Submitted photo / Erica Dilcer David Minarik Jr., Scott Blasey, Greg Joseph and Robert Jones have been making music together as The Clarks since they were college students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1986.

The Clarks will celebrate its 40th anniversary with a concert at Pittsburgh’s Stage AE on June 13.

Those attending the Ribs-N-Rock Festival in Boardman will get a sneak preview the night before.

“We’re going to do the exact same set in Youngstown that we’re going to do at Stage AE,” Scott Blasey said. “It’s a great way to make sure everything works with guitar changes and in the way the set flows from one song to the next. We do it there, and if there’s anything that really stands out that doesn’t work, we’re able to make those tweaks.”

Blasey, lead vocals and guitar; Robert James, guitar and vocals; Greg Joseph, bass and vocals; and David Minarik Jr., drums and vocals, have been making music together since 1986 when they all were students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Over the years, the band released 15 albums and two best-of compilations, performed on “Late Show with David Letterman,” had its music prominently featured on popular television shows and filled many of Pittsburgh’s biggest venues.

LOCAL TIES

The Clarks play Ribs-N-Rock nearly every year, and last fall the band opened for John Mayer at Wean Park for YLIVE, but its Mahoning Valley ties go back to the band’s early days.

“Besides where we started in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and then coming to Pittsburgh, honestly I think Youngstown was probably the next place that we started to play,” Blasey said. “Some of my favorite memories were those shows at the Cedars (Lounge), when we were young and often drunk and just having a ball playing.

“The other great memory I have is, very early on, probably ’91 or ’92, we opened up for Joe Walsh (at Stambaugh Auditorium). It was a big deal for us. At that point we had not played big-time shows like that or opened up for big artists, and that may have been one of the first big shows. I met Joe that night, and at the time he was still drinking a lot, and he kind of looked right through me, but what a thrill that was, and that was Youngstown. And then, of course, for many years we played at The Cellar (in Struthers), and I have great memories from those shows. Youngstown’s just been a big part of The Clarks’ history.”

When asked what’s the earliest song he wrote that The Clarks continue to play live, Blasey didn’t hesitate in saying it’s “Penny on the Floor.” And that song also has a Youngstown tie-in.

“All the songs we were writing were fast, loud, aggressive,” Blasey said. “We sort of cut our teeth on bands like The Replacements and The Hoodoo Gurus, those mid ’80s guitar bands, and this song was slower and introspective, and I didn’t think the guys in the band were gonna like it.

“Fun fact, the first time I played it for them was in the dressing room of Cedars, and they loved it, so we recorded it. We didn’t think anybody was going to pay much attention to it, so we buried it towards the end of the second album that we put out. It’s the next-to-last song, and WDVE, the rock radio station here in Pittsburgh, had played a little bit of our stuff here and there, but nothing was in heavy rotation, and suddenly they started playing that, and the feedback was incredible. Before you know it, we were quitting our day jobs and traveling all over.”

CLARKS ALMOST ‘FALL THROUGH’

“Penny” and other fan favorites will be part of the anniversary show, but the band also will play some songs it hasn’t played for decades. One of those is “If I Fall Through,” from the same self-titled album as “Penny,” and it hints at a different history for the band, one where it doesn’t make it to year 6, much less year 40.

“That song is about, I was not certain I wanted to continue playing in the band, that’s what it was,” Blasey said. “The title, ‘If I Fall Through,’ it’s not a relationship thing. It was me saying I don’t know if I want to continue to do this.”

Blasey had a day job selling medical devices for a small company. He liked the owner, he enjoyed the work and could see a future there. He also was in a serious relationship and could see himself taking a more traditional path with his life.

The success of “Penny” changed that.

“That really changed my mindset. I thought, ‘This is an opportunity. I have to see what could happen here.'”

FAMILY BUSINESS

Of the many developments in The Clarks’ 40 years, one that might be the most unfathomable to those college kids is the fact that the band has turned into a multigeneration family business.

For its live shows, The Clarks regularly plays as a seven-piece band, and Minarik’s son, Noah, played many shows with the band and even co-wrote some of its recent songs. Blasey’s father occasionally played drums with James, Joseph and his son when they would do acoustic gigs at Nick’s Fat City in Pittsburgh, and now one of Blasey’s daughters sings with the group on occasion.

“My middle daughter, Ava, is a musical theater major at Point Park University, and she has a phenomenal voice,” Blasey said. “She’ll come out and sing with the band, and it just elevates everything. To be on stage with the band and look over and her looking at me and share that connection musically, spiritually, it’s just magic. There’s really very few feelings in the world that can match performing music with your family.”

The band’s 40th year got off to an attention-grabbing start when its song “Better Off Without You” was featured in an extended opening sequence to the season two debut of the Emmy-winning HBO series “The Pitt.”

It wasn’t the first time The Clarks had been heard on a TV show (its cover of “What a Wonderful World” played over the closing credits of an episode of “The Simpsons”), but this was a Clarks’ original played for a full minute as star Noah Wyle was shown riding a motorcycle in downtown Pittsburgh.

“It was such a cool moment,” Blasey said. “I was here in my house with my wife and our youngest daughter, and when that came on, I’m just standing there with my arms raised … Looking at our Spotify numbers 28 days after the premiere, our Spotify numbers more than doubled, so the awareness of the band was definitely raised.”

THE PAST AND THE FUTURE

In May, the band digitally released a 1993 concert from Pittsburgh’s Graffiti Club that was broadcast live on WDVE. James had a copy of the show on cassette and occasionally he would suggest putting it out. The band’s producer, Sean McDonald, was able to use modern tools to isolate the individual instruments and clean up the recording to the point where the band felt it was worthy of releasing in conjunction with the anniversary.

“He was able to do all those things with digital technology that really couldn’t have even been done 10 years ago, so the time is right, both from a marketing standpoint and from a technological standpoint,” Blasey said.

Blasey enjoyed revisiting that early performance, but he described himself as someone who likes to keep his feet planted in the present with an eye toward the future. With that in mind, he’s already thinking about 2027 and beyond.

“I think it’s time for the band to start writing some new material. I think we’re all reenergized (from) this whole experience with ‘The Pitt’ and this 40th anniversary show. The Stage AE show is selling super well. There just seems to be this renewed interest in the band.

“We’re going to start traveling a little more than we have been. Our kids now are all older, and so it’s a little easier for us to take a little bit longer trips this fall. We’re going back to Chicago. We haven’t been there since before COVID, and going down to Annapolis and Philly and all those places on the East Coast. And then probably in the spring we’ll go back to the Carolinas. There are lots of Western Pennsylvania transplants down there, and, and we used to play there every year prior to COVID. It’s time, I think, to make some new music and maybe hit some markets that we have neglected for too long.”