UN- COMMON
THE COMMONHEART STRIPS IT DOWN AND SOARS ON SECOND ALBUM ‘ PRESSURE’
On one of the standout songs on the new album by The Commonheart, the band’s big powerful frontman Clinton Clegg howls, “I need help with the pressure, oh, the pressure, coming down on me!”
It’s a song about a love gone bad, but it could easily apply to the expectations for the Pittsburgh band’s second album, titled “Pressure.” Since releasing “Grown” in the fall of 2016 and landing in the rotation on WDVE- FM, The Commonheart has become one of the city’s biggest attractions while crisscrossing the country on its own and touring with JJ Grey and Mofro.
The Commonheart is a sprawling soulrock outfit, ranging in size from eight to 10 members, and in the past, Clegg says while driving through Colorado, the approach was “hit the record button and go, and you got what you got.”
But that’s not what producer Jeremy McDonald had in mind when the band pulled up at his studio in Brooklyn. McDonald, a McKees Rocks native and high school friend of drummer Shawn McGregor whose credits include working with Pittsburgh singersongwriter and Beyonce collaborator Kevin Garrett, wanted The Commonheart to strip things down and get to the heart of the songs.
In other words, he wasn’t looking for a wall of sound and seven- minute jams.
“At first, it was a tough pill to swallow,” Clegg says.
“I got tripped up a little bit,” adds Mike Minda, The Commonheart’s young guitar burner, “and got into the headspace, like ‘ Is this the direction we want to go?’”
Minda came around when they jammed into the studio for a live take of “Do Right,” a rousing take- me- to- church soul ballad that soars like mid-’ 60s Stax Records.
“When we listened back to it, it just sounded so good. I started to buy into it.”
Building the Commonheart
Clegg, 38, didn’t exactly grow up steeped in the great soul men.
The Monongahela native actually started out rapping, Limp Bizkit- style, while at Ringgold High School in the late ’ 90s. When “the rap thing wore thin,” he says, he moved on to singing in the mid-’ 00s, first in the jamfunk bands Jazzam and Backstabbing Good People.
The latter promised to “take rock, blues, funk, reggae and hip- hop and mash it up into one big mess.”
After six years of that, the mess got too messy, so two members went off to form Wreck Loose, and, in the fall of 2014, Clegg and McGregor launched The Commonheart as a five- piece band allowing Clegg to dip into the waters of Al Green, Ray Charles, Joe Cocker and Gregg Allman.
When their original guitarist, Arianna Powell, moved to LA and landed a gig with Nick Jonas, The Commonheart found its next guitar hero working at — where else? — The Guitar Center in Monroeville, where McGregor is the manager. Minda’s dad grew up playing guitar in local bluesrock band Erin Burkett and the Mean Reds, and while he initially set out to be the next Angus Young, by the summer of ’ 15, the 20- year- old Minda was ready for anything. His playing is as versatile as it is fiery.
Not content to stop at five, The Commonheart, at a time when so many touring acts are drifting toward two members and a laptop, went full- blown show band with horns and backup singers.
The band’s first big moment was tearing it up at Stage AE in August 2016, opening for Gary Clark Jr. before a sold- out crowd of 2,200- plus. Since then, it has been one of the city’s premier acts, selling out Mr. Smalls, headlining the Regatta and Three Rivers Arts Festival, and playing Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival while doing tours that have included shows at SXSW, Summerfest, Mountain Jam and the NFL Draft, and opening for legends Los Lobos in Kentucky.
For such a large band, The Commonheart has been fast on its feet, ready to do tributes to everyone from Cocker to Mac Miller to,
most recently, Art Neville.
The multiple tours with JJ Grey have setthe band up for return visits nationally to play in front of those audiences.
On the Ground Floor
So, yeah, the pressure. With a lot riding on the sophomore album, The Commonheart has stepped up and knocked it out of the park.
To prep, the band listened to records by everyone from Sly and the Family Stone to Erykah Badu to Alabama Shakes and made a 10- song album with the feel of a soul- stirring classic. Programmers at rock and Triple A radio should have no problem finding multiple tracks to spin on this debut for the indie Jullian Records.
“We were definitely thinking about a more radio- friendly record,” Clegg says. “Our live show, we can jam things out, take it to a more lengthy place, but we wanted this record to be marketable to radio, and that was discussed a lot.”
They did it, though, without glossing it up or sacrificing the soul that spills out in Clegg’s growling vocals.
“Oh, they’re so good,” Minda says. “He was singing the whole time every day, just track after track, because we were doing it without a click track, and we couldn’t record a reference vocal to play to because every take had a different vibe to it. So, he was just singing every time, and a lot of the vocals were the take he did with the rhythm section because it was so perfect the first time. I don’t know how he did it for five days straight. He’s got something special.”
As does Minda, who makes his moments count, like the gorgeous clean blues solo on “Do Right,” the evocative Mick Taylor- style lines on “Memory,” and the scorching fuzz and reverb trips that climax “Pressure” and “Can’t Forget You.”
“I struggle a little in the studio,” he says, “because, live, it’s so easy to turn to the audience to give you momentum. I can have a lot more patience and work with the crowd, but when you’re in the studio, you have to create the vibe yourself, create the energy you get from a live audience while sitting in the studio with headphones on.”
“Eventually,” he says, laughing, “everybody’s like, ‘ Look, you just did 40 takes, and they all sound the same. It’s you, and you’re captured. It all sounds great.’ ”
The rhythm section, the horns, the backup singers, it does all jell on “Pressure.” Now, the job is to go out in the world and sell it.
The band chose to make its local release a low- key affair at Club Cafe on the South Side on Saturday ( sold out) and then play its blowout Pittsburgh show at Stage AE, North Shore, on Nov. 9. Between then, they’ll play Americana Fest in Nashville, and go everywhere from Athens, Ga., to Somerville, Maine, to Seattle.
“Everyone at home is really supporting us,” Clegg says. “All our wives, boyfriends, whatever, they understand and believe in what we’re doing, and it’s not all roses. Sometimes it’s really hard, but overall, everyone’s on the same page and pushing forward.”
As for the logistics of keeping eight members on the road, “I like to refer to it as a startup business,” Clegg says laughing. “We’re on the ground floor and we’re banking on that stock to soar.”