WE ARE THE CLE ELUM
Part One: Standard Band Bio Information
"The band was formed in the wrong order. First came love then came a business then the world shut down so they wrote songs and a band was born.
Love, Business, Songs, Band. Got it?"
A two-piece rock band & wife and husband team, The Cle Elum is Sarah Sargent Pepper and Ian Lee.
Sarah plays drums. Ian sings and plays guitar and other things.
They live in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The band name, The Cle Elum (pronounced Kleee Ellle Um), is inspired by a town in eastern Washington of the same name where Sarah would go camping with her dad as a kid. The town is named after the Cle Elum river and Cle Elum is derived from the Kittitas word Tle-el-Lum meaning “swift water”.
"Swift water" is our genre-fluidity.
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Music is music.
The Cle Elum's debut album Its Ok If It Falls Apart was released 7/26/24 on Winston Sounds.
The album was recorded by Mike Hagler at Kingsize Sound Labs in Chicago during 2022 & 2023, whenever Sarah and Ian were in Chicago on tour with other bands.
Many friends helped play on the record.
Their first single “I Am A Robot” was released this past year. It features their friend Matthew Caws of Nada Surf. One of the greatest bands of all time in the opinion of The Cle Elum.
The band was formed in the wrong order. First, came love, then came a business, then the world shut down, so they wrote songs, and a band was born. Love, Business, Songs, Band. Got it?
Ok.
Part Two: Touring
As the world has come back from whatever [covid] was, everyone has their story of re-assessing how we were living our life before it happened.
The Cle Elum was formed in this vacuum.
For the past 10 years, Sarah and Ian have toured the world with the greatest artists on earth.
It's common knowledge in the music industry that the only way bands can actually make a living is to tour since the internet has wiped out the economics of the record business. So, in 2014, they bought a tour bus and started a company to provide tour support services to bands who tour.
Their company is called Affordable Tour Solutions.
Sarah and Ian have helped and continue to help lots of bands through ATS.
In the 70’s they would have been called “roadies”.
This life means being surrounded by and becoming family with a long list of amazing artists who they have spent upwards of 350 days a year for the past 10 years living with, working with and doing their best to support music.
Music is life.
So, when the covid shut down their business it also shut down their life and we know it shut yours down, too.
With the world shut down, Sarah and Ian decided to write songs together.
This saved their life and gave them hope and purpose.
The Cle Elum was formed in this vacuum.
When the world started up again, Sarah and Ian went back to work and when bands had a day off in Chicago, they went in to the studio and started recording: 2, songs here, 3 songs a few months later.
As this went along, it became obvious - to them at least - that these songs were special.
By the time they were recording the last few songs, Ian made the (insane and arrogant statement) to himself: “I think were making a record somewhere between Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Weezer's Blue Album”.
He may have said this to Sarah. Who rolled her eyes.
Part Three: Other People
We call the release of this record 'The Worst Business Plan Of All Time'.
When you have made a piece of art that you are proud of you want other people to experience it.
That doesn't mean starting a band is a good idea. Starting a band is something teenagers do.
And they should.
And they should get in a van and play house parties and make lots of bad decisions.
Starting a band with your life partner when you already have a busy business with your life partner is maybe not the best idea. Which is why The Cle Elum is doing it.
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We call the release of this record “The Worst Business Plan Of All Time”.
The songs on Its Ok If It Falls Apart are about all of us. The world belongs to us, the people on this planet of all labels and orientations. There's a few bad eggs, but they are few. And there's lots of us.
The Cle Elum is meant to be a band to unite everyone. We want to win and we want to inspire you to win, too.
These songs were pulled out of the universe, and we all seem to be connected, so in some roundabout way, everyone had a hand in writing them.
The Cle Elum will be touring and if you care to connect with them, to come see a show, or to buy a record or pitch some crazy idea to them: They are there for that.
Music might be the last thing which can bring people together in our weird world.
Have a nice day.
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