Clay Cook

The Year I Grew Up

Produced, engineered and mixed by Clay Cook at the Small Room, Atlanta, GA

Clay Cook’s The Year I Grew Up has been called “The closest thing a CD can be to a resume, and a remarkable resume it is.” This multitalented artist plays flute, saxophone, keyboards and guitar with the Southern rock Marshall Tucker Band. Before John Mayer went solo, he was in a duo called Lo-Fi Masters with Cook, and the pair wrote some songs that would go on to be hits for Mayer. Now flying solo, Cook is taking no chances. He penned and plays all the instruments on his new album, mixing Southern rock and Americana. The passion inside Cook’s new album is infectious.

For starters, the recording budget for this album was nothing, because Cook owns his own recording studio called The Small Room, located in Atlanta, Ga. When it came to writing this record, Cook spent the last two years on tour with Shawn Mullins, so all of the writing took place on the road. He would record back at home whenever he could take a break from or wasn’t working on other artists’ records.

Cook’s writing was influenced by some unusual surroundings, as Cook wrote the entire album while living out of an RV on tour, whereas he’d previously toured on buses and stayed in hotels.

“It exposed me to a lot of the United States that I’ve never seen before,” he says. “Traveling to the ‘Red States’ and witnessing the different levels of education and tolerance in the U.S. first-hand was very eye opening.”

Cook chose to title this album, The Year I Grew Up, because he just turned 30. “In writing this record, a lot of things came to mind, not just the number 30,” he reveals. “This album is about growing up, sliding out of my 20s and becoming a man.” This isn’t a themed album or concept record. In that two-year span on the road, he wrote 25 songs but the 13 that ended up on The Year I Grew Up definitely sound like they should go on one record.

As for the songwriting process, Cook confessed that it had been a couple of years since he last wrote and then five or six songs would just start popping up and would be in limbo. When he’d finish those, another five or six would occur. Being on tour with Shawn Mullins was a big influence in this record.

“He’s 10 years older than I am, and I felt like a sponge just trying to draw up as much water from him as possible,” says Cook. A standout track on the album is “Losertown.” Recalling the idea of his “Red State” surroundings, Cook confessed that he felt like he had to write that song after traveling through Nebraska or Oklahoma.

“I remember stopping at a truck-stop and seeing a little boy and thinking to myself, that if this kid grew up somewhere else he may have had a chance to be something but because he grew up here he was stuck in ‘Losertown.’”

Another noteworthy track is “Going Through the Motions,” which points its finger at this generation and demands that they become more aware, more accountable and step up -- the way that their parents did.

Cook admits that he loves being an American and having these liberties but doesn’t feel that people are doing much with them.

“I hope that The Year I Grew Up inspires others to stand up,” he says. “Even if that person is just a songwriter, I hope that they become more lyrical and dig deeper than they had been before.”

www.claycook.com

-Chas Jackson