Who are they?
The Clams are a Spanish eight-woman soul, rhythm and blues band
which started off by playing covers of the famous soul singers such
as Otis Redding, Ike and Tina and Etta James. They play a
combination of big and loud concerts to more intimate acoustic gigs
all over Spain.
The band consists of eight women:
Aida Clam, lead singer
Monica Clam, drums and chorus
Marina Clam, bass and chorus
Henar Clam, guitar
Lupe Clam, keys
Lila Clam, trombone
Diana Clam, Trumpet
Noe Clam, Clarinet and Sax
'Yes, She can do it' is The Clams first album and consists of 5
songs which you can listen to here: Spotify
The album launch is set for tonight, 11th of October at Sala Sol
in Madrid elsolmad.com
There are several gigs in Spain following the launch for which
you can find details on their website theclams.es
The video clip for the 'Happy as a Clam' single was launched last
week on YouTube. Watch it below.
Clam Tales (narrated by Marta Luna Clam, the
manager):
I met Aida Clam (although she wasn't yet Aida Clam) in a sleazy
backstreet joint. Truth is, things were going badly for me and
after driving randomly for hours, I needed a drink. Propping up the
bar, unshaven truckers were drowning their sorrows with a beer and
a shot of whisky. Oblivious to the small stage, they missed Aida
emerging from the dense smoke as she began to sing in an aching
voice, songs of a wounded heart. That soul music shook me to the
core and I decided that this broad wasn't going to waste her talent
in that hole. So I decided to turn our lives around and form The
Clams. A band of women, desperate fugitives, willing to make the
ground tremble beneath their feet.
I found out that they were releasing Henar later that week. I
waited at the gates on that cold day beneath a steely sky. She
sauntered out with a cold face, chewing gum and dragging a bulging
suitcase. The first thing she did was ask me for a cigarette. "I've
got a plan" I said. "I don't wanna make another hit," she said, "at
least for a while". She spat on the ground. "This is something much
better," I replied. That's how Henar shook off those long winter
nights behind the cold prison bars for the six strings of the
guitar and became Henar Clam.
What we needed now was polish. Diana, Noelia and Lila washed, cut
and gave manicures in a sad hairdresser's in the suburbs. They came
to us as a tornado, the force to push us forward. With their
talented hands, they would play the trumpet, sax and trombone until
they broke their nails. Diana Clam, Noe Clam and Lila Clam arrived
with the wind in their hair.
But who would be our backbone? The gas in our tank, the beat to
drive our music forward? I found Monica under the bonnet in a
workshop, melting under the sun on a lonely back road. When I saw
her grease-stained face and the way she beat that bodywork with her
spanner, I knew I had met our drummer Monica Clam.
Lupe was watching life pass her by from between the ketchup and
the syrup, sweating all day long in front of the grill. I
remembered her pancakes and her greasy burgers so I went to visit
her in the filthy diner where she worked. I found her dressed in a
hairnet and a pink apron. "What can I get you, sweetheart? More
coffee?" she asked. "Send that grill back and order a keyboard,
come grease the joints of our new band" I said. So Lupe became Lupe
Clam and put us on the grill.
Yet there was something missing - we needed someone to bring
curves and give body to our sound. Marina spent her nights gyrating
half naked in a dark club while drunken brutes leered at the stage.
I offered her a way out of that life, trading her grip from the
metal pole to the neck and strings of a bass, to forget the drool
and put on some clothes. She accepted and the band was complete as
we welcomed Marina Clam into our ranks.
The Clams now had a form. Eight women, eight instruments, eight
clams: one mission. They can do it.
