After about a year with LAYD BACK some of the older guys in the band had left for college and the band drifted apart. Rodney and I remained together and rekindled our duo but also formed a band of our own with a couple of guys in our school. At this time there were a few bands popping up made up of our fellow students so we put one together with another band student friend named Brian Ward and a fourth friend named John Vlasic. John, Brian and I were all grade school friends and they were playing in another band when we approached them to start a band of our own. They switched over to form CLEARING.
CLEARING set up shop in Brian’s parent’s basement. It was a huge basement inside the house so it was heated and we could rehearse even in the winter! Brian’s parent’s didn’t seem to mind the noise too much and his dad was often coming down to hear us play for a bit and crack some “dad” jokes. Brian’s mom made us countless snacks and lunches. CLEARING was a really serious band that rehearsed often and friday nights as well. Brian Ward played drums and sang as well as sang lead. Rodney (who was now given the nickname “Rocket”) played bass and sang. John Vlasic played electric guitar and I played electric & acoustic guitar, keyboards, flute and sang lead.
We played a very wide variety of music based mostly on top 10 and radio hits. The songs were heavily laden with lots of vocal harmonies and we tackled a lot of material that most bands our age wouldn’t try. Brian, Rocket and I were all students in the same music program at school so we had the over-achiever mentality where not much was impossible. It was in this band that I personally learned most of my vocal arranging skills as well as song arrangements. We idolized bands like THE EAGLES, THE BEEGEES, and emulated their vocal stylings. We covered everything from BEATLES, STONES to LOGGINS & MESSINA, APRIL WINE, KANSAS, BTO and YES. The band had the rare quality of being able to perform most of it’s material acoustically as well thanks to the ability of Brian to forego his drums for an acoustic guitar…(again thanks to that “doubling” thing from band class).
CLEARING played in local colleges, college dances, outdoor festivals, college and university festivals as well as city festivals. We also played at our own high school dances which kinda made asking a girl to dance really difficult! This band lasted until early 1979.