Spotlight On... Clay Rings

Friends turned bandmates Clay Rings have slowly been getting more serious about making music. From trying out open mic nights in 2023 to a European tour starting next week, it's great to hear about how they've managed to grow as a band around work rotas and on a shoestring budget. The secret: spreadsheets, and having a whole lot of fun.

Their new EP, Day After Day, really encompasses this hard work and good times, showcasing the best of Clay Rings so far – spanning genres but feeling tied together by their soulful, salsa sound. We sit down with three of the band members – Eve Scrimger (vocals and trumpet), Oli Ausin (vocals and electric guitar) and Freddie Duck (vocals and bass guitar) – plus Eve’s greyhound Parsley over a pint of Guinness on St Patrick’s Day in Phillies of Shawlands to find out more about what they’ve been up to.

Firstly, could you tell me a little bit about Clay Rings – a bit about the band and your journey?
Oli: We started playing together in 2022. First we wrote the music, and then played loads of open mics. We had our first show in 2023 and that was part of Endless Summer at The Hug & Pint. I think one of the things about a Clay Rings gig is our stage presence. It's always really fun, because we interact a lot.
Freddie: People always say we just look really happy.
Eve: We were kind of an accidental band, because Oli had written Blue-Boy’s Dreams, and the plan was more just to get people together who could play the different instruments to record it, and then that happened, and we just never stopped.

What was it like starting out and how did you go from doing open mics to bigger gigs?
Freddie: It was never really something we discussed as a band. It just seemed obvious that's what we're gonna do.
Oli: When we got our first show, we thought it would be the only ever show we're gonna do.
Freddie: Since then we’ve done about 40.
Eve: I think we have Oli to thank for that. She's a big thinker, and if we want to do something, she makes it happen. Like just being able to ask.
Oli: When we supported Carolina Durante in November, they have a massive fanbase in Spain... we just asked. We emailed them and sent our song Limelight to them. Then we saw the support they announced was called Limelight and we thought that was kinda weird… two days before the show, we got an email from the promoter saying it was a mix up and they actually wanted Clay Rings on the bill.

That actually brings me onto a question about the Spanish-Scottish influences, and how that works together. How has it influenced your sound? And what are your other musical influences?
Oli: I think it comes naturally. For me, I write in Spanish and when I write in English I’m like, 'oh no it doesn’t rhyme.'
Freddie: I have been listening to salsa records from the 70s and gotten really into guys like Willie Colón. I'm loving it and starting to incorporate it into our new stuff.
Eve: I like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong. I love singing soulful, jazzy stuff. I do feel like our influences come from what our parents listen to, particularly Oli’s parents influence her.
Oli: Yes like Pink Floyd, Buena Vista Social Club and Muse. They are influences to me for sure.
Freddie: It’s really important to us that we write all sorts of stuff – you don't want to feel closed off by a genre. Every one of us brings something very different to the sound.

Why have you chosen this collection of songs in particular for this record? What should we expect?
Freddie: Some songs on the EP are older and some are newer, but they all have similar themes around the uncertainty of life, learning to accept that, and embrace it.
Oli: No Zombies in Venice was based on a conversation I had with an old man in Venice. He said that he loves Venice at night, because during the days it’s full of zombies on their phones. So in the song, we're like, 'what if there was no zombies anymore, and you just live your life as a true person – as you want to?'
Eve: When I listen to the lyrics of No Zombies, I think it comes from the perspective of an older person telling you how to enjoy your life and make the most of it.

You went on your first UK tour last year, what was that like? And what kind of planning went into it?
Freddie: We went to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester and London. We were quite strategic about it – we went where we knew people and where we could sleep over.
Oli: And we thought, 'how can we do it without taking holidays from work?' So we ended up doing it over weekends. We were really organised, we have lots of spreadsheets – you should see our spreadsheets.
Eve: It was an amazing experience. The best moment for me was the London show – we sold out, which was awesome. I remember Oli and Freddie running up to me saying we’ve made enough to do the next EP. We’d just done our first tour and made enough to fund our own music. The rest of the night was phenomenal.

Tell us a bit more about the upcoming tour and what’s next for Clay Rings?
Oli: The tour starts on 1 April. We’re going to London, Brussels, Paris and Rotterdam. We’re doing it together with Plastic Poetry.
Eve: At the end of the tour we’ve got our EP release show for Day After Day in Glasgow. It’s gonna be like a homecoming for us.
Freddie: We’re sort of seeing this tour as a ‘best of what we’ve done so far’ and we’re closing a chapter. After that we want to focus more on being creative.
Oli: We’ve found what we like and these songs have set a bar, so the next ones will have to be really good and we’re gonna work really hard to make that happen.

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Day After Day is released on 27 Mar; Clay Rings play 1990, Glasgow, 10 Apr

Follow Clay Rings on Instagram @clayringstheband