History Of Clover’s Revenge, Part I: Origins

You might have noticed that Clover’s Revenge opened a Facebook page in February of 2015. Back then, we were really hoping that someday, we’d make a decent pub band.

Getting Going With JB, John Reynolds and Me
John Barron and I have been here since the beginning, but we began with an incredibly talented guitarist, fiddler and singer named John Reynolds. JB and I played with him for one year, and we learned a lot from him. In that time, we built three hours of decent Irish pub music and we started learning traditional tunes. Parting ways with John Reynolds led us, in a matter of weeks, to Dr. Erol Ozsever. Where John Reynolds loved folk music, Erol’s first love was metal.

Finding Irish Speed Folk With Dr. Oz
Erol is an absolute monster guitarist. With a Doctorate in Classical Guitar Performance, Erol brought a new level of badassery to Clover’s Revenge. With Erol, the band started learning Pogues, Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly songs. We worked through a year and a half of Jethro Tull sets, Grateful Dead nights, Sinead O’Connor tunes and Damien Rice evenings. What we figured out was how cool acoustic versions of Irish punk rock tunes sound. Erol wasn’t doing much singing back then (my, how things change!), but he sang harmonies with JB, and he had lead on a few tunes. Then there was this one day when those guys let me have a microphone. I started out by making merciless fun of JB, and the pub loved it. Erol got offered his dream job to teach at a University and after eighty pub shows, he left the band. But, he had this buddy named Zach who might be interested in what we were doing…

Sure! What’s That?
Erol called Zach and said, ‘Hey, do you want to join an Irish Speed Folk band?’
Zach replied, ‘Sure! What’s that?’
Erol showed him the Keep Calm And Get Revenge t-shirt, and brought him to practice.
Zach joined Clover’s Revenge three years ago. Since then, that little fire that JB and I banked with John Reynolds, and then stoked with Erol Ozsever, has gotten a whole lot hotter. Zach, who is also an absolute monster guitarist, comes from an Irish background and grew up listening to his grandparents singing the music we play at pubs. With Zach, the band delivers traditional tunes at record-breaking speeds, offers hilariously nerdy yet strangely thoughtful snark, sings three-part harmonies (four parts when Nancy’s there), and brings the whole pub together to remember and celebrate.

The End Of Part I Is The Start Of Part II
It’s amazing to think about all the stuff we’ve tried: all the songs we learned and discarded, all the venues that didn’t go well, every last wedding we ever played. Despite all that, these original tunes sound great and everyone loves the t-shirts. Clover’s Revenge has become a family, and none of us had any idea it would be this cool. Thanks for joining us when you come out. It truly means the world to us. We promise that we will continue to try to have more fun than you at the pub, every single time.

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