Searching for his groove: Jarod Clemons carves out his niche as a singer, songwriter and musician

By: Ray Schweibert | May 2, 2024 |  Entertainment |  Monmouth County

By Ray Schweibert

A quick listen to any of the songs penned and performed by Jarod Clemons, and the “blues-inspired rock and roll” that he and his band the Late Nights dub their sound will quickly become self-evident.

Clemons has an undeniable knack for melding heartfelt lyrics into exceptional tunes, and he has the vocals, the chops on guitar, and the obvious talents of his bandmates to back them up.

Next month – 7:30 p.m. Sunday, June 16, at the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park – Jarod Clemons and the Late Nights will play as part of the North To Shore Festival (NorthToShore.com) when Asbury Park becomes the first of the festival’s three week-long residences from June 10 to 16. The festival later moves to Atlantic City (June 17 to 23) and Newark (June 24 to 30). Clemons is the band’s principal songwriter, lead vocalist and lead guitarist, although he sometimes switches between lead and rhythm guitar with fellow axman Alex Fuhring. Other band mainstays include keyboardist Dan Hogan and bassist Tom “Big T” Devine.

The Late Nights’ performance that June night will serve as a celebration of the life of Jarod’s famous father, Clarence Clemons, who died in 2011 and is enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a founding member of and saxophonist for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Since relocating to Monmouth County from Florida about five years ago, some of the songs Jarod Clemons and the Late Nights have released include “On The Waves,” “Ramblewood Parkway,” “Sinkin,” “Watch Me Bleed,” “It Don't Matter to Me,” “Money,” “In The Shadows,” “Workin' Man” and others.

Jarod Clemons also has a self-penned collection of about a dozen songs that he hopes to release soon as a solo album.

Community Magazine NJ spoke with Jarod recently.

Community Magazine: Can you describe how your musical journey came to be where it is now?

Jarod Clemons: I was on a tour as an acoustic guitar player, and about five years ago I played a show with these guys who opened the show for me and were really good. We talked after the show and they said that if I’m ever interested in starting a band, or if I’m ever in their area, to let them know.
So I went home and gave it some thought, and I’m thinking “Wait, these guys are awesome and they want to start a band with me? Let’s do it.” I basically dropped everything I had in Florida and moved up to Jersey to start a band with these guys.

CM: I listened to several of the singles you streamed online and it’s a tight sound. Do you have an album in the works with the band?

JC: Well, it’s been a bit of a roller coaster in terms of getting an album out with the Late Nights, but we tracked my solo album in like 48 hours. That’s a side project that I’ve been working on for quite a while.

We tracked that just for Jarod Clemons without the Late Nights. We’re trying to figure out what to do with the band, because that’s still on the line as well.

CM: I came across a track list of songs you posted to social media – who wrote these?

JC: I wrote them all. Most of them I’ve written over the past maybe two or three months. I love to rock but I felt like I wanted to tell my story more, so I kind of expressed a moment of vulnerability with these songs and I feel they turned out to be among the best songs I’ve ever written.

CM: What’s the process in writing songs? Do you sit down and formulate lyrics and then put them to music with your guitar later?

JC: Honestly, it all comes differently. There are times where I won’t even touch my guitar. I’ll go weeks without playing my guitar and I’ll be on my drums – because I started playing drums when I was a kid – so there’s times where I won’t play guitar for a while just to re-spark my inspiration and new ideas.

Then there’s times where I’ll take a look at lyrics I wrote a while back, pick up the guitar and think “these chords would go great with this song.” In the case of these newer songs, I had this old Epiphone Century (classic guitar) in my closet for years and I totally forgot I even had it. I picked it up and, for some reason, all these songs came out of me. So the instrument can inspire the songs too (laughs).

CM: When did you switch from drums to playing guitar?

JC: I was roughly five when I started on drums. That was my first instrument. My brother used to tell me that when I sat down on the kit at five that I was playing better than the guy on the radio.

When I lost my dad (Jarod was 13), I was going through a really tough time. Then I lost my mom (singer Jacqueline Monteau) shortly after that. I was forced to move to Arizona (to live with an aunt and uncle), and that’s when I really started to pick up the guitar.

A couple of years down the line, while still living in Arizona, my uncle was in a really bad house fire. I wasn’t home at the time. He wound up in a burn unit and that’s when I picked up the acoustic and really started expressing my singing more. I played “Everlong” for him. That was the first song I ever played in front of him. It was such a special moment, because until then I was never really comfortable singing or confident with my vocals. Unfortunately, my uncle lost his battle due to his injuries. So ever since then I’ve really been honing in on my songwriting, and took the guitar role on more so than drums.

CM: You seem to have endured more heartache by age 26 than some people have in a lifetime. Would you say tragedy served to inspire some of your songs?

JC: I’m not very vocal about some of the things I’ve been through just because, for me personally, I feel like whenever I talk about it, I’m making the room feel bad for me, and I’m not trying to do that at all. That’s why I never sat down to write songs along those lines until now, because I just didn’t want that spotlight on my situation as much as it’s already been. I didn’t want to expose myself or show my vulnerability like that.

But with these songs it just kind of flowed through me. It felt right and I feel like the timing is right. I feel like I’ve processed everything a lot more. The first song on that album that I wrote, called “In the Shadows,” I wrote at the beginning of the pandemic, when everything first shut down, because it was a dark time and people were feeling like they were alone. For me, I felt like I was alone on top of feeling like I was alone, if that makes any sense. That’s where that song came from. It’s definitely one of my favorite songs that I’ve written, for sure.

CM: Did you get a lot of support from your parents from a musical standpoint early on?

JC: I was still so young when I lost both of them that I didn’t really have a platform at the time. They were very supportive of my drumming, and saw the potential that I had, and since I saw that they had the confidence in me, that served me well in having confidence in myself. It kept me moving forward.

Just knowing that they inspired me to keep going, and that that’s what they would want me to do, regardless of what I might be going though, was inspirational.

CM: I read that your mom was a very accomplished vocalist.

JC: Absolutely. I grew up going to church with my mom, and every church we went to she’d sing in the choir or the front vocal team. She loved to sing and had a great voice.

CM: Did your dad get behind your decision to take up drumming even though he was one of the world’s most famous saxophone players?

JC: He was actually very excited and over the moon about it. I wish he was still here, because I’m sure that we would have put out an album together by now.

CM: Your North To Shore concert is serving as a tribute to your dad, right?

JC: Yes, twice a year we do tribute shows to my dad. We do one for his birthday (January 11) and we do one on the anniversary of his passing (June 18). People tend to get the wrong impression about the show on the anniversary of his passing – it’s not like we’re celebrating his death at all. What we’re doing is what he’d want us to do, and that is to get together on a day that’s supposed to be sad and make it happy for everybody and memorable in a positive way.

I remember shortly after he passed, the whole family went out to eat and were having a good time, laughing about all the great memories we had together, and that’s what I’m trying to do – but also including all of his fans and all of the people who looked up to him for years.

CM: What will your setlist for these tribute shows entail?

JC: I’ll mostly cover my songs, a few Bruce songs, and my dad’s songs (along with his work with The E Street Band, Clarence Clemons had a solo band with singer JT Bowen called The Red Bank Rockers. He also had a 1985 hit with Jackson Browne called “You're a Friend of Mine,” and worked with fellow music luminaries Aretha Franklin, Ringo Starr, Jerry Garcia, Aja Kim, Alvin Lee, Lady Gaga and others).

It’s going to be a good time. It always is.

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Jarod Clemons and the Late Nights
7:30 p.m. Sunday, June 16
Wonder Bar, 1213 Ocean Ave., Asbury Park
Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 the day of the show.
WonderBarAsburyPark.com, NorthToShore.com
732-455-3767