We’ll also release album teasers, behind the scenes videos, and more song demos as well as the album title and cover, but only for those who choose to take part in our April 1st project:)

In this epic and bloody battle, there had to be a loser and a winner.  Unfortunately for A.J. he was up against a pro.  I have to be honest, I think A.J. could have taken a better shot.  Yes, we’re from Bozeman, but that’s not an automatic win.  We have plenty of out of state fans and then there’s Billings, which is pretty much right down the middle.  If A.J. would have tried harder, he wouldn’t have to wear this image on his Facebook profile for 45 days!

Josh, the king of abidition, the lord of promotion, loyal of the loyal, goes to bat for his honor once again.

FINAL SCORE: Cats 1049 – Griz 742

Get your downloading finger ready, there’s an interesting sports related angle which includes pitting Josh against A.J. in a downloading war.  The loser has to sport a very specific and humiliating Facebook profile pic for 45 days starting on Monday March 7th.

Andrew Petroff was a member of The Clintons from 2002 to 2006 and appeared on Strange Day in Mexico.  As I mentioned a few days ago, Andrew is producing our next record!  Stay tuned for the next big update.

Andrew Petroff, son of local Bozeman, MT musician, Reeves Petroff, will be playing bass in the band Steel Magnolia on The Late Show With David Letterman, Monday (Feb. 7).

The winners of CMT’s Can You Duet in 2009, Steel Magnolia released their debut full-length album in January on Big Machine Records. They are nominated for ACM Awards in the categories of top vocal group and top new vocal duo or group. Their other hits include “Keep on Lovin’ You”  and “Just by Being You”.  Andrew has been touring with them since early 2010 opening for bands such as Brad Paisley, Darius Rucker, and Josh Turner.  Steel Magnolia is currently on tour with Blake Shelton promoting their current single “Last Night Again”.

Paisley’s show just graced Bozeman’s Brick Breeden Fieldhouse last September but Andrew said, “Steel Magnolia’s last show on the Brad Paisley tour was just two days before the Bozeman show.  It would have been fun to come home and play the Fieldhouse but I’ll catch it next time around.”

Andrew is a Bozeman native who attended Bozeman High School and worked at Music Villa during his high school years.  Just out of high school he joined the Bozeman based band The Clintons in 2002 until he moved to Nashville in 2006 to finish college and pursue a career in music. He earned a bachelors degree in Entertainment Industry Studies with a minor in Music Business from Belmont University in Nashville, TN while at the same time working his way through the ranks of the Nashville music scene.

Petroff says that in addition to playing recording sessions in Nashville and being the touring bassist for Steel Magnolia, he’s an aspiring music producer.  He played a role in the production of Steel Magnolia’s Christmas single “Christmas Time” and is currently producing the next Clintons record due out this summer.  “I’m super pumped to be back with the Clintons crew for this album. It’s going to be a lot of fun!” Andrew says regarding the project.

Tune in to CBS tonight to watch Andrew perform live with Steel Magnolia on The Late Show With David Letterman.  Check local listings for the show time.

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Andrew is pictured below on stages around the US with Steel Magnolia.

Since reading all of your feedback here’s what we’ve learned:

You want live stuff

Good news here.  We’re planning on releasing Clintons Bootleg #3 very soon.  It will include at least a couple live tracks from various sources (11th & Grant??!!).  Also, John & Josh (The Wench) just released a live CD/DVD of their show at the Yellowstone Valley Brewing Company in Billings, MT.  You’ll be able to grab a copy of that at their side project website http://www.wenchband.com.

You want a few covers

The new CD will include one seriously bad ass cover tune.  We can’t wait for you to hear it!  Not to get you too excited for Clintons bootleg #3, but a full band, live, acoustic version of this song just might be on it.

You want us to stay the same

Our next CD is going to be a little different on the production side but the songs are as Clintons as you can get.  There are plenty of extremely left field tunes and some classic sing alongs and all attitude baby!

You don’t mind novelty and humor but you want it separate from full length CDs

We fully agree with this.  John just released an interesting side project of skits with our bro Jim.  You can listen to the whole thing here: http://www.reverbnation.com/yimyon.  Also, at some point this year, we’ll be releasing our second Giggles EP.  Get the first one for free at http://www.gigglesnation.com.  We’ll let you know when the second one comes out!
Lots of stuff is happening this year.  Thanks for all of your feedback and involvement.  We love hearing from you!

-Levi

The song list is finalized.  John and I have two co-write songs to finish but other than that, demos are done and we’re well into pre-production.

We’re shaking things up quite a bit on this record.  The biggest change is that I’m not producing it.  I’ll remain heavily involved with the final product but for this round the great Andrew Petroff is heading up the project as the official producer.

Andrew Petroff - Steel Magnolia

Andrew was the bass player in The Clintons for about four years.  Since A.J. joined the band Andrew has been in Nashville, TN playing in bands, interning and working at recording studios and publishing companies.  The dude has logged ridiculous miles in Prevost tour buses opening up for bands like Brad Paisley.  He’s currently the touring bass player for Steel Magnolia (same record label and management as Taylor Swift & Rascal Flatts).  He also produced their Christmas single It’s Christmas Time.

I couldn’t be more excited about this change up.  Andrew and I have always been on the same page musically and I know that John trusts him a great deal too.  Also, instead of flying to Phoenix to record drums, I’ll be flying to Nashville at the end of February to record drums with Andrew at The Brown Owl studio.

The coolest part about this record is the songs, attitude, and vibe of the whole project.  We’ve never had such a flawless song list for a record.  Hands down, this will be the best record we’ve put out.  We’re even including a cover song that we’ve never played live and we’re trolling the waters for some collaborators/guest vocals/guest musicians.  As a side note, even though I mentioned a few country acts above, this is not going to be a country record in the slightest.  More hints to come…

As if this isn’t the best Clintons news ever, we’re releasing Clintons Bootleg #3 very soon.

Please, tell me what you think about all this in the comments below!

-Levi

Get your friends to hook me up with feedback too:

Ok, so we released Have Another in 2008. It usually takes a year or so for me to get a feel for how good the last CD REALLY was. In the case of Have Another, I’d have to say that it’s one of my faves. We play Jesus, Real Man, She’s a Chimney, Undercover World, Senior Kegger, & Dub T Bootay at almost every show and they’re all still really fun to play.

We’ve got a pile of new songs that we haven’t even tried to play live yet. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to approach the production of the next CD. Here are some factors that come to mind:

1.) We just released “Decade: The Best of 10 Years” so it would be cool to put everything in the past and sort of start with a totally fresh approach that doesn’t abandon what we’ve built, but that might be a little uncomfortable at first.

2.) I’ve Got The Clap is a tongue-in-cheek, comedy song that doesn’t really represent Clintons music but at the same time, it’s by far our most popular song when you consider 250k Youtube views in 3 months. Do we incorporate a few of our best non-serious comedy type songs? (Ferretmeister, I’m Irish, I Aint Shittn Ya, Keehr Beer, etc)

3.) We’re far past trying to “make it” in the sense of being an MTV or VH1 artist or being mentioned in the same sentence as Katy Perry or Keith Urban. You see, we’ve already “made it” as far as we’re concerned. We’ve got the most die-hard and loyal fan base any band could ever want. We’re proud of what we have. Yes, we want more fans but our first priority is to make you, our existing fan, shit your pants because we released the best Clintons record you’ve ever heard.

So my question to you is:

What is that one element you’ve always hoped for in a Clintons CD but you’ve never gotten? Any other ideas (left field, legit or not legit)? If you don’t have anything constructive to say, please just make something up and/or be a total smart ass. In our world, even those types of comments can stir up ideas for us.

A few years ago the band was on a long Minnesota tour.  During one of our off days we decided to head down to the neighborhood Wal Mart and peruse the isles for ideas for a video skit.  The only thing we walked away with was a Wiggles CD.  That shit was funny as hell!  We cranked it in Josh’s Mom’s Neon while rolling through parking lots with the windows down.  We went back to the Wal Mart the next day to buy four colorful shirts for our skit.  By now, we’d had time to jot down some ideas for “dirty Wiggles songs”.  In other words, songs that kids could listen to that would make grown ups laugh.

We actually never got around to filming anything.  The meat, cheese, and beer got in the way.  Sometime later we were in the van for a long trip and we actually managed to brainstorm some songs.  John eventually arranged and recorded a few that we played on our Monday podcast, but we soon forgot about them.

Randomly we discovered that “I’ve Got The Clap” was made into a ringtone and had since gone viral.  Several videos titled Dirty Wiggles Song: The Clap, had gotten over 50,000 views each before being taken down by the Wiggles.  We even found evidence of I’ve Got The Clap being played by radio morning shows!  Now well over 100,000 views later, we’ve actually published these songs ourselves.  Feel free to download them for free;)

We can’t stop laughing at what a big deal this has turned into.  We’re inspired to keep writing and recording for The Giggles!