Miles From Clever, but still a good band

Friday, Aug. 29, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Submitted photo Ward Carroll founded the St. Mary’s County band Miles From Clever. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Carroll spends most of the year with his family in Leonardtown. He spends a smaller portion in San Francisco for his job.

‘‘I’ve never been particularly interested in job security,” Carroll said. ‘‘I always just wanted to do something that’s fun.” He started with Military.com about three years ago, and ‘‘it’s the best job I’ve ever had,” he said. ‘‘It really does leverage everything I’ve done,” which includes writing novels, drawing cartoons, magazine editing and freelance writing, not to mention a career with the U.S. Navy as both a pilot and an instructor at the Naval Academy.

And then there’s rock ‘n’ roll.

During the course of a 30-minute phone conversation, Carroll, who became a ‘‘Beatles freak” in sixth grade, explained in various ways how the rock ‘n’ roll experience, which began for him in 1972 with a Who concert in Amsterdam, remains a vital part of his life and continues to manifest itself in Miles From Clever, a four-piece band composed of U.S. Navy pilots. (Carroll, meanwhile, writes on his Web site that he credits his entire sense of meter to The Beatles.)

Carroll’s search for the right mix of pilots began four years ago while he was working at Patuxent Naval Air Station. In forming this band, he seemed to know exactly what he was looking for: a top-notch trio that would uncork revved-up and elastic covers by bands the likes of REM, Green Day, Johnny Rivers, The Who and Bowling for Soup.

He also knew exactly what he was not looking for, and this is another idea he explained in various ways.

‘‘We don’t want to have the novelty of a bunch of old farts that play music,” he said. ‘‘When we hit the stage it better rock.”

Or, ‘‘I’m not going to be with a bunch of guys who want to be in a band to get out of the house, because they don’t feel like mowing the lawn.”

And definitely not ‘‘40-something husbands and fathers that just want to bang on an instrument twice a month.”

Good news: Carroll has avoided these scenarios. The videos and MP3s on the band’s Web site, www.milesfromclever.com, for one, seem to provide proof that Miles From Clever, as designed, is indeed the dance-inducing, quintessential bar band it set out to be.

In the early 1980s, Carroll fronted a three-piece rock band, The Cheaters, a Pensacola, Fla.-based group known for its tune, ‘‘The Politics of Surfing,” which garnered some airplay.

‘‘We made a lot of money,” he said. ‘‘It was a dream come true. I was a full-time musician.”

But the full-time approach is no longer an option. ‘‘In the middle of a midlife crisis, the idea of doing that is very attractive,” he said, although maybe it’s not right for ‘‘guys who coach soccer.”

Regardless, Carroll wanted to instill the same kind of professional approach in Miles From Clever’s two or so monthly gigs. The band, which has expanded to four — Steve Wallo (drums), Steve Garner (bass) Ed Gassie (lead guitar) and Carroll (rhythm guitar and vocals) — plays long sets with fast segues between tunes ‘‘that are recognizable but not cute.”

‘‘The performance is a jam,” he said, ‘‘and it’s fun, in the very rock ‘n’ roll sense of the word.”

As always, Carroll is excited about the Aug. 30 gig at Cryer’s Back Road Inn in Leonardtown. He described the Southern Maryland bar scene as ‘‘fickle,” meaning places frequently go out of business or decide the live bands are not worth it or burn down.

Cryer’s, however, remains the band’s mainstay.

‘‘That’s like our Fillmore,” he said. ‘‘Our fans are kind of like Seventh District meets Avenmar moms.”