This year, the JMAs had 75,000 submissions. Of those submissions, three percent were nominated for awards. From those the Matt Clarkson Band was nominated in four different categories: Fan’s Choice (Duo/Group), Music Video of the Year (“Bad News”), Vocal Event of the Year and Songwriter of the Year (Matt Clarkson).
Musicians from every state in the US, along with 40 countries, will be attending the award ceremony in Music City, USA. Members of the Matt Clarkson Band will be there to represent the area and hopefully bring home some awards.
For the past four years, the MCB has been providing a blend of southern rock and country to a variety of concert goers throughout Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee. Founded by frontman Matt Clarkson and lead guitarist Kelly Bush, the band has honed its sound through a series of grueling four-hour gigs at bars and nightclubs around the area.
The MCB has since headlined several fairs and festivals, including the Clark County Fair, Bellefontaine’s Pineapple Palooza and the Clifton Gorge Music & Arts Festival. The band was voted in the top 3 bands in the “Best of Springfield” in 2022 and 2023.
On a whim, Clarkson, a maintenance technician by day, applied to the JMAs with the music video for “Bad News”: a lively country-rock tune about partying, as evidenced by the featured bonfires, shotgunned beers and the chorus of “Gettin’ buck wild, baby / gettin’ country crazy.”
“My big thing is never wanting to be put in a box,” Clarkson said. “What I was nervous about with [”Bad News”] is wondering, Is this too cliche? Sometimes we write a little too in depth for the general listeners. We really have to back that off, because sophistication isn’t always the best.”
But despite “Bad News” being a pivot from the band’s perhaps more thoughtful lyrics — in other singles like “Comin’ Home to You” and “Bourbon” — the broad appeal of beer-crushing summer nights in this modern ball cap country takeoff ostensibly helped land MCB four nominations at the JMAs.
MCB has the ability to genre jump, likely due to the people-pleasing marathon bar gigs the band came up playing. And although country is the glue that holds the band together, it’s the rock ‘n’ roll that keeps it fresh.
William Dekle, the rhythm/backup lead guitarist, grew up on hair metal.
Ryan Fyffe, the drummer, comes from grunge, alt-rock and nu metal roots.
Spencer Barnett, the bass player, was in a death metal band; he didn’t even own a bass, much less a bass amp, when he agreed to be in the MCB. He used to shred on an eight-string guitar. He made a compromise and now plays a five-string bass.
Bush, the lead guitarist, idolizes Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Gilmour and Noel Gallagher, and admits to ripping riffs from Eric Clapton, though he doesn’t much care for Clapton. At one point in his life, Bush would have not been “caught dead in a country band,” but has since withdrawn that idea, stating that Clarkson is “one of the best country musicians [he’s] heard in a long time.”
Clarkson himself even had a kitschy rock band in high school called Tomorrow’s Past — which, the band agrees, is a name that just means “today.”
Together, the five ironically make up the country outfit, the Matt Clarkson Band.
“The reason we’re probably not considered just straight up country,” Clarkson said, “is because I have nothing but rockers in my band.”
For a country band, there is a heaviness to the music. But it’s the balance of memorable riffs to the sincerity of Clarkson’s lyrics that forges the looming allure of the Matt Clarkson Band, both regionally and nationally.
The MCB is currently pining for new notches in the band’s belt, and the recent nod from the Josie Music Awards is evidence of a new notch. Regardless if the local band takes home a trophy, it’s still good news for “Bad News.”
“I don’t know what to think about it yet,” Clarkson said of the band’s nominations. “I don’t think I will until after it’s said and done. But to go there and sit in the first few rows, we’re gonna see the band name big, five times. If we win and I get to walk on to the stage, that’s gonna be crazier. It’s pretty surreal. I’m either gonna touch the stage because I’m invited up there, or security’s gonna grab me off of it.”
Contact this contributing writer at branberry100@gmail.com.
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