At 20 years of age, Detroit native Cetan Clawson puts many
guitarist two or even three times his age in the shade with his raw and mature,
bluesy fret-board wizardry.
Having recorded his first record two years
ago (when he was 18, for those that are counting) with his band White Heat,
Clawson developed an enviable local following that soon stretched outside of Michigan
and across the country. Tours
with Cheap Trick and Bad Company, as well as local heroes like The Go and The
Detroit Cobras, did his blossoming reputation no harm at all.
With a new record nearing completion, Clawson plays the CityFest’s
Pure Detroit Stage on Sunday afternoon and he’s determined to better his
appearance at last year’s event, an occasion that he describes as a highlight
of his year.
When
did you start playing guitar?
I started when I was three years old, so
that was around 1990 or ’91. I had an uncle and he got me a little box guitar,
which I remember promptly breaking. That got me started, and here I am. I have
so many influences. There’s Hendrix of course, but then you’ve got Cream, Zeppelin
-- you’ve got all the old blues players like Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters…there’s
a lot of stuff.
For
those not familiar with you, describe your own sound:
It’s definitely electric blues, rock,
psychedelic – along those lines. It’s a diverse mix. I try to absorb
everything. I love the rawness of classic Detroit
rock ‘n’ roll. I like the MC5 and The Stooges, plus The Hentchmen and more
recent local bands like that. I don’t know if we fit in with the local scene
nowadays. The blues is by no means a popular firebrand like it was in the ‘60s,
but we do our best to integrate.
Are
there any other local bands that you like?
Absolutely. You’ve got The Muggs, The Hard
Lessons, The Universal Temple of Divine Power – a lot of bands that we’ve
played shows with and they blow me away every time.
Are
you looking forward to playing at CityFest?
Yeah. I think we’re sharing a stage with
Thunderbirds Are Now! and I’ve heard great things about them. We played last
year on the Park Stage and this year we’ve been bumped up to the Pure Detroit
Stage. We have a couple of new songs that we’ve been playing live. The stage
set doesn’t change much – we keep it bluesy but we don’t radically alter it.
Who
else will you be checking out at CityFest?
Bump is going to be rocking out, and George
Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic will be rocking out pretty hard, too. I’ll
be sure to check those guys out.
What
are your plans for the rest of the year?
We’re currently negotiating with a record
label that are gonna send us to Nashville
to cut an album. One of our songs has a film placement in a movie, too. We’ve
been playing so many shows though that we’ve barely had time to breathe.
Do
you have a release date for the new record?
We were supposed to have that done last
year but we got hit with so many show dates and we live to play live, so it
delayed the album. I would hope we’d have the thing done by the end of the
summer.
