JEREMY CLARKSON

24-HOUR MARATHON OF ROCK AND ROLL

What is cooler than interviewing British anchor/funnyman Jeremy Clarkson from the hit television show Top Gear? Well, nothing really, except a fantastically scrappy duo from YYC whose moniker for their musical outfit is named after the same person. Brothers Ben and Seth Leon’s pet project is called Jeremy Clarkson, a veritable slam of garage and underground punk rock aimed at blowing your mind with beats as loud as you can handle.

The Leons are mostly interested in the process of improvisation. The main goal, literally, is to make your rock and roll experience as hard and intense as ever, with their inspiration drawn primarily from bands like The Monks and Iron Maiden. Jeremy Clarkson started out without a real line on the horizon, as Ben says: “I guess we knew what bands we liked when we started the band, but we didn’t start out by saying that we wanted to be a punk band or a garage rock band. We just brought things to the table and then we kind of just went with whatever it fell under. It was a drive for faster and louder rock and roll.”

Jeremy Clarkson’s down-to-earth attention to dirty rock and roll is what seems to be lacking in today’s music landscape. Their candour and pure desire to play will undoubtedly create the backbone for their ambitious, soon-to-be exhibited 24-hour booze/music fest that will see them hit as many venues in YYC as possible. Their goal is to hit one venue per hour for an entire day. They’ll literally rock your ass off and then leave. It will be, as they say, “a rock and roll endurance race.”

For such a crazy task, the boys seem oddly optimistic. As far as the actual venue changes will go, from Tubby Dog, to Village Brewery, to Dick and Jane’s and beyond, and the movements to and from, Ben says, “I don’t know, I have this image of it in my mind. But, I mean, our goal is for everyone to have the best, most fun party they could have. Rolling around as a gang of bikes and cars, public transit people and walking, just all sort of there to have a good time and see what the next venue/show will bring. There’s an excitement around the challenge, more or less, so, it’ll be like, ‘How much more fun can we have?’ ” Seth doesn’t hesitate to add that they’ll also be playing a gig at the Blackfoot Truck Stop Restaurant, for which the catalogue of music would change to more “truck stop” type songs (don’t ask what songs those would be).

What the guys are most stoked for is the actual assemblage of community, of different groups co-mingling and sharing the experience of music together. Realistically, this isn’t a hippie endeavour, but the idea is to bring as many people together as possible. In terms of actually releasing an EP or album, Seth says, “I guess it’s just about finding the time to do it. I think from this thing we’ll learn a lot and we can take a lot from it and put it together for a record. It’s such an amazing thing to really have the time to do it, but we have some songs that are ready to go. All the planning around 24-hour Clarkson kind of took the front, so we’re gonna do this instead. We’ve taken an open source approach to 24-hour Clarkson, whether it’s about using a venue or whatnot… lots of ideas, there’s a lot of people that we’ve approached and lots of neat ideas that have come from people that know a lot about Calgary.”

What couldn’t be gleaned from a louder than loud wicked rock band that has allied itself with the great Jeremy Clarkson? All that we can ensure is that if you make it to every venue, make sure you take some earplugs and lots of water because these boys will blow off the roof.

Join Jeremy Clarkson for their 24-hour marathon on July 27. For more details, visit 24hourclarkson.com.

By Therese Schultz
Photos: Damian Espinosa