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traveling the world and pretty much living on my own with no
money, and having these guys look after me,” he said. “And they
were young, too.”
During the time that Clear was at its peak, Utah’s straight-edge
scene had a reputation as being one of the most violent in the
country. In 1998-1999, Salt Lake City was receiving national
media coverage for an alleged straight-edge attack on fraternity
members. The members of Clear said that hardcore music fans
who weren’t straight edge were often afraid to come to their
shows for fear of being attacked. However, Clear tried to reach
out to everyone.
“We always tried to promote an embracing experience and get
as many kids out as we could,” Sean said. “[When] fights would
break out … we would stop playing. So all the kids that tried to
channel hate through hardcore weren’t OK with us.”
Disintegrating from the Inside Out
In 1999, the band recorded a full-length CD, Deeper Than Blood,
under the name Clear. After two national tours to support the
record, Josh decided to leave the band to pursue his own indierock
project, The New Transit Direction.
“I always felt like we probably could have kept going pretty strong
if we’d never lost Josh,” Jason said. “Because when this kid
came and played with us for the first time … you know that feeling
that you get when everything clicks?”
A replacement second guitarist was added, and another tour
followed, but then Mick announced that he, too, was leaving the
band. He said they no longer seemed to be able to write music
together. While things looked great on the outside, they’d only
managed to write two new songs in eighteen months.
Sean said, “Mick wanted to be more metal, Jason wanted to be
less metal, and [Josh] wanted to be more indie rock.” Sean and
Tyler were gravitating toward stoner rock.
Once Mick announced that he was leaving, the rest of the band
decided not to continue without him. Tyler said, “I didn’t have the
energy or the desire to … find another guitar player and teach
him the songs, especially since for the year before that, we wrote
like, one song.”
Clear played their last show in 2000, in the basement of DV8 to
an audience of approximately 300. “It was an amazing show,”
Sean said. “We had a great time, kids were in into it, we played
everything we had at the time, and when it was over, it was like …
that’s it. It was kind of anticlimactic, you know?”
Life Post-Hardcore
Six months after Clear ended, Mick became the bass player
for Eighteen Visions, an L.A. metalcore band who eventually
morphed into a successful pop-metal band with an album on
Epic Records and Trustkill Records.
“Living in California and everything, it’s just like the whole dream,
especially coming from Salt Lake,” Mick said, at that Feb. 10,
2007 practice. “If it ended today, I would be happy. I’ve seen the
world, it bought me a car, and I haven’t had to work in four years.
Photo By: Trent Nelson
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