Proud Brummie band The Clause were back in Norwich this week as part of the second leg of the “Victim Of A Casual Thing” tour & Pop Scoop were there to provide a bunch of bits n pics. Before the gig we sat down with frontman Pearce to talk gigs, guilty pleasures and…er…Guinness.

So, this is the first UK date of the tour, you were in Ireland last week – how was it?

Yeah we did Ireland the week before last, which was great. We sold out Dublin in the end, which was our first sell out over there – it was wicked man! It’s just a great country, we’re all like third generation Irish.

So you didn’t get sucked into the whole tourist trap thing then? You felt right at home.

It’s nice when you go to Dublin, it’s just purely bars, there’s not much else you can find there really. It’s just drinking holes here, there and everywhere. But it was our first time digging in Belfast and that was a beautiful city as well. But yeah, we’re used to Ireland. I spent like every summer over there as a kid.

Is it true the Guinness tastes different over there?

Oh yeah it does definitely.

And it tastes different in every bar you go to?

It does! It’s weird cos you’ll think you’ve just had your best Guinness and then you go somewhere else and it tastes even better, I got in trouble for saying that the best one I had was in Belfast – they didn’t like that!

There’s an Irish band called Scustin who have a song called ‘Don’t Put Blackcurrant In That Pint Of Guinness’

Yeah but that’s just true, it’s absolute sacrilege.

And now you’re in Norwich! You played here a few times last year, supporting the K’s, Courteeners etc, nice to be back?

Yeah it was good! To be fair we always like coming down to Norwich, it’s been a good place for us. I say this – I lost my voice in this very venue about 2 years ago – we thought it was cursed after that. But we played here (The Waterfront Studio), I think it was on the ‘Weekend Millionaire’ tour and we loved it so it’s good to be playing the main room.

On this tour you’re playing a lot of places – like Norwich – that are often skipped on tours. I know you’re playing the This Feeling gig in Bridlington next month, are there any small towns/cities you’ve played that have surprised you?

A good one for us that’s slightly off the beaten track is Stockton – I was gonna say Stockport but we’ve never played there! That was the first one to sell out on this tour, but this part 2 of the album tour, we wanted to play some places we’ve never played before. We’ve kind of built our whole band around coming to towns and cities that sometimes get missed and building ’round that way. So whenever you come to places like here everyone says “we’re so grateful you’ve come”. But in reverse, we owe the people here a lot cos when we started touring, you know, we had no rights to really pull tickets in Norwich – but we did, so we kind of had to come back for them.

It’s very out the way, it’s not on the way to anywhere really. I guess round your way (Birmingham) it’s all very well connected.

You’d think!

So with the album – this is part 2 to the album tour – there’s a bit of a danceability to it. The songs feel like they’re made to be played live. ‘Tell Me What You Want’ is my favourite track, it reminds me of the last Foals record, especially ‘Wake Me Up’.

Yeah that album, I remember I listened to that album in 2023/early 2024 and that was one of the main inspirations for a lot of our album – so you’ve hit it spot on there!

I feel like for a while there’s been a big thing of putting bands in a box. As a journalist you can often fall into the trap of labelling bands with buzzwords – the whole “If you like Oasis or Arctic Monkeys you’ll love ___” thing. Do you ever get sick of people constantly comparing you to other bands?

No I always think it’s always kind of flattering if anyone compares you to any of those bands, I’d take that any day of the week. I don’t think we’ve ever had one that I’ve been taken aback by. Obviously as you’ve said, off the album we’ve had a lot of Foals stuff. We grew up listening to bands like that so I think it’s only natural that it bleeds into the music a little bit. We’ve never really wanted to be a band that writes the same song twice – we always wanna keep it new. We like to flip the coin – one track makes you dance, the next makes you cry.

That’s another thing – quite a lot of mellow moments on the album. ‘Pink Moon’ is a beautiful track, so you’ve got a bit of a soppy side too?

Ahah yeah definitely! I think it took us a while to allow ourselves to write that kind of music. I seem to write more mellow songs than happy songs – which probably says a lot!

Have there ever been any gigs for you as a fan where you’ve been a bit… emotional?

Oh all the time. I grew up listening to U2 as my dad’s a mega fan – they can make you laugh and cry within a split second. Same with Arctic Monkeys, they were the first band I ever listened to. We don’t wanna be a one trick pony.

Do you think the indie scene has become less snobby over time?

Yeah definitely. Even if people say they don’t like something – everyone’s got a guilty pleasure.

What’s yours?

Last year I started listening to that Chappell Roan album and I proper got my “girl pop” onto that!

If Radio 1 called you up for Live Lounge, what song are you doing?

Oh god! Do you reckon you could get Liam and Johnny doing that ‘HOT TO GO!’ dance?

Oh my god, go on!

Yeah I reckon you could, we’ll force it out of them.

You’ve done a couple of covers before – like ‘Made Of Stone’. Why that track?

The Stone Roses were massive when we were growing up. I remember seeing them when they made that comeback and it was just a craze. They’re one of our collective favourites.

If you were to curate “Club Clause”, what three indie disco bangers are you picking?

Hot Chip – ‘Over & Over’, Foals – ‘Wake Me Up’, and ‘British Bombs’ by Declan McKenna.

All three absolute bangers – cheers!

Craving more content? Check out our photo gallery from the night!

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