Call Me No One, which was created by Sevendust’s Clint Lowery and Morgan Rose, is not just your typical side project—it’s more like a peculiar channel of awe-inspiring music. The hard rock style of these multi-talented musicians is a serious force to be reckoned with. “Biggest Fan” is the first single off of Last Parade, their debut record that was released June 5. This track is a thrilling ride of precise drums, dynamic riffs, and has the complement of Clint Lowery’s raw vocals to boot. This combination is a lethal one, especially with the newly added members to the group—bassist Rek Mohr of Hurt and guitarist Alan Price, who is known for his work with Shinedown and many other bands.
Recorded at Architekt Music in Butler, NJ, Last Parade might not be exactly what you expect to hear from these guys, but seeing accomplished artists doing something new and different is what makes music exciting. With a soon-to-be tour in the works, Clint has been busy in preparation for that and the album’s release. While gearing up for big changes, he took some time out of his rigorous schedule to fill me in on what he and Call Me No One are all about. The conversation is below.
Hey Clint! Your new record is called Last Parade. Is there a larger story behind the album title?
“Last Parade” is the name of a song on the record and the way I look at it is as the world’s last chance to get it right. For me, as an individual, it’s kind of my last chance to pull my life together. It’s my first attempt at being a lead singer for an entire record. This is my last shot to try and break [in] as an artist, especially as a singer-songwriter.
“Biggest Fan” is the first single off of the album and it’s such a high-energy track. What’s the story behind that song?
“Biggest Fan” was just basically, you know, about observational topics. It’s based on what I see in a lot of musicians and a lot of singers. They’re all kind of self-absorbed, not just musicians, but people in entertainment, actors, and people who are kind of put on a pedestal of any kind. They start to believe that they really are special and are above other people, so it’s just kind of my whole jab at that. It’s about people who are just completely involved with themselves and look at themselves as being above others. That was just the spark, the inspiration, that people just get this ego that takes over their lives.
When you’re writing music, how do you know that what you are writing is going to become material for Call Me No One?
Well, Morgan and I went in, we had always talked about doing a project together, and we finally had the opportunity as far as time. We had to really rush it, so there wasn’t a lot of thought put into what the direction was. We had talked about different types of bands we like, different types of songs, different melodies and stuff, but we never…we didn’t go in there with any type of particular direction. We actually wrote it and recorded it at the same time. So we’d write music, I would start working on the lyrics and the melodies. It was a really spontaneous process for us. Everything that we were writing at that point was gonna be a Call Me No One track. I wasn’t in the middle of doing anything else; it was truthfully Call Me No One.
Well, that’s really cool, it gives the album a certain element since it’s happening all at once.
Yeah, the good thing was that we didn’t go back and change anything—everything is just there, you know?
You just announced two additional members to Call Me No One. Who are these guys and what are they going to be doing in the band?
Rek Mohr, he is the bass player, met him through a mutual friend. Amazing guy, amazing bass player. I really like what Rek does and he’s gonna come in and play with us, we’ll do shows. Alan Price is the guy that I actually met when Shinedown did an acoustic tour. I liked his energy—he’s a cool guy, he’s really down to earth, he’s a really good player. Most of the guys have really kind of similar personalities so far. There is still much that I don’t know about them, but I do know that they’ve been super nice and they are super talented. We just want guys that are really easy to tour with, with easygoing personalities, but at the same time be aggressive on stage.
What are you listening to at the moment?
I bought Meshuggah’s new record, I’m listening to TesseracT, they’re incredible. I listen to everything, but that’s pretty much what I’ve gotten into the last couple weeks.
You’ve played countless shows throughout your career, what makes a show great to you when you’re in the audience rather than being on stage?
Oh, man, being in the audience, I love watching, as far as being a fan being out there watching the show, I love to see an ensemble. I love to see a band that is absolutely connecting with each other on stage, when there is a vibe on the stage that they kind of create, when they don’t pay attention to too much around them. I love watching the sincere presentation of a show.
I completely agree. It changes the entire feel of the show.
Yeah, there’s nothing like watching an audience get what the band’s doing and completely understand where they’re coming from and just connect.
Is it possible for you to pick a favorite song off of Last Parade?
It changes from time to time, I think “The World Is Dead” is probably one of the songs that we did, as far as the energy of it, but “Pleased To Meet You,” I really like that song for some reason. It’s different from what I do with Sevendust and that’s the whole point of this. “Pleased To Meet You,” to me, is a really cool song, but “Last Parade” is definitely my favorite moody type.
With all the in-studio tweaking that is possible today, how do you know when a track has been worked to perfection?
I don’t know, I guess everything has to be right, the foundation has to be right, the levels of everything on the technical side. To me, [if] a song is done, you know, you can always add something to it later live. You can always revamp it. A lot of people do remixes or rearrange it a little bit. It’s always cool to watch a band do an old song in a new way. In that sense, you never really finish it, but I don’t know, everything has their own finishing point, you know, finish lines for a song.
Technically, when a song is done is when it’s out there and it’s released to the world.
Since you’ve been in the industry for some time now, what changes would you like to see in the future of music?
You know, I’m not really against illegal downloading when it’s an older band, but when it’s a new band, it’s really hard for them to grow. It would be cool to actually see the newer bands be able to make a living. It’s a business to me, these bands can’t get out in a van and tour and survive if the tour support is gone. Newer bands really struggle with the downloading and people not buying their music. A record company is supposed to take that money that they make from record sales and put it back into the band, but they don’t have that kind of revenue any more. It would be cool to see people actually be supportive to new bands. It would be cool to see the fans that actually enjoy the music fund the show in their hometown.
Does Call Me No One have any near future tour plans? If so, who do you imagine yourself on tour with?
We do have some tour plans coming up, but we haven’t really decided yet. We want to tour with different types of bands, we don’t just want to tour with the same kinds of bands that Sevendust would tour with. We want to open up demographic a little bit.
If you could go back to the start of your musical career and give yourself advice, what would it be?
Go to college and then pursue music. I would have sang a long time ago. I wouldn’t have waited this long to sing.
Call Me No One’s debut album, Last Parade, is available now. For more information, go to callmenoone.com.
