Dane Clark and his band will perform Friday night at the grandstands at the Jackson County Fairgrounds in Brownstown.
Submitted photo
Dane Clark and his band will be making their debut at the Jackson County Fair at 8 p.m. Friday.
For the 20th year, Clark has led his own full-blast rock combo, the Dane Clark Band, playing in countless regional and local venues as well as opening for artists such as The Allman Betts Band, Gin Blossoms, John Waite, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and 38 Special.
Born and raised in Anderson, Clark has been the drummer in John Mellencamp’s band for 26 years.
Clark said back when Seymour native Mellencamp was searching for a drummer in 1996, he went through the auditioning process along with other drummers and got the position. He has spent many long hours in the Bloomington area playing music and will be heading there again soon to work on some music with Mellencamp.
“I just played on Ian Hunter’s new record that’s expected to be out this winter, and the album has a lot of guest stars on it,” Clark said. “Ringo (Starr) and I are on that record together as well as Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters), who recently passed away.”
Clark said to be in the music business these days, you’ve got to wear a lot of hats. He does recording sessions in Indianapolis and a lot of remote recordings from his studio, sending tracks around for people.
“I do a lot of things like that, and I produce records here in my studio, Thunder Sound Studio,” he said. “I just finished mixing my eighth record, and so my eighth and ninth full-length albums will be coming out later this year, so I stay busy.”
Clark’s 12-song album, “Songs from Isolation,” was released in the summer of 2020 by Dane Clark and the Backroom Boys featuring John Sebastian, Jason Sturgeon and Abigail Clark, Dane’s daughter.
“I was writing some songs during the pandemic, and it was just going to be a few songs,” Clark said. “But after I got going the very first day of working on material, I had ideas for five songs and thought there might be enough material for a whole record.”
One of the songs Clark had thought about using was a cover song he just happened to be listening to, which was John Sebastian’s version of “Sitting in Limbo,” a reggae song by Jimmy Cliff.
”I thought, ‘Wow! What a perfect song because we’re all sitting in limbo,’” he said.
Clark reached out to Sebastian’s management team to see about him being on the new album and got a call from Sebastian himself.
“We were honored to have the legendary John Sebastian from The Lovin’ Spoonful with us on that album,” Clark said. “He played on four songs on the record, which ended up getting national attention and some great reviews and it kept everybody busy.”
The reason it was called Dane Clark and the Backroom Boys is because they were all in their own spaces recording music, he said.
“I’ll be dropping a video for my upcoming release very soon, and it’s a cover version of Donovan’s ‘Riki Tiki Tavi,’ an older song from 1970,” Clark said. “Donovan toured with Mellencamp about 15 years ago and we became friends, and we also wrote a song together back then, and it’s the only song he’s ever co-written with somebody.”
The song is called “Worst Best Friend,” and it also will be on Clark’s upcoming record and Donovan sings lead on it.
Clark said as for the concert coming up Friday night at the Jackson County Fair, the Dane Clark Band is a four-piece band with two guitars and a bass with everybody having vocal mics up front and then drums in the back.
“What the audience can expect is Americana rock music and Midwestern stuff, so if you like Petty and Seger and Springsteen and John, then I’m pretty sure you’re going to like us,” he said. “We do a lot of ’60s and ’70s covers and a whole show that’s nonstop, and what I always say is ‘A splendid time is guaranteed for all.’”
Admission to the show is $10 for adults, $2 for ages 6 to 12 and free for ages 5 and under.
To learn more about Clark, visit his website, daneclark.com, and for information about his recording studio, go to thundersoundstudio.com.