Lady Amelia writesA Conversation With BESTMAN

BESTMAN is the synthpop project of local artist Brian Clouthier. CHIRP volunteer Amelia Hruby caught up with Brian after the release of his new EP BIG SKY.

Amelia: Tell me how you started BESTMAN.

Brian: I started about three years ago. I had been playing in bands in Chicago and met a lot of really cool people, but I felt that I still needed a creative outlet of my own.

Around that time my best friend moved to California with his fiancé who was another one of my really close friends, and I was kind of bummed about it, because we had been close for a long time. So when he asked me to be the best man in his wedding, I took a trip out there. I had only been to California one time before, and I stayed in the Valley the entire time and just thought it was miserable. It totally validated my “I’m a Chicago guy” kind of thing, and I really didn’t understand the romance of the West Coast. But when I went out there to throw his bachelor party, we went to Malibu and Venice and down the coast, hiking in the canyons, and I finally got it.

I came home really inspired to make music that would melt the blue-collar aspect of the Midwest and Chicago and the rock music I had been playing for a long time with this new Cali-electro sound that had started to draw me in.

Keep Reading…