EXCLUSIVE: Clay Street Unit Premiere Enchanting New Song, ‘Virginia’, Ahead of Debut Album
By Maxim Mower
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For fans in the know, it might sound surprising to learn that Colorado band Clay Street Unit are gearing up to release their debut album, Sin & Squalor, this Friday (February 13th).
The six-piece - comprising mandolinist Scottie Bolin, banjo player Jack Cline, pedal steel guitarist Brad Larrison, drummer Brendan Lamb, and singer, guitarist and ringleader, Sam Walker - first started garnering a buzz within the alt-country sphere back in October 2022, following the arrival of their first EP, A Mighty Fine Evening.
This led to the band being snapped up by Sony's Monument Records imprint, with their first full-length album, Sin & Squalor, subsequently lined up for a Spring 2025 release. However, Monument then folded, and Clay Street were forced to find a new home.
Thankfully, as is often the case, this turmoil was a blessing in disguise, with Clay Street joining Leo33, which has successfully nurtured the blossoming careers of artists such as Zach Top, Jenna Paulette, Ashland Craft, Jason Scott & The High Heat and more.
And at long last, almost four years after we first started listening to Clay Street Unit's enchanting, fiddle-driven melodies and soul-stirring, yearning storytelling, we are getting their debut album. The band are premiering one of the many stand-outs from the project, ‘Virginia’, exclusively on Holler today (Thursday, February 12th).
Introducing the new track, Bolin reflects on the sense of homesickness that first inspired this nostalgic offering, “Virginia is a nod to my home state and the place where I grew up. I wrote this tune after I’d been away long enough to realize how much I missed the places, people, and feelings of home, and how they never really leave you”.
Opening with Cline's twinkling, playful banjo, Walker's charismatic vocals then enter the fray, as he fondly regales the listener with vibrant, rose-tinted depiction of his beloved Virginia. He paints a bucolic, idyllic scene as he wistfully croons, “Winding roads, take ‘em slow / All day to get there, nowhere else to go / River’s high, water’s warm too / Might as well jump in, we’ve got nothing else to do”.
Although ‘Virginia’ pivots specifically around snapshots of the state's peaceful Appalachian orchards and lush, expansive fields, there is something universal embedded in this ode.
Laced into every line is a deep-seated feeling of longing - one the one hand, to return to a place that feels more familiar than anywhere else on earth, but also, beneath this, to go back to a period in the narrator's life where things felt simpler and more innocent.
‘Virginia’ captures the visceral, perceptive penmanship and refreshingly eclectic musicality that permeates Clay Street Unit's debut studio album, Sin & Squalor, which drops on Friday, February 13th. This body of work is set to propel the up-and-coming troubadours from cult fan-favourites to fully-fledged stars of tomorrow.
Listen to Clay Street Unit's new song, ‘Virginia’, premiering exclusively on Holler, below:
For the full lyrics to Clay Street Unit's ‘Virginia’, see below:
“Get to thinking ‘bout old Virginia
In those hills forever I’ll stay
Apple trees and rolling greens
Won’t you take me home some day
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And I would drive my last mile
Just to see that blue ridge one more time
Looking down across that mountainside
Home is on my mind, well home is on my mind
-
Winding roads, take ‘em slow
All day to get there, nowhere else to go
River’s high, water’s warm too
Might as well jump in, we’ve got nothing else to do
-
And I would drive my last mile
Just to see that blue ridge one more time
Looking down across that mountainside
Home is on my mind, well home is on my mind
-
Hear that banjo in them old time hills
Mandolin ringing through that moonshine still
Down in the holler where the sun it don’t shine
Brighter than a fire on a dark and cloudy night
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And I would drive my last mile
Just to see that blue ridge one more time
Looking down across that mountainside
Home is on my mind, well home is on my mind”
