Author: Emma Loggins
Date: 2009-01-12


Interview:
We had the pleasure of sitting down with Thriving Ivory frontman Clayton Stoope to talk about the band's past, present, and future. Here's what he had to say:

So tell me a little bit about the journey from recording in your dorm rooms to where you guys are now.

Clayton Stoope: Well, it's been a long road. We had no money to record. We were basically broke college kids. Eventually, we actually asked all of our parents for money, and that's how we ended up recording about 90% of what's on the record now. But, it was very gradual. We put out our own record and then started getting a lot of local support. We got a call one night from the program director of KITS in San Francisco, and he said that our song "Angels On The Moon" was a hit. He said that they were gonna put it in full rotation the next day.

At that point, it was the biggest thing that had ever happened to us. We didn't have a record deal and had never been on the radio before. That was kind of the thing that sparked it all. After that, we started looking for a lot of the record deals, the record companies, the major labels, and that in and of itself was definitely an emotional roller coaster. There were a lot of plane flights to and from New York; a lot of depressing flights back.

Aww...

Clayton Stoope: Hah, yeah. We ended up signing with Wind-up Records, and it actually happened kind of randomly. They got our demo, just the one song I think, and called us up. They charted a private plane and flew us out three days later and basically asked us at the dinner table if we wanted to be with Wind Up Records. And we haven't looked back since; we feel like we've been in a really good spot.

You guys have a really distinctive sound, especially your voice. How would you describe that sound to people who haven't heard you guys yet.

Clayton Stoope: I don't know. Cause we hear so many different comparisons from different people. I mean, I could probably explain a little bit by telling you some of our influences. We've always been into really dramatic sounding music, a lot of U2 and Coldplay.

I don't know if we're really going for a specific sound rather than just trying to write good songs in and of itself that both musically and lyrically have an emotional impact on a lot of people. That's always the toughest question though because I think people have their own perception of what they want things done like. But, I always get in trouble when I say piano rock. I'm not supposed to, so I'll just say that those are our influences and, you know, modern... uh, I can't even do it! Modern alternative piano vocal rock music... (laughs)