Courtesy of Gasoline Lollipops
Audio By Carbonatix
After seventeen years, the Gasoline Lollipops have more than paid their dues in the local music scene. During that time, songwriter Clay Rose has fronted the band while gaining new fans and forging a unique sound.
“I’m the only original member,” says Rose. “We won best country band in Colorado for a few years, and I had no idea we were playing country. And then we won best rock band, so I have no idea what to call it.
I just say ‘roots rock,’ which includes blues, folk and country – and it’s all filtered through a rock sensibility.”
Rose, now 42, was born in Lafayette and grew up in the mountains of the Front Range. His mother was a songwriter who moved to Nashville early in his life, while his father remained in Colorado. As a result, the young boy bounced back and forth between Tennessee and the Centennial State.
“I guess my songs are dark,” Rose says. “I’ve read a couple reviews that make me out to sound like Tim Burton or something. I wasn’t aware that I was that dark. Basically, the ethos of my songwriting is that I’m trying to repay a debt that I feel I owe to Leonard Cohen for saving my life when I was a youngster. When I was around twelve or thirteen, I was really depressed and suicidal. I had a traumatic childhood, and it didn’t seem like anyone spoke my language or felt the way I felt. It was a very isolating experience, and one that was driving me closer and closer to the option of suicide.
“Then I discovered Leonard Cohen,” he continues. “He spoke my language. And he was a grown man, and he was still alive. It showed me a way of transmuting my pain and suffering into art. He was the most valuable thing I had ever found, because it was a way out for me. That was when I started writing poetry and songs, and that’s really what it’s about for me.”
As a songwriter and guitar strummer with no technical training, Rose says he hears his music internally, and then attempts to conjure it into existence using whatever means he can.
“I write my songs in my head, then I transpose them to guitar, and they come out sounding nothing like they sounded in my mind,” he says. “I don’t know any music theory; I have no idea what those chords might be. But then I peck around until I find something in the ballpark.”
While the artist says his early life was marked by upset and depression, he doesn’t see his work as being all about doom and gloom. In fact, Rose, who is a father to two young children, says that many of his songs aim to comfort and uplift his listeners.
“I have a few songs that are comical, and I also have some love songs,” he says. “But for the most part, the highest form of service that I feel I’m performing is to reach out to the lonely and isolated who feel voiceless, and to let them know they are not alone. If you want to call that dark, I could see why you might. But I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as the epitome of hope and comfort.”
When the pandemic presented its challenges to performing musicians, with gigs disappearing and once-robust touring schedules grinding to a halt, Rose was forced to pursue other means of income and work. He wound up taking a job as a facilities manager at a young-adult transitional living facility in Boulder called AIM House.
“It’s a place for people, between the age of 18 and 25 who come out of things like wilderness treatment programs to learn how to get a job or go back to school or figure out what they’re going to do with their lives,” says Rose, who attended Naropa University for a short time before deciding that formal learning wasn’t for him. “I also run an internship program [at AIM] where, if they’re interested, I’ll teach them carpentry or light electric or plumbing and stuff.”
“My dad graduated from Naropa, but I didn’t carry on the family legacy,” he explains. “I’m not a staunch anarchist, but I love learning on my own. There’s something about feeling like I’m discovering something for the first time. I’d rather spend a long time really learning something as my own craft, when it’s just between me and the universe, than being told a whole lot of stuff in theory that I might apply at some point. It feels like useless knowledge taking up my brain, when I could just be writing song lyrics or something.”
Rose and his ensemble will bring things back full circle with a show in Nederland at the Caribou Room, where they will be joined by Rolling Harvest – a group that includes former Gas Pops drummer and Westword contributor Adam Perry and vocalist Alexandra Schwan.
“We decided to take it to the mountains this year, because it’s my old stomping grounds with the original group,” Rose says. “At one point, we were doing big theater shows on the Front Range, but the pandemic kind of weeded out a lot for me when it came to music, and it made me realize what I really missed and what was part of my soul. I missed the mountain folks and playing up there. Rolling Harvest will open the show, so it’ll be like a big family reunion. And the sound at the Caribou is amazing.”
The Gasoline Lollipops lineup currently comprises Rose (rhythm guitar and vocals), Donny Ambory (lead guitar), Kevin Matthews (drums), Bradley “Bad Brad” Morse (bass) and Scott Coulter (keys}.
Gasoline Lollipops, Saturday, December 31, The Caribou Room, 55 Indian Peaks Drive, Nederland. Tickets are $25.
