When Clocks started to make music, they caught the ears of almost everyone who cared to listen. Tom, John, Ed and Rich, best friends for a decade or so, first donned instruments as an elaborate joke to pass the time over summer 2001.
Then all they had to do was learn to play the instruments. After dabbling with the flute, Ed decided to be a guitarist. Rich’s future as a sticksman was assured ever since he visited his mum’s friend’s percussion group as a two year old, where kids could bash tambourines and cymbals until their hands dropped off. After taking Grade 1 percussion aged 10, he was given a drum kit for his birthday. Tom started out playing keyboards. “I taught myself from buying reams and reams of sheet music of songs I was into,” he says. “I never bought CDs – I always bought the manuscripts. This developed an unusual writing style whereby I’d write songs as scores rather than on a guitar or piano. One example of this approach was That Much Better. I gave up on guitar the first time I tried it as it seemed very unnatural to me. It was only after I bought my own one after my GCSEs that I started to pick it up properly. Then I bought a guitar book from a second-hand music shop in London.” As for John, after stints on the recorder and ocarina, he played a bit of classical guitar before picking the four-stringed variety, whereupon his dad drove him to Kingston to buy his first bass. Not exactly quick off the mark, they played their first gig over a year later to a packed Scout hut crowd in December 2002.
After a couple of years of sporadic shows with clunky covers and early compositions at church halls and all sorts, a university life unfolded and things began to get mundane. The band took a small trip down to Kent in the new year break at the end of 2004 to record a handful of self-penned songs that had seemed to prove popular with the home crowd of peers, parents, grandparents, etc. In a converted outhouse with a man known as Paul Midcalf, the band recorded their first record, which (with a trip to Office World and bit of DIY CD duplication) sold about 60 copies.
Just a few days after Tom started to post their offerings online, an email came through from one Christopher Gentry, a musician from London who had been the guitarist for britpop combo Menswear back in the day. From then on, everything fell into place very quickly and several taster shows over summer 2005 led to some recordings with Liam Watson, who formed Toe Rag Studios in the early ‘90s and has since used his collection of vintage musical instruments and recording equipment to create “retro edge” rock for The White Stripes, The Kills and The Zutons.
Though back at university for another year, their debut single was recorded during the short Christmas break and with several train rides back into London on weekends. In 2006 came their first exuberant burst of power pop rock on indie imprint Hungry Kid called That Much Better before Island Records made an offer. Tom’s career path to this point had an uncanny similarity to Nick Drake’s - he left Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam College after two years, to sign to Island Records aged 20. People even comment on how much Tom physically resembles the legendarily tormented singer-songwriter. “He haunted me at Uni. Am I as haunted as him? I’m disturbed,” he joked, adding: “We’ve got everything in common so far, spookily so...” “Just don’t let him near drugs,” warned Ed.
After 18 months, five UK tours (one headline, and outings with Grace, The Departure, One Night Only and Scouting For Girls), gigs with artists including The Fray (on their first UK show), The Hoosiers, The Feeling, Amy MacDonald, Friendly Fires, The Maccabees and The Like, recording sessions with the legendary John Cornfield, a full-length album, two single releases, performances in Europe and at Glastonbury festival, and being familiar to millions with their music used widely across the TV networks backing soaps, dramas, the BBC's international rugby coverage (for over a year), and the idents of the Orange Playlist, Clocks left Island Records, as the credit crunch ruined things for everybody.
It is not known whether the only Clocks album will ever be released.
Buuuuuut...if you want their singles...
Buy Clocks songs on iTunes!
