The Henry Clay People Bring Sloppy Fun to the Paramount This Saturday

Often met with comparisons to The Hold Steady, The Replacements and Pavement, Joey Siara of the up and coming Southern CA band The Henry Clay People describes the group’s music quite simply. “I usually just call it rock and roll. Sloppier than most. Hopefully fun.”

Don Yates of KEXP sums up the group’s sound a bit more fully, by offering that Joey and co’s songs are greater than the sum of their parts by “transforming everyday subject matter into raging, celebratory anthems for slacker rock 'n' rollers and other folks just trying to make ends meet.”

Agreeing with both takes, we recommend checking the band out at the Paramount tomorrow night as they open for the Silversun Pickups and Against Me! We’re always fans of bands that (at least lead us to believe that they) don’t take themselves too seriously. Hence we’re eager to see how the band’s good-natured outlook translates to the crowd who will no doubt be gathered for the headliners’ bleaker fare.

When we asked Siara about it, he responded with an expected humorous nonchalance indicating, to paraphrase a line from our favorite sloppy rock band, the bar is really too low to fail. “Typically people don't care much for the opening act. I guess I hope that people come with an open mind. It's not rocket science or anything. I hope they leave thinking that the opener wasn't so bad.”

While our predictive chops don’t measure up to that eight-armed German, we’re confident things won’t turn out so bad after all.

The Paramount Theatre // 911 Pine Street // 7:30 p.m. // $28