Craig Clouse - Final Photo Essay

Craig Clouse - The Musician

This is a about a man called Craig Clouse. He is a song writer, musician, artist (both visual and musical), and an amazing man with a very interesting life. In other words he is my father and his past, present and future will always inspire me to be the person I want to be. 

This is Craig. Right before I took this photo he was explaining to me about his music career and how it all started. I asked him how he decided he wanted to get into music. "I just kinda felt it and it came natural. I love music, I've always loved music so I decided I want to make my own." 

We then took a look at his huge collection of records. He started to laugh when I asked him how many records he owned, he told me he owned at least one thousand. It took him a while to think when I asked him this. Everyday all day he is listening to loads of different ones I have never heard before. He has been collecting the for so many years.

The band he is currently is called "S&S" and this is his longest, most successful band. He has been in about ten other musical groups. This is really cool in my opinion and possibly many others because he gets to work with so many other people. Some, very popular so they make him stand out to some people, and other not so much so he can help them grow instead. Every now and then he will come telling us about someone stopping him in the street and talking to him saying how much they love his music. My dad has gotten popular very quickly wether its on the radio, magazine, or possibly a friend or band member.

He has been doing this sort as thing for my whole life and even way before I was born. "I've been performing for at least twenty-five years." I think thats really cool because that means that he has done more than one type of music genre. He has done jazz, electronic, dance, rock etc... But other than that, it means he is extremely talented and more people take interest in him. That makes him special.

"Would you like to keep going in your career or setting down?" I asked. "I wanna keep going of corse!" he said. "I wanna keep going and I don't want to stop for a while." This is one of the reasons he inspires me. He loves what he does and that is what is keeping him going.

I asked what musical equipment he specializes in the most and this is what he said; "Well now a sampler and a drum machine." He is a lot more into having technical instruments that make hundreds of different sounds than what he was into before. "That's at the moment. I used to be really into the bass and the guitar." He also has a big collection of guitars and bass'. 

One of his all time favorite placed to perform live is in London. He says he likes it because its his home town. He also likes performing in Brussels (in Belgium). Craig has played like a crazy amount of times. Every single time has been a success.

As we were looking through all of his records we started listening to some of his own stuff. Its absolutely amazing. I asked him how long it usually takes him to create one song. "It really depends on what I am going for. Sometimes it takes me fifteen minuets but other times it could take me fifteen days." I think it incredible that he can make a whole song in just fifteen minuets. He told me that he has made about 30 albums. 

He was telling me about all the amazing people he listens to and loves, so I asked him who insprired him. He said that he couldn't just pick one or a few. There were so many people way in his past who made him be who is now. 

This photo is of him with his most recent album. I actually took the photos for the front and back cover. I also take some of the pictures for his record labels and when he is in magazines. If you like the magazine "WIRE" then you should check out some of his articles. He tells you more about what he does and what his plan is for the future.