Clayton Bellamy ... Nearly Steve Earle's Guitar Tech

Terry Evans  0:00  
My guest today is like the Ryan Nugent Hopkins of Canadian rock and roll and country music. For that matter. He hasn't aged a bit since his solo debut album in 1999 and he's went he's one of those guys. He's one of the nicest guys in the music industry today. He'd give you the shirt off his back if he was wearing one. It's Clayton Bellamy has agreed to be my guest today. Reluctantly. Today's podcast is brought to you by the Clayton Bellamy Foundation for the Arts, which supports education and community based programs in the province of Alberta, by providing financial support to arts programs in need, and by advocating the benefits and importance of arts education, reluctantly,

Clayton Bellamy  0:48  
you're too kind, my friend. How are you?

Terry Evans  0:50  
It's great to see you, man. I know it hasn't been a long time since we've seen each other, but it's always, it's always a treat to hang out with you, to visit with you, talk on the phone and that sort of thing, because you're such a goddamn positive guy, like everything is coming up roses for you all the time, even, even with the strife and troubles that we face on a day to day basis, you always have that smile on your face, man. Well,

Clayton Bellamy  1:13  
thank you. You know, I really it's not every day. I mean, you can, you can ask my my better half, but, you know, trying to keep an attitude of gratitude helps me get through the ups and downs of this crazy business. That's for sure. There's

Terry Evans  1:28  
so many places to go and so many places to start. I guess we'll start kind of in the same sort of vein when I was talking to plume, when he did the podcast, because there's the Bonnyville connection, there with you and plume. Plume moved from back east to Bonnyville. Did you grow up in Bonnyville, like right from the get go, or did you were you a transplant to Bonnie bonneyville, Alberta as well?

Clayton Bellamy  1:54  
No, I'm a fourth generation Bonnyville, northern Alberta kid. I grew up here. My great, great grandfather came to this part of the world, smuggled between two mattresses in a horse, covered an horse, drawn wagon. He was, he was wanted for hanging in the Dakotas for they figure maybe shot someone or cattle Robin or some, something. It was a big family secret. It actually only came out, like maybe 10 years ago, before my grandfather passed. He's like, you know, I've been carrying this secret around. I'm not supposed to talk about that

Terry Evans  2:27  
is the most unbelievable story. So during the Wyatt Earp days, or, like,

Clayton Bellamy  2:33  
around around that time, yeah, they thought maybe he, you know, it's all rumor and conjecture at this point, that maybe he was running with the some of the gangs of Billy the Kid, or those kind of folks we don't know. We just know he was a honorary son of a bitch, and he he shot my grandfather out of a tree one time with his pistol. I still have his rifle. I have his his old hex barrel Winchester 3030, in my in my closet, while my gun safe.

Terry Evans  3:01  
Okay, so you said this is fourth generation, Bonnie villian. Yeah, and Bonnie villain, I suppose.

Clayton Bellamy  3:09  
Yeah, Bond villain.

Terry Evans  3:10  
So you say fourth generation. So this was your great, great grandfather. What was his name? I got to Google this. We got to look at his

Clayton Bellamy  3:20  
his name was John William Bellamy, yeah, and that would be my great, great grandfather, and that, those are the stories I heard, and that were kind of passed down. And, you know, my my grandfather didn't have a whole lot of memories of him, just that he, you know, except for those ones that he was just an honorary sob, and he'd kind of chase him around and and for some reason too, though, he would always take him, if there was any kid that was going to go with him, to go get the cattle or to go do an errand, he would always bring my grandfather, and they would go, you know, he has memories of going out and, you know, as like a five, six year old kid taking The horses and going out and rounding up the cattle, and

Terry Evans  4:03  
you've got the makings of a Yellowstone thing on Netflix or

Clayton Bellamy  4:08  
kind of, yeah, I got, I got that that, you know, outlaw in my blood, that kind of rebel rousing kind of thing. It's come passed down in my family. So and sometimes if I wonder where I get that from, it's, I think I think of him. It's

Terry Evans  4:21  
no wonder you look so fucking good in a hat.

Clayton Bellamy  4:24  
Maybe that's it. Are

Terry Evans  4:26  
you like, do you ride horses? Are you a horseback rider? Is there any, was there any farming business going on in your genes that you picked up on and continue to do?

Clayton Bellamy  4:34  
Yeah, absolutely still, right? You know, still, my dad still farms, and my sister farms. I'm the only one that didn't get into farming. You know, maybe much of my dad's disappointment sometimes. But we grew up riding and, you know, working cattle and grain. And my dad, he just retired from cows, but he still, I still help him with the grain every fall, and planting and seeding and all of that. Stuff. But, yeah, it's it. It's kind of a family business. What's

Terry Evans  5:04  
well and I talk when I was out at your golf tournament this past summer and met Barry Kalinsky. Yeah, he was the Reeve of Bonnyville County. And, you know, he was nice enough to purchase me in the auction for the golf along with McSween there, from McSween fabricating, and he was, I just messaged him the other day, because part of the prize package, or part of the auction package, was the chance to see some of our classic Canadian rock groups playing at the Century Casino. So he was saying that he was busy doing harvest so, and that's the kind of thing out in Bonnyville. And, you know, that's a small rural, rural towns all over Alberta. It, everybody in the entire community gets on it. And, you know, once they're done theirs, they help out others and all that stuff too, right? Yeah,

Clayton Bellamy  5:54  
that. I mean, especially back in the day, that's, that's what everybody did, you, you, you all kind of did the work together. It was communal living to get the harvest done. That's, that's, you know, if you didn't have your neighbors to help you, you most often didn't survive. So that that's how it was. It was worked. You went from one field to the other until they were all done, and and then you then you had Thanksgiving.

Terry Evans  6:17  
So you've had your share of time behind the behind the levers of a of a combine or a swather and stuff like that. It's

Clayton Bellamy  6:24  
where I wrote my first songs, to be honest, was literally riding behind the wheel of a tractor, you know, because you're just, especially before phones and before all of that bullshit. You just, you had your own brain, and that was it. You sit and listen to the role of the tractor going up and down the rows. And I just, I thought it was a normal thing just to make up songs and sing them. And I would do that all day long.

Terry Evans  6:45  
Did you have a cab in, in any of the tractors or the combines, or anything like No, no,

Clayton Bellamy  6:51  
it was you were put, you put on a big hat to keep off the sun, if you were lucky or otherwise, it was wet and cold. And

Terry Evans  6:59  
then, depending on what was on harvest. You had your oats, and you had your wheat, and you had your all the alfalfa and all this stuff, you know, feed for cows and whatnot. But if you had to swath barley, the itchiest Goddamn grain that there is it

Clayton Bellamy  7:13  
the worst, and I'm allergic to, like, alfalfa and stuff, so like doing hay, I would just break out in a body rash. It was just, it was like some kind of special torture. But, man, you know, you want to get tough. Stook and bales all day. I remember because they're, they weigh like 50 pounds each. And you do that. I remember doing it as a kid, and it was, you were, I wasn't heavy enough to to push down the pedal to knock the stoop back, because a stoop is in, you know, it's like 456,

it's like 10 bales in a point like this. And you stack them all on this sled that the the tractor would drag, and you'd go along, pick one up as you drive by it, throw it on this thing, and you'd make your stoop. And then you press this lever that would tilt the whole sled, and the stoop would just slide off the back, and then, and then you'd keep going. And I remember being too little. I could pick up the bales, but I couldn't, wasn't heavy enough when I pushed on the pedal to make a tip to get them off. So that's when I got put up to drive in the tractor, because I could hold it in a straight line. I remember even sometimes when I was growing up in Creston, BC we'd get calls my buddy, Rod Sommerfeld and I would get calls from some of the local farmers and Canyon and Lister and stuff. And we'd get offers to, you know, go out and work for the afternoon or for the weekend throwing bales. And I would always say, is it hay or is it straw?

Terry Evans  8:38  
Because there's a big difference between hay and straw, yeah,

Clayton Bellamy  8:41  
about 20 pounds, you know. And I think I've always treated doing music like farming, like going out every day, and I'm going to make fans. It's just, you're out, you're pounding posts every day, and just, you know, and trying to move a little further down the field. And I think a lot of times that's what I attribute to some of my you know, success is that it just treating it like, like that, like every day you got to get out, and if you're not pounding posts, man, you know Winter's coming, so you that's the only way to keep keep busy and keep moving forward in it.

Terry Evans  9:18  
Farming brings out a work ethic in people, that people who are not farmers, just that, you know, you don't get right?

Clayton Bellamy  9:26  
I'd agree, yeah, because there's nobody there who's holding your hand. And there's, you know, at the end of the season, when the crops come in, it's, it's exactly that. There's, there's no safety net. There's just what you get can get done before the snow flies. So, and that's, I guess, growing up with that, I've always applied that to to making music and to doing that, that there was no safety net. I just, I have to go out. And I can't wait for opportunities. I can't wait for for somebody to sign me. I just got to go out and make it happen on my own. Yeah?

Terry Evans  9:59  
So you're driving tractor, you're helping out on the farm. You continue to do so, but at some point, and I'm guessing you're driving tractor, you're early, mid teens, right? Yeah. Okay, so you're driving tractor, you're, you know, singing songs. You're probably listening to 790 CF, CW, if you got a transistor radio, or if you got, you know somehow radio in the out in the field,

Clayton Bellamy  10:23  
yeah, you know what, we were actually listening out. If you were at my my parents, grandparents place, we were listening to 840 which was then 790 cfcw. But if you're at home, it was always tuned to 630 Chad, which at the time was the rock station in in in the area that we could pick up and we were listening to, we had a lot of classic rock at home. My parents, you know, loved rock and roll. My dad was an old hippie, even though he wouldn't tell you. Now, you wouldn't know by looking at him with the cowboy hat, but you know, he grew up loving Black Sabbath and loving sticks and and lots of kind of that late 70s, early 80s rock and roll. I had all of those records at the humble pies and the LED zeppelins at at my fingertips, alongside of, you know, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash and and that kind of stuff. So I had that, that mash up of both those things going on at the same time in my household. Did

Terry Evans  11:23  
you when did you get your first guitar? How old were you?

Clayton Bellamy  11:27  
Maybe 13. I was 13 or 14, probably 13. And it didn't really lock in for me, though, until I was about 15 or 16. I saved up and I bought my own guitar. This $100 I spent on a Yamaha parlor guitar, and it came with a a book of a song book, and it was just kind of a, you know, Bob Dylan songs, and I would marry, yeah, if I had a hammer, you know, songs like that. And I learned them, they just the chord was over the word, and I would sing it and play the play the chord and and eventually that that kind of grew into because, again, nowadays it's so easy to learn guitar really, because you can go on to YouTube, and there's 1000 guys that'll teach you how to play the chords and right where to put your fingers. But at the time, it was like some secret you had to unlock. And I took guitar lessons, but that was so slow. And even as I started playing in bands, when I turned 16, I started playing in a band. It was a bunch of older guys, older. They were all in their 30s, and they had a band called The prairie Ramblers, and I was the singer, and I I played acoustic and and sang, and we went and played. We play, you know, Hall dances and and weddings and pow wows and you name it, anything that we could get get at. And it was better than a than a part time job, because I was making about the same and I got to play music every night, well, every weekend anyway,

Terry Evans  12:58  
right? So Did, did you end up graduating from high school? Did you stick it out and then, then move on? Or did you start to, you know, with doing your weekend gigs with the prairie

Clayton Bellamy  13:09  
very Ramblers? Yeah, barely I graduated, but it was a close, a close, barely, but I ended up. I went from there to a red deer college and and, and studied music for two years. I tried to get into the more prestigious red or grant McEwen, but I failed the entrance exam three times. So I was like, well, maybe somebody else will let me in. Lower the bar a little bit. So red deer took my money and I studied music for and music business for two years there and and, you know, I don't think that I learned so much about, you know, I mean, the music business turns so fast that, from what I learned in business then, didn't really, doesn't really apply now, except some of the fundamentals of how to do good business. But you know, what I really learned was, was about life, and just because I started college at 17, so I was quite young, but I got a band called the moonshine bandits out of college that we all through college, and right about six months after college, we were out touring and playing shows, you know, playing in nightclubs six nights a week, Four or five sometimes. That's how I barely graduated college, too, because by our second year, we were playing nightclubs so much that I was missing two or three days a week at a school because I was out doing what I was going to school for.

Terry Evans  14:34  
Do you still keep in touch with any of the guys in that band or any of your pal it always, anytime I hear about somebody who's gone to college, and you know the experience of the learning process, and you know all of the, you know pencils and books and and theory and all that stuff, I always think about the relationships that are established there. And. I think about core blend in the smalls and like, you know how that spawned from Grant McEwen Community College, and then, you know, we've seen what Corby is has done all these years. Do you still keep in touch with the guys from the Red Deer college?

Clayton Bellamy  15:16  
Yeah, you know, none of them really ended up going on to do music professionally after the band kind of fizzled out that few months after college, they all kind of went about doing other things. But, you know, I do keep in touch with all of them still to this day, there's still good friends, you know. And I see them when I'm in whatever town passing through on the road, I run into them, but they've followed me along in my journey as well, which has been really cool. But I think out of anyone in my graduating class, was the only one that kind of went on to continue to do it, and I just stubbornly refused to say, uncle, I guess to just stop going,

Terry Evans  16:04  
you know, it's a really good point you bring up right there, you know, you go to college, and then you're sticking it out. You're going to stick it out, and you want to do this, but, I mean, you can't be a one man band, right? I mean, sure you can do your acoustic shows and that sort of thing, but if you're going to carry on with something, you got to have everybody who has got the same mindset, the same passion, the same drive, the same, you know, I'm going to get there sort of mentality. And then when you see run into guys who maybe you went through the same educational experience, or some maybe the same, you know, experience doing some gigs on the road, and then all of a sudden they kind of fade off, and they're doing their job part time, and then music part time. And then all of a sudden they're doing their job 75% and a little bit of music. And then all of a sudden they're just doing their job. You find you can't push rope, you know, like the guys that you figured, hey, we're gonna all get in this boat, and we're gonna row together, and all of a sudden, you Rowan by yourselves, like, fuck. Where did everybody go? And, you know, because they had to grow up at some point. But you never did. You stuck it out, right? Yeah,

Clayton Bellamy  17:10  
and you're exactly that that happened so many times along the way, but I could also, you know, coming from that there was an era, and I kind of feel like it's coming back. But there was an era in those late 90s, early 2000s when every you know, you played clubs, you cut your teeth playing in nightclubs, you know, six nights a week. And we did that for seven years. I did that straight. I just lived in a suitcase, and I rode from town to town in a in a cube van. I had my own sound system and lights, and we would unpack it and pack it every week in a different town all across America. We played as far south as Austin, Texas. Far East is Superior, Wisconsin and and in the States, and all the way out to Toronto and kind of back all the way to Vancouver, bouncing from town to town and and I could see the other bands that you would see, and you would meet guys and go, you know, that guy's, he's got the same thing, I see what myself and him, or he's, he's going to do something, you know, and see these guys, uh, Mike plume was one of them who was an early hero for me, that I saw, like, right? It was the guys who were writing and recording their own stuff that I went I want to do that like this. This playing six nights a week is fun, but it's not sustainable. It's not something that I want to do. It's an ends to a means. And that's why I would never, I would I was always working towards, how can I to get out of keep playing music and not get a day job, but get out of this and and start doing something original. And that was the key, was write songs. And I would see guys like him, or I remember doc Walker was an early one too, that I met those guys and went, huh? They're like, they've got their own album. They're all promoting it. They're, they're, you know, playing their own original songs. And I knew that that was the the key early on.

Terry Evans  19:10  
And you taught you you had the luxury of having a cube van and your own stuff. A lot of times, there's guys who want to be in a van and or be in a band, and the only reason the bass player is in the band is because he has a big car, right?

Clayton Bellamy  19:24  
Yeah, well, I played in a in a bunch of shitty bands for a long time, and you know, as the guy just riding along. And then I again, I realized quickly that if, if I was going to move forward in this business, that I had to have the wheel, I had to be the control of my own destiny, and so my folks helped me out with a loan, and I bought a cube van and a PA system, and me and my dad built some bunks in it so you could ride three across the front. One guy always had to roll in the bunk and and we just we did that. We put three engines. In that old cube van. And finally, after about seven years of doing that, I called it quits and moved just actually moved to Nashville. My for my first time, I was about to 2425 years old, I moved to Nashville and just decided I was going to live there and meet people and write songs and see if I could make it, you know, further myself that way, we'll

Terry Evans  20:27  
be right back. Okay, so you moved to Nashville. What you what? I'm trying to figure out, what year this is your first, your first solo record came out in 99

Clayton Bellamy  20:38  
Yeah, 99 and that's when I I met some of the core people that I still play with today. One of them ended up being a member of the road hammers, which is Corbett fraz and the drums. And he and I connected shortly after that first record, and we that, you know, that was the first time I put that album out in 99 that I saw, hey, this could actually be something. I had a song on the radio called running on empty, and actually won a an Alberta Recording Industry Award for country recording of the Year that year. Yeah, I didn't even know what that was at the time, but I saw okay, that that this could actually be a thing, and that really got me hungry to record more. And in 2001 I put out the self titled album, and that was kind of when I really had a we had a a band that was a thing. We had a sound, and we were kind of doing something that was original and different, and that was myself and CORBA fraz and Steve Farrell and Troy Ranger, at the time, was playing guitar, and we we were touring up until we did that, kind of playing a mix of Original shows and cover band stuff and creating a following in in in Alberta, especially regionally, until about I moved to, I think, Nashville, in about 2004

Terry Evans  22:15  
2004 I'm doing the math, 2099 2001 you're with your buddies. You're doing thing in Nashville in 2004 and then it's 2024, now. So you, we are coming up on the 20th anniversary of the road hammers, because it was 2005 so the McCoy, Jason McCoy, he would, he was in a fan like a family band is, is that correct? Or am I thinking of somebody else?

Clayton Bellamy  22:44  
I think that maybe somebody else. But Jason started really young. He had his first record deal on him. I think it was MCA when he was, like, 17. This used to be our town. He still had braces, and, you know, he was just rocking his mullet. And you know, that was first big hit.

Terry Evans  22:59  
So was Jason? Because Jason is Canadian. Is he not? Yep, right. Okay, so where do you meet Jason McCoy? I guess so you you moved to Nashville, 2004 within a year and a half. You're a road hammer. I like, how does all of a sudden Clayton Bellamy go from, you know, Clayton Bellamy bonneyville tractor driving kid to I'm a road hammer. Well,

Clayton Bellamy  23:22  
it was interesting. Well, it was crazy. I moved to Nashville in that year, pretty much year and a half before the road hammers, I was up there, and I wasn't getting anywhere. I had a few friends in the in the Steve Earl camp that were helping me out Ray Kennedy, Steve's producer, and Steve's brother, Pat Patrick Earl, who was kind of quasi managing me and helping me out to meet people in Nashville. And he I remember I was kind of getting to my wits end being in Nashville, because I was not getting anywhere, and I was had no money. I was living in a, in a in a, you know, in a room in a house I was renting off this guy and who had cats that absolutely hated me. Every time I left the door open, they would go in and like piss on my bed. It was, it was, anyway, that's a long story, but I don't want to sidetrack us, but, but, yeah, I remember Patrick Earl calling me, and he had a gig. We were just talking on the on the one day, and he was telling me how they were looking for a guitar tech for Steve Earl and somebody to play a little bit of keyboard, little bit of rhythm guitar, and do Steve's guitar tech. And I was like, Dude, you got to give me this gig. Like, I need this. This is going to be the thing for me. And he he refused to give me the gig. He said, You know, he said, if I give you this gig, you'll never become an artist. He said, You'll never stop touring, because Steve never stops touring. And and you'll never get to do what you want to do, and I don't want to see you do that. And I was so pissed off at him at the time, I was like, Man, this was my big break, and you wouldn't give it to me. You're my bro. But you know, I moved about four months after that conversation, I moved back to Canada, and I ended up getting the audition for the road hammers. And years later, I called him and and thanked him for not giving me the gig with Steve, because if he had, he was absolutely right, I never would have gotten the audition call for for the road hammers. But about just to keep the timeline going, I moved back home, I met a girl, and we were, we were ended up we had a baby on the way, all that kind of stuff kind of started. My ex wife and I had our first child on the way, and I was kind of figuring out what I was going to do outside of music, because that year or so in Nashville did not pan out. And now having a baby on the way, I thought I have got to get my shit together, because I can't pay for a kid on on the menial money I was making, you know, with music. So I was working a day job, and I got a call out of the blue from my old time manager, Jolene modia, who's who said, Hey, Jason McCoy is trying to reach you. He wants to talk to you about this project he's working on, and maybe you auditioning. And I brushed it off a couple times until my ex Finally, she said, you know, maybe you should go and hear what they have to say. So I went and met with Jason. We had some mutual friends and a drummer that wasn't in the band, but he he was playing drums for Jason at the time, and he said, you know, Clayton's your guy. You You got to get audition Clayton for this gig. He was putting together this trucker band to do a one off kind of record, just the ultimate road album, and it was just going to be a one time thing. And so Jason called me. He had already auditioned, like a dozen people, and nobody was kind of working out. So I went up and I met him and Chris Byrne, who is the other, you know, long 20 year road hammer member, who was, he wasn't. He was playing bass with Jason solo band at the time, and we shot the shit a little bit. And I remember he was playing, I was playing a gig in Calgary, and his band was playing like Nashville north, at the, you know, the big tent at stampede, and they drove the tour bus down town and parked up front of the club to come and see our final set after their show, and Jason and his wife and the band all came in, and I'm like, shirtless and crawling along the tables, knocking glasses off, singing Roadhouse blues and screaming into this microphone, and Jason's going, that's our guy. And his wife's going, No, no, do not hire this guy. He is not your guy, but he, you know, they, he saw something in me, I guess. And he sent me these four songs to learn. And I had never, I had always kind of faked playing lead guitar. I played a decent rhythm, passable rhythm anyway, and he sent me this and wanted me to be kind of the second lead guitar player. And Jason's an extremely accomplished guitar player, man, I think, I think one of the most underrated players in Canada. And he sent me these songs, and I, I, I spent two weeks I didn't come up for air just learning the original Eastbound and Down was on there, the original girl in the billboard. We had the Allman Brothers, ramblin man, I remember those three for sure. And we, I rolled into this audition, and he didn't tell me that they were filming a TV show at the time, Joel Stewart, who famously, you know, a video producer who was working for CMT. He was filming this TV show following Jason, making the original record and putting the band together. So they didn't tell me, when I went to the audition that I was going to be on camera, so I I rolled in. I was already nervous. I'd never been in an audition. And there's Joel Stewart, and I see him, and I'm like, What are you doing here? Man, he's like, Well, we're going to film this for a TV show, puts a mic on me, sticks a camera in my face. He goes, good luck buddy. Let's see what you got. That's like, you know, my, my, my butt was airtight, man, I was just puckered right up. I like I was so nervous, I could barely play. But we went in there and we played these, these three or four songs, and Jason was smiling the whole time, and and bopping his head, and and we sang and played together. And and then he he left the room with the camera guy. And they all left, and Scott and Chris are in there. Like, good job, man. Like, this is the first one of these. He's we've done where Jason's been smiling, so that's a good thing. And sure enough, he came back in, like, 10 minutes later and offered me the gig. And if you watch the TV show, and you know, if you can still find it in real time, that was like, that happened in real time. He they walked in with the cameras and stuff, and said, Hey, man, if you, if you want the gig, it's yours. And I said, Yes. And honestly, six months later, everything was it was a blur. Six months later, we had our first number one record, and by the time we crossed the country, the first time it was it had already gone gold and went on to be platinum. And

Terry Evans  30:39  
it was road hammer mania, really for a while there too, when it was

Clayton Bellamy  30:43  
because it was the first time, at least in Canada, that someone had really captured the spirit of this TV show, like they timed it out perfectly that they were You were watching the show in real time as we were making the record. We were in Nashville and and keep in mind, too still, I didn't have a penny to my name. You know, I was still sleeping on friends couches when I was in Nashville and and living off my girlfriend who became my wife. And, you know, at the time, like we, we had, we had nothing, really, but, but this kind of idea, and we knew that it was going to be something. And when you watch the final episode, the album was done, and the first show was played. The next day. The record was in the stores, so and there was no Facebook, there was no thing. So when that happened, people ran out and they bought that record, and it was, it was crazy. We played our first couple of shows. Our first two shows were played in Bonnyville and in Cold Lake, you know, in succession, the two nights apart, and they were both sold out. And at that point, had never played a sold out show for anything. So I knew that this was something crazy, that the crazy train was about to start rolling. What

Terry Evans  31:54  
a great thing for you. And cold lake and bonnieville. That's both of those basically in your backyard, like hometown shows. It was

Clayton Bellamy  32:01  
unreal. Yeah, there was those were kind of the the quiet Proving Grounds, like, Hey, can we do this? We're going to play these two shows? And yeah, they were there. I remember specifically in Bonnyville, walking out of the side door of the agroplex, which was the the kind of the hockey rink at the time. And people were lined up around the side of the building to get in. And I was like, what is happening here? Yeah, it was pretty wild. Probably

Terry Evans  32:25  
everybody, you know, Bonnyville is a small town, and, like, you knew everybody.

Clayton Bellamy  32:30  
I really, I really did, yeah, you know, so exactly it was like, hey, we'll see you in a minute. It was wild. And we that year was was pretty insane for me. I got married, I had a baby and had a number one record, all at the same time, but so my feet didn't really touch the ground. But I remember, right after the band hired me, I was, you know, I knew I was in over my head, because I I was not a lead guitar player. I had faked my way into this thing, so I literally, I answered an ad on a on a music, you know, in a music store guitar player wanted and I joined this country cover band and started playing in all these crappy, you know, country bars and stuff up in Fort McMurray and the T and C in Calgary, like these pretty rough bars, but I was playing, all I did all night is play electric guitar, trying to get good before this band actually started doing shows, because I didn't know what I was doing. And I remember being at the at this Country Club in in Calgary. I don't know if it's it doesn't exist anymore, called the the town and country. And in between our sets, you play four sets a night, 445 minute sets. And in between one of the sets, they were playing music videos on the big screen that would drop down in front of the stage. And it was the road hammers. It was our video, and I'm here going home. People are looking at me, like, what are you doing here? Like, shouldn't you be wearing a fur coat and driving a limousine? It was just that kind of weird time in between when the band would actually started being a band, but we were already something on TV and on, you know, and it was, it was wild.

Terry Evans  34:21  
That's great. And at that point, I mean, you're trying to you're trying to learn how to play guitar, play lead, and you're slogging around through through the rougher bars in Alberta, trying to figure it out. At that point, you got to pretty much put a plastic Jerry Reed on the dashboard of your car, and and praise to whatever God it is, and and hope that it all comes through, because 100%

Clayton Bellamy  34:43  
and, and it was, you know, I've got to say those, those first shows for me, were rough, and not only because I felt like I was in over my head so much with the music part, but playing in front of crowds like they we stepped into we there was no. Proving Grounds. Like the band from note one was playing to 1000s of people. You know, our first, our first tour, we went across Canada, was sold out. Like, there was, you know, all of the clubs were sold out. So that next summer of 2006 we played, like, I remember playing dolphin country fest, and there was like 15,000 people in the stands. They said they had never seen the stands full in an afternoon show ever before. And that was us. We walked out there, and it's like I was horrified, you know, just like I didn't know what to do, man, yeah, I

Terry Evans  35:36  
think it's great. My favorite road, my favorite road hammer memory is, and how many times have I messaged you and said, I want to be a road hammer, because I see you guys doing the videos, and I see giver, and I see, you know, hillbilly disco and then mud and all of the stuff that goes along with it in your live shows, and all of the smoke shooting out of the smoke stack microphones and this and that the other thing. But I remember with into June of 2015 I was down visiting plume and in Nashville, and we're walking down Broadway. He parked at the other end. We sat in there and had a beer, Matt. And then as we decided we're going to walk down we're walking down Broadway. We walk past tootsies, we walk past the stage, we walk past the lucky bastard and all of this stuff, and come down around the corner from where the Bridgestone Arena is. And then there's, I don't know, is it hotel or at the Hall of Fame, or Hall of Fame Park? Yeah. And we come, we come walking around there, and we come walking into the park. And I'm starting to hear this music. I think of that as we get closer that this kind of sounds familiar to me. So we walk around and there's you and Jason and Chris on the stage. And I used to turn around and look, I'm standing there. I'm grooving away to the road hammers all of a sudden. Hey, it's Terry Evans. Is Clayton Melby yells from the stage on the PA. And I'm like, I'm looking around like, what the hell it's so. So that was kind of weird. Then we went backstage and drank some of your rider, and that was

Clayton Bellamy  37:05  
fun. That was great. And you know that that whole trajectory, you know, took us back to Nashville, which was pretty awesome, because I've been going to Nashville since I was, you know, since I was 16 years old. My dad took me there for the first time, and I fell in love with the place, and always wanted to be part of the DNA of that of that town and and of that scene, of the music scene there. And, you know, so after living there and kind of going back defeated and thinking I was going to quit music. And, you know, then having joining the road hammers and and just having it explode like it did, you know, it got the attention of some some major labels in Nashville, and we started going back and showcasing and eventually signed. A year after the first record came out, we signed with Sony montage records and ended up moving back to Nashville. So I in my own, you know, way I felt like, you know, I got back at the at the at the man, because I couldn't get a foot in the door. And I left home. I left national, I came back, not only with a band with a hit record, but we had, we had a record deal already, and we moved back to Nashville and and started touring and and the TV show got picked up in Nashville and was playing on Country Music Television In on prime time, we had billboards with our faces on it. And, you know, it was crazy. It was a it was a crazy time when you could walk. We were walking downtown, and people were going, hey, it's the guys on the road hammers are looking around like, what? What is happening right now? It was pretty wild.

Terry Evans  38:49  
And then, and then you come back home, you know, with all of the Nashville stuff, you come back home to Bonnyville. And then, hey, hey, Clayton, it is, it's, there's that kid that was on the tractor. There's that kid that helps out with harvest time and and all of this stuff. It, it's funny how, yeah, you always come back home, right? And that keeps you grounded 100%

Clayton Bellamy  39:11  
and it did, because it stuff got really crazy for for a few years, you know, it was, it was insane where I was, you know, when we signed our deal in Nashville, we our feet didn't really touch the ground. We just, we were on tour consecutively for almost three years. We where we didn't stop it, just we went and went and went and played. We would do radio, you know, in three or four different cities, and then play a show, and then do radio, and then play a show. We were just promoting singles non stop and trying to make, you know, trying to get it to pop in America like it did in Canada.

Terry Evans  39:48  
Do you find, with the hammers that there's, there's sort of, I guess, identifiable roles that each of you play, Chris and Jason and yourself? And I was going to ask, is Corbett, pretty much like, I know he's, you have kind of a revolving drummer situation at times in the past, haven't yet we did

Clayton Bellamy  40:12  
for a while, while our first, the original member, and first, you know, tenure of the band, was Corbett fraz, and he, you know, he came in right at the beginning, when, when they hired me, they were like, Hey, we need to find a drummer. And I'm like, I got the guy, you know. And Corbett was a, he was one of the key guys in helping us, you know, arrange, you know, build the what the show is, of the road hammers and and adding that kind of, you know, that it factor. I think we all had it, and it glued us together. There was a certain attitude and a certain vibe of the band that no one had really seen before. A bunch of guys with tattoos and earrings and and, you know, playing country rock and roll who were, who were not into what was kind of going on at the time. Nobody was doing that, and Corbett when, when we lost our deal with Sony, that I think everyone was just kind of so burned out. And that was kind of when Corbett he, he stepped down from the chair playing, playing drums. I believe that was 2010 and then we had a for a while, a rotating door of guys, until we finally settled. We with Steve Broadhurst, and he's been, Steve's been with us for for a long time now. And

Terry Evans  41:30  
then you have you like you look at the stage, you're on the left, Chris is on the right, Jason's in the center. You know there's Jason's kind of that, that country sort of anchor. Chris kind of looks like an accountant, and you're the rock you're the Rock and Roll guy, right? So it's just the hodgepodge of mix of everything that ends up coming out with that sound, that hammer sound, that everybody digs. It's, you know, that the perfect amount of rock and roll and the perfect amount of country to appease both fans of both genres.

Clayton Bellamy  42:02  
I think it is we really, you know, and that's you're exactly it. Chris is the blues man. Jay has, you know, he's just rooted in classic country, and that's just where he loves, you know, that's his happy place. And for me, I've always been in that kind of blues rock, Southern rock, kind of vibe, you know, my favorite bands are, are been like the the Steve earls and the and the the black crows and humble pies and and things like that. So I've always loved that kind of guitar riff rock by, you know, Leonard Skinner, or Blackberry smoke for a newer band reference. So when bringing all of that stuff together. It just it made this thing that was so unique and and it just has continued to to go. We'll

Terry Evans  42:47  
be right back reluctantly road. Hammers is one thing, and it continues. I mean, it's you basically. I mean, there's a schedule you probably make up at some point that gets added to or detracted from, from time to time, maybe there's a lengthier tour and that sort of thing. You guys have a huge following too, down in Australia, don't you? We

Clayton Bellamy  43:09  
do, yeah, and that's been just growing every every year we go down there and do a run of shows. So we've been, man, this band has taken us all over to China. It's taken us to Spain and France and the UK, all over the world. It's been pretty wild.

Terry Evans  43:25  
Isn't it amazing how music continue? I mean, you're not living in a mansion or, like, it's not like, you know, Florida beachfront property or anything like that. But when you're doing what you love there, you don't work a day in your life, and then being able to see the world through your music is is pretty remarkable, isn't it? It's

Clayton Bellamy  43:48  
been incredible. And, you know, to be able to, I realize that, you know, and I think that's one thing too, that that keeps me grounded is that I'm, I kind of live in that 1% of artists who actually get to do what they love for a living, you know, and that's also what drives me, because, you know, there was a point in time when the road hammers took a we broke up, you know, in that after the album in 2010 you know, when all of that, we lost our drummer and everybody, We just kind of, we got a like, a friends break, like a Ross and Rachel break. We didn't officially say, hey, the bands broke up, but we just stopped talking to each other. We're just like, you know, we're not going to do this for a while. We were so incredibly burnt out from all of the work we'd been doing, and then to see it kind of fall apart and not go anywhere, we took about four years off, and I did a couple of, you know, solo albums that didn't get received very well at all, that didn't do anything. And I again, was kind of sliding back into this, you know, how do I make a living? And I ended up, you know, getting you. A job from a friend of mine working in the oil field in Fort Mac, grinding pipe. So I went, it went from like my face on a billboard in Nashville, Tennessee, with my own TV show and a and a red hot band, to right to laying in the mud in, you know, grinding pipe and being a welder's helper for almost a year. And it was a really hard, humbling experience, you know, because at that point, I think I had my head pretty well planted up my ass in some situations, you know, I thought I was pretty I thought I was something sometimes, but it was a real eye opener for me that how quickly you know the you know the ladder can switch directions, and you could go back to not, not doing music at all. So it was tough for a little while. There you

Terry Evans  45:57  
can learn from the bad and you can learn from the good. And a lot of times you learn more from the bad or from the harder experiences, and it makes you appreciate what you what you have. The next time you roll through on an opportunity, and you know, you talk about doing a couple solo albums that weren't received well, but you didn't stop. You had to make a pit stop of grinding pipe, sure, but then something else comes to fruition. You know, obviously the road hammers are still hammering it out. And then you've kept yourself busy with through your passion with other projects. You've got the congregation, which started up in when, when did the you started the congregation in 19, yeah,

Clayton Bellamy  46:41  
in 2019, yeah, yeah. You know, the that that year, obviously it did a lot for me. It was, it was humbling. But you know, it, like you said, it led to other doors. I never stopped. I was still writing songs, literally across the pipe. You know, I had a little notepad in my pocket. And I remember just writing stuff all the time. It was, it was good fuel for for creativity, that's for sure. And and I ended up getting a job at a radio station in Edmonton to do the drive home show. So that took me out of the out of the oil field, which I was, you know, not good at it was not my forte. But, no, I was grateful for the job, but I was horrible at it, but, and that took me down the road to continuing music. You know, I did three years at the radio station there on the drive home show in Edmonton, and then I, I ended up getting a call from Jason out of the blue, saying, Hey, you want to put the band back together. And that led to 2015, album wheels, which was a, was a platinum record for us, with a song called Mud. So that that kind of going away almost, you know, it's like when those big bands break up and, you know, if you never go away, how do we miss you kind of thing? And when the bank came back, it was like we were bigger than ever. And I think those lessons that I had learned along the way kind of galvanized me in a mode of of, you know, I'm not going to let the my foot off the gas again or or stop appreciating where I'm at and what I get to do. Because I think there was, we were working so hard before that that you start sometimes stop appreciating it, because the grind is so hard that it's just like, Oh, I gotta play another gig. It's like, well, you actually, you, you get to play another gig.

Terry Evans  48:34  
That's a great way of putting it. My wife and I were discussing the ways of speaking and how it dictates what the opportunity is, rather than the burden is 100%

Clayton Bellamy  48:48  
and I tell my kids all the time one of my favorite quotes in the Bible is life and death is in the tongue. And it's so true, what you speak becomes your reality. And when I kind of change that in my head when, when the band came back together, it was like, yeah, man, this is such a blessing, and it's it. And from there, it has not really stopped rolling. Once the train got back on the tracks, man, we didn't take our foot off the gas. So

Terry Evans  49:14  
you're doing the 2005 to 2010 then the five year sabbatical sort of break, then Jason calls you up in 2010 sorry, 2015 and says, We're gonna Jake Elwood. We're getting the band. How much for the little girl? So, so you get back together, and you know, obviously it's you learn from what happened in the first five years, so that you don't burn yourselves out again. And then there's, there's going to be time where you are away from each other, then you're working together. You're away from each other, you're working together. And that gives you the opportunity. You mentioned a phrase from the Bible, and it makes me wonder, are you a spiritual guy? You know? I mean you, you start up the process. Project in 2019 called the congregation. Is that a spiritual sort of journey that you're on that you find other sort of, I guess, stuff that will spawn stuff away that might not fit the road hammers?

Clayton Bellamy  50:19  
Yeah, I think that that was definitely an outlet and, but I've always been a spiritual guy, and I got, I got baptized when I lived in Nashville, actually, and, you know, it was something that would put set me on a journey of, you know, always kind of seeking God, and no matter what, where, what kind of predicament I was in, I think that's always been something for me that's that's important, and that's fueled my music and my, you know, my outlook on life in in lots of different ways and and the congregation, you know, ended up being from the church, that whole church idea, but I wanted it to be a rock and roll church, and the the idea of the congregation was more of, can I get in and write like real rock and roll music? Because that's what I wanted to do as a, you know, as an artist. I was trying to change things up on my solo career. Side of things, apart from the road hammers, and really see, you know, challenge myself to write something completely different. You

Terry Evans  51:23  
ever said to yourself, What would Jesus do

Clayton Bellamy  51:28  
all the time? And I always come up short.

Terry Evans  51:32  
WWJD, yeah, you

Clayton Bellamy  51:33  
know what? That's, that's, that's the one thing. It's like, there's this, there's, there's the goal. You know, you're not going to hit it, but at least you gotta, at least you got something to shoot for. But that band, really, it gave me a lot of things, as far as you know, changing the way I write songs, and do you know, approach music, which was really great for me creatively. And you know, I ended up having a decent hit out of, out of our second record with that out with those with that project, I should say, and and spawned some, some getting, you know, American cuts with some, some other rock and roll bands and writing for some serious, you know, heavy rock artists, which was really cool, that opportunity Never would have came had I not dove head first into just trying to rec, you know, reinvent myself.

Terry Evans  52:26  
You talk about, you know, the songwriting that spawned from the congregation stuff with the heavier stuff, and the list that you have with some of them that are more in the country genre. Dan Davidson, Haley, Haley Jensen, is she from Australia?

Clayton Bellamy  52:46  
She is, yeah, yeah.

Terry Evans  52:48  
You have the Tim Hicks stuff, the I miss Tom Petty. You co wrote that with him, did you not? Yeah,

Clayton Bellamy  52:53  
that was Tim's latest single. Yeah,

Terry Evans  52:56  
yeah. You've done stuff with Jason blame, with Mike plume, with, you know, all kinds of, I mean, you're, you can't swing a dead cat in a record store without hitting something that Clayton Bellamy has either produced or were a co written or or had something to do with. Isn't that, right? Well,

Clayton Bellamy  53:11  
it, thank you. It's, it's been pretty great. That was a lot of you know, through the pandemic, that's all I did. I just hunkered down and wrote songs. But I've had the, you know, the the the opportunity to, when you're traveling around too, you get to meet so many artists. And I've always been that guy going, Hey, let's write a song. And I've been, you know, able to record with some of my heroes, like, you know, Gordie Johnson from big sugar and and write with Ian Thornley from big rec, you know, and these the standstills and other great Canadian rock band, the trues. So it's been great to be able to write with all of that kind of genre of folks, and then be able to turn around and go, you know, you take from both sides. And I think creatively, it's what makes me be able to come up with different ideas, or at least different ways of looking at country music when you're writing with, you know a Jason Blaine, or you know Chad Brownlee, or whoever the artist is, or the road hammers, for that matter, to be able to have a different perspective.

Terry Evans  54:16  
And then your influences come back around full circle, almost, because it's obvious there's some Tom Petty influence. And you've got the legendary life of Tom Petty that you've been touring across and been quite successful with across Canada. And, I mean, it's, it's a show, and I can't wait to see it myself. We've got one coming up at the end of November here in Edmonton. I'm very excited to go and catch it, and you you end up, you know, being in a crowd of people, and obviously they're expecting the Tom Petty material, because you're, that's what you're, that's what you're doing. It's the legendary life of Tom Petty. You're, you're, uh, paying homage to. One of the greatest artists of our generation, and it's going real well for you.

Clayton Bellamy  55:05  
Yeah, that's been really fun again, one of those things that you never know how the river is going to bend and and I got an opportunity to from some friends of mine, to do this thing called the legendary life of Tom Petty, and just go out and play some shows as a, as an established artist representing somebody who I, you know, admire. So we, it's not me pretending to be Tom, we don't do any of that. In fact, we it's, I'm doing my interpretation of the music, and I get to dig into all of these live shows and come up with, you know, ways we're going to, we're going to make a create a concert, and interspersed with that is just stories from Tom's life and and and his journey kind of thing. So we have all kinds of video and and pictures playing in the background as we're as we're rocking out to Tom Petty. And then in the middle i i play a couple of songs that I wrote that may have been an influence down the line, by Tom and and it makes for a really great night of music.

Terry Evans  56:03  
I'm looking forward to seeing it. The hour has flown by. Man, it sure has. I got a piece of paper pinned to my wall here with probably two more shows worth of questions, and I still the first thing I'm going to do when we're done. John, William, Bellamy,

Clayton Bellamy  56:25  
we haven't even, we haven't talked about aliens or conspiracy theories yet, and we have, like, I got so much material for you.

Terry Evans  56:33  
Were you ever ready? Were you ever abducted? Abducted? And then you got onto the spaceship, and you looked over and said, hey, it's Sammy Hagar. Yeah. Sammy Hagar, biography, man, he'll tell you all. It's something else. God,

Clayton Bellamy  56:49  
I can't wait. I keep waiting. I go out on my deck every night and look up there and go. I'm ready. Like, can we go now? Please? Like, anytime, clocks ticking.

Terry Evans  56:59  
Clayton, Bellamy, so great to see you. We, yeah, we've got to do this again, because we've got to talk about your philanthropy and the Clayton Bellamy Foundation for the Arts. Clayton Bellamy Foundation for the arts.org,

Clayton Bellamy  57:12  
yeah, that's it. Yeah, we raise money for to send kids a secondary education in the arts. And we've, we're building a theater right now in my hometown of bonneyville, it's been the best thing I've ever done with music is to be able to have that opportunity to to share it in a way where we're we're helping people. We're

Terry Evans  57:30  
going to leave it to at that, and we'll talk more about that next time I have you on, it's been a real treat. I appreciate you taking the time. Man, my pleasure. Amigo, we'll

Clayton Bellamy  57:40  
see you soon. Yeah. Love

Terry Evans  57:41  
you, man, take care later.

Unknown Speaker  57:43  
Reluctantly,

Terry Evans  57:45  
today's podcast is brought to you by the Clayton Bellamy Foundation for the Arts, which supports education and community based programs in the province of Alberta, by providing financial support to arts programs in need, and by advocating the benefits and importance of arts education, reluctantly you.