The Next Big Band?

To read everything from "Rolling Stone" to the "New York Times," one of the next big bands is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Most of the band lives in Brooklyn, but lead singer Alec Ounsworth prefers to keep Philadelphia's Mt. Airy home.

Alec Ounsworth/Clap Your Hands: "Philadelphia's comfortable. There are just places where you feel comfortable. I've been in a bunch of places recently, and you just know it, you just feel it, it's one of those things." Ounsworth is hard pressed to explain much about his band, like how to describe their sound. Alec Ounsworth/Clap Your Hands: "I don't know...a cross between a cloudy day and a sunny day." Well, imagine bands like Talking Heads and Guided by Voices. It's a sound that has taken the band from obscurity -- just two years ago Ounsworth was rehabbing houses in Germantown -- to all of this attention.

But they've also made a name for ignoring attention, saying no to major labels and telling the popular teen show "The O.C." forget it when they wanted to use a song.

Alec Ounsworth/Clap Your Hands: "I just don't think it is necessary again for somebody to overexpose themselves in such a way and I just naturally don't feel like it's the venue for us." A few weeks ago the band kicked off their national tour here and they've gotten props from local radio. Ounsworth is touched to see his hometown show him the love. Alec Ounsworth/Clap Your Hands: "I have an attachment to Philadelphia, but I never expected it to. I never expected it to be reciprocal, but it's nice that it is." Ounsworth has enough material for three more albums. But if his wild ride comes to an end, real life in Mt. Airy suits him fine. Alec Ounsworth/Clap Your Hands: "If it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world for me to go back and do a 9 to 5, 9 to 6 job and do this later."

(Copyright 2006 by 6abc and Action News. All rights reserved.)

Get more News »

• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•