXPRESS: Not a lot of country references in there.
MAUL: Well, no. It's weird, I kinda get lumped in with the alt-country thing and I guess that best describes what I play. I really just listen to melodic pop stuff. I get lumped in with that country thing -- maybe it's 'cause I'm from the South and I talk like a redneck. Growing up in the sticks, maybe that's what was on the radio when I was a baby crawling around. Maybe that influence got stuck in my brain. I do listen to a lot of country now, but it's been within the last five years that I've had any interest in country music.
EXPRESS: I hear a lot of straight-up alternative rock in your music.
MAUL: Yeah, there's no way I can escape that. No matter how hard I try, every song I write sounds like a Paul Westerberg rip-off. I guess it's because he's someone I've been listening to since I got into music and I still do -- constantly. That's just one of those things I can never get tired of.
EXPRESS: How do you approach writing lyrics?
MAUL: I try to keep everything kinda vague. I don't want to point out personal experiences or people involved. I try to make it something that everybody can relate to. This whole singer-songwriter thing is weird. It's so new to me -- I've always just been a guitar player. Basically, all of my songs are just about dudes and girls. That's all I really know how to write.
EXPRESS: How'd you meet David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker?
MAUL: Well, he has a studio in Richmond -- Sound of Music -- and he recorded the band Lucero. It's just one of those things. [Lucero is] really good friends with my roommate and were just hanging out in the studio and apparently David Lowery was [complaining] about how his crew guy had just quit and asked if they happened to know anybody. They ran it by my roommate and he actually went out with them first. He went out with them for a couple of weeks and, after that run, they asked him again. He was like, "Nah," and he ran it by me and I stuck with it.
They're pretty cool dudes and it's a decent-paying gig. They do some pretty cool tours. They get all over the place and they play with some pretty cool bands in the alt-country scene. I'm kinda bummed. I thought I was going to be going out with 'em this summer, but they had an old friend do it. It looks like they've got some stuff going on at the end of August and hopefully I'll be able to go. Actually, Cracker's let me open for them when there isn't an opener on the bill. That's always a pretty crazy experience.
EXPRESS: Do you go over well with their crowd?
MAUL: Well, I think I do now, because I'm playing acoustic. I don't know about when I put the band together. It might be too unpolished. It's weird; their crowd's kinda half-and-half. A lot of their crowd is soccer moms. A lot of it is people that are into good indie music. It's definitely weird to go from shows that I'm used to playing -- where there's 50, 60, 70 people at the most -- to playing to 600 people. But nobody booed me off the stage. People bought CDs [of my demo]. They asked for autographs -- it was totally weird. I guess that's just the way that world works.
--Tim Follos, Express (July 2007)
