Clover Club: Youth are more detached in comparison with old rockers
Lead singer and keyboarder of Clover Club band have told about their basist's departure, the debut album,relationship with other rockers and presented a song.
“There is a wonderful bar in Minsk where they sell cocktails "Clover Club".
Euroradio: Probably we should start from the fact that the band Clover Club had another name in the past, played quite different music and there was another lead singer. Why it was decided to stop existence of the band Zombie Zoo and to change the concept fully?
Natty: I played in the Zombie Zoo together with the guys for a year and a half, and Patrick (Clover Club lead singer) was our fan then. We noticed and loved her. She was a fan who was close to the whole band. In the end, we started hanging out together in some places. And when there was a question on where to find a new person we decided that this could be Patrick. This is absolutely accidentally; everyone could have been at her place. We were looking for a lead singer and were ready for any variant. But we liked Patrick as a person, as a girl, so we decided to try it with her.
Euroradio: Clover Club and Zombie Zoo are totally different bands from all sides. When you closed one project and opened the other one, did you already know about these amendments or did everything happen like this because of Patrick?
Natty: It's not accidental as people started to develop in the framework of Zombie Zoo, their musical views changed, and not only musical views. We had many discrepancies within that collective. We were looking for a new person, having a new project in mind.
Patrick: Zombie Zoo were constantly changing, frankly speaking. They released a single which differed a lot from the previous one. Some changes were defined then, but the new creative concept, I think, was formed when Clover Club started working. I mean, a concrete model was defined in process.
Euroradio: Who writes songs now?
Patrick: Basically, I write the lyrics apart from one song written by our guitarist. We compose music together, it happens in two ways: we either start improvising at a rehearsal and something gets born, or someone brings a ready idea. Everyone writes music in our band, and this is very good as everyone makes his or her own input.
Euroradio: Where did the name Clover Club come from, is there any conceptual meaning in it?
Patrick: Shall I tell you the true story of how the name appeared? Why not? There is a wonderful bar in Minsk where they sell cocktail "Clover Club". I often go there. When I tried this cocktail I had an idea that this name would suit our band very much. Then there was an interesting story. I met a man and he told me that he wanted to live the way this cocktail smells. Then I realized that I had chosen a good name for the band. After that, post-factum, we discussed with the musicians that the name had some very pleasant energy in it, as clover means success, and it contains the word "love" in it, and this is what we bring to the world.
Natty: Yes, everything didn't go the way we wanted it with Zombie Zoo and we started thinking of the name's influence over it all. So we wanted something which would create a positive aura.
Euroradio: What about your nicknames? Why did you decide to give up your names? Or have you had these nicknames since childhood?
Patrick: No, not since childhood. We just wanted to try on new images. To change the concept, and to look at the world and react to it in a different way.
“There are bands which influenced us but we do not thrive to be like someone else”
Euroradio: You sing in English. Aren't you going to change that? I am mostly interested in the Belarusian language trend.
Patrick: In any case, we do not say "never". I write lyrics in English as it is easier for me this way. This language is flexible and voluminous, it is easier to describe an idea in it. Moreover, I grew up on English-language music. Some lingusitic constructions remained in my head so it is easier for me to write. However, in the last song that we recorded there is a part in Portuguese, although no one speaks it in our band. I picked up all my poor knowledge of Spanish, grammar constructions, and did it through Google Translate. It's not really bad I hope. Probably, there will be songs in other languages, including Belarusian, but we do not have concrete plans in this regard yet.
Photo from the musicians' archives and generation.by and budzma.org
