Clayton Senne and The Unfair Advantage
Orlando, Florida, United States
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The Social was rapidly filling up as Orlando-based singer/songwriter Clayton Senne hit the stage. As soon as the solo keyboardist started playing, the audience abandoned all thoughts of anything else as they stood in rapt attention seemingly afraid to miss even a single song. He started off his set with “Back To Me,� an attention grabbing upbeat song with a big jazz vibe that also revealed his powerful, passionate vocals. The rest of his set was packed with his original songs, showing an obvious blues, soul and pop influence including “Mercy,� “Walk Out The Door,� “Cry� and “Wonderland.� He also included a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,� proclaiming it to be “The song that changed my life.� - Southeast Performer
Exceptional offspring makes soulful music
Clayton Senne returns to Kansas to release debut CD on Saturday
By Bill Blankenship
The Capital-Journal
Published Thursday, July 31, 2008
Talent is the rule for one of The Exceptions' progeny.
Clayton Senne, whose father, Craig Senne, co-founded the popular Topeka band and whose mother and stepfather, Marta and Richard Barron, are longtime members, is carrying on their musical legacy.
Samantha Yeakle / Submitted
Singer-songwriter Clayton Senne, who played in Topeka bands in his youth, is back from Florida this week for his debut CD release party Saturday night at The Granada in Lawrence.
CD RELEASE
Clayton Senne will have a release party for his debut CD, "Wonderland," on Saturday night at The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence. Admission is $7, and doors open at 7 p.m. Preceding Senne on the stage will be Finishing Last and Big Surrender. It is an all-ages show. You can sample Senne's music at his MySpace page at www.myspace.com/musicbyclayton.
The 23-year-old recent college graduate is back home this week from Orlando, Fla., to release his debut CD, "Wonderland," at a show Saturday night at The Granada in Lawrence.
Senne was exposed to music early and has been playing it most of his life.
"It was definitely in my blood," Senne said. "My dad, Craig, started The Exceptions with Randy Wills back in the mid-'60s. My dad was the first person to give me piano lessons."
"I lived with my mom and my stepdad, so I got to see them play in The Exceptions," said Senne, who added, "Richard has been the strongest musical influence on me growing up."
Richard Barron's music collection, which included Stevie Wonder and other Motown artists, influenced Senne's sound.
However, Senne also was moved by how Ric Barron sang and how he could sometimes move audiences to tears.
"Just the way he plays and the way he sings, it just affected me," Senne said. "I think that's why I went the more soulful route instead of straight-up rock 'n' roll."
Senne attended Shawnee Heights High School, from which he graduated in 2003. In high school, he was "a choir dork, actually," he said, with a laugh.
Senne also played in local bands, including Epiphany, FreeState and Cold Turkey, the latter of which was an eight-piece Christian ska band that proved to be a regional success.
After a year and a half at The University of Kansas, Senne moved to Florida to attend Full Sail University, a private college geared toward the entertainment industry.
There he earned degrees in recording arts and music business and got involved in the local music scene as a singer-songwriter.
About a recent performance in Orlando, a reviewer wrote, "As soon as the solo keyboardist started playing, the audience abandoned all thoughts of anything else as they stood in rapt attention seemingly afraid to miss even a single song."
A fellow Full Sail alumnus produced "Wonderland," on which Senne's mother was able to sing backup vocals on some tracks.
"Because she's my mom, our voices blend really well together," Senne said.
Senne said he is putting together a touring band so he can do more gigs in support of "Wonderland," tracks of which can be heard on his MySpace page at www.myspace.com/musicbyclayton.
The Barrons — well-known in Topeka because they operated Rosa's Mexican Restaurant and Rosa's Atrium Cafe — will be sharing the stage with Senne on Saturday. Senne said his father will be running the lights at the CD release show.
Also performing with Senne will be drummer Chris Woolaway, a former bandmate from high school, and bassist Alan Eisman, whom Woolaway recommended.
Senne said releasing his CD in Kansas offered him a chance for the first time since Christmas to visit his family, which includes six siblings and 15 nieces and nephews.
"I've missed them all a lot," he said.
- Topeka Capital Journal
On the road to pop stardom, Clayton
Senne has played in some
peculiar places.
“A long time ago, a band I was in actually
played in the middle of a bowling
alley,” he said. “This will be the first
roller-skating rink.”
The Florida singer-songwriter was
referring to a gig Saturday at Hoffy’s
Skate America in Eau Claire, where
Senne is one of four acts
on the bill.
The concert will
be headlined by Ryan
Cabrera, who has scored
radio hits with “On the
Way Down” and “True.”
Cabrera also appeared
regularly on the MTV
reality show “The Ashley
Simpson Show” as the starlet’s boyfriend.
Senne, who is touring with Cabrera
this summer, spoke via telephone during
a tour stop in Little Rock, Ark.
Senne, 23, is promoting the album
“Wonderland,” released a year ago. Two
songs, “Cry” and “Wonderland,” have
been featured on MTV series.
“It was a humbling experience,” Senne
said of the television exposure. “I can
go out and I can play 200 shows a year
in front of 200 people a night, and that’s
great and that’s awesome. You get one
song on one TV show, and in 15 seconds
more people hear you than in an entire
year of touring.”
Senne, who now lives in Orlando, grew
up in Kansas in a musical family. His
father played piano. His mother sang
and played piano. His stepfather also is a
singer and guitarist.
“The entire time I was in Kansas I
used to bitch and moan that I got to get
out of here,” Senne said. “So I move to
Florida, and I realize that kind of everywhere
sucks in its own right, and Kansas
wasn’t that bad. It made me appreciate it
that much more.”
Senne learned piano at a young age.
He plays keyboards during concerts,
allowing him to modify songs live. He
sneaks in an occasional cover tune but
mainly sticks to his own songs.
“For me, music is emotion,” he said. “I
feel like it’s my duty and my gift to get
up there on stage and portray this emotion,
and it’s so much easier for me to do
that when it’s songs I’ve written. It’s so
much closer to home.”
Senne plans to work on a new album
this fall. He has been testing new material
during shows this summer.
“It’s invaluable to perform songs
before you go and record,” he said. “That
really helps to work out the kinks. Sometimes
it inspires you to go a certain
direction.”
But at Saturday’s show Senne might be
safer on stage than on the rink.
“I used to Rollerblade like crazy,” he
said. “One of the worst accidents in my
life; I have like four scars on my body
from that Rollerblading incident.” - leader-telegram
http://www.musicbyclayton.com/greenvillearticle.html - Industrymag.net
Discography
2008 - Wonderland EP
2011 - ...and her name is Music
Photos
Bio
The way Clayton Senne sees it, a songwriter’s work is never done and that’s just how he likes it. Onstage for the fifth night in a row, he plays his crowd-favorite “Walk Out The Door,” but this time adding in just enough tweaks and twists to keep it fresh and fun - not just for his fans, but every bit as much for himself. Such is the life of a singer/songwriter who loves the road and plays a different show each night, even if the set list remains the same.
“I’m constantly tinkering with songs, even after they’re recorded,” he explains. “I’m not making these major, sweeping changes, but maybe I’ll alter a certain emphasis or chord. They’re still living, breathing parts of me and are always going to grow and morph and change.” For Senne, whose songs are built around the fluidity of feelings and emotions, it’s only natural that they shift shapes during live sets whether they be his own headlining gigs or opening slots for Marcy Playground, Eve 6, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers or Vertical Horizon. “As a fan, I think it’s incredible to go to shows and say, ‘oh cool, it was recorded like this but the performer killed it in another fashion.’ And I don’t want to shortchange myself musically, I want to feel that freedom onstage and not be confined to completely duplicate the recorded version….if ‘Cry’ is really flowing one night and the crowd is really into it, yeah, we’ll toss a couple of extra lines in there. I’d do myself and them a disservice to just say ‘hey this song is 3:42 and I can’t go a second over.’”
It usually takes the spirit and ability of a seasoned professional to approach each concert with this kind of casual confidence, not a youth whose peers are still taking shaky, tentative steps toward adulthood and careers. But Senne started on his journey decades ago while growing up in Kansas. The son of working musicians, he describes a childhood of piano lessons (from Dad, of course) that began before Kindergarten and of being “a five year old kid in the bars at 3am watching my parents play.” Their artistic influence runs deep, explaining how he can channel such deep blues and soul in each of his songs. And their professional influence is even more obvious - becoming a songwriter and musician was a natural, and extremely supported, choice for their son.
Despite such a seasoned approach to his work, Senne remains remarkably modest about his own soulful pop. On his debut album, Wonderland, he aims to just let people know who he is. “I want it to be something I can have confidence behind and use as a great foundation. I want to hand it to people and maybe open some really cool doors as much as I want my niece or nephew to love it.” And those doors are indeed swinging open, including the front gates at MTV, who picked both “Cry” and “The Sun Will Rise” for their hit series “The City” and “Wonderland” for The Real World: Brooklyn.
Wonderland is a personal tome, a collection of songs that reflects his life, songs that tell of the heartbreak and mutual destruction of a 3 year relationship that was headed toward the altar. “A lot of the lyrics on the album are about my (and friends’) experiences, but recently when the audience starts singing along with me at shows it’s been making me hear them from a whole new perspective,” he laughs, “and it makes me want to be an even better writer.”
While Senne is a multi-instrumentalist and a complex songwriter, he chose to include two tracks on the album that are stripped down, pairing his vocals with only a piano. “There’s that temptation to squeeze too much into a song, just to sort of say ‘hey look at all this cool stuff I can do,’ and I won’t lie – I certainly went through that phase,” he admits. “But I’ve grown so much and feel so comfortable in my own abilities that I don’t feel like I have to overdo it.”
While working on the album, Senne penned “The Sun Will Rise,” a slow ballad that actually brought him to tears as he wrote the lyrics. “I’m amazed that even with all the emotion I put into the song, I think it’s the album’s best crafted one, too, totally stripped down to chords, melody and lyrics.” His emotion breaks through again on “Cry,” the first song Senne’s stepfather gave his stamp of approval on. “He’s an incredible musician,” Senne raves, “a real bluesman and when he said ‘dammit son, I wish I had wrote that, can my band cover it?’ it was the height of my career. I learned so much about what it means to feel each note or word in a song from him.” Wonderland has its share of fun, too, with songs like the title track, an uptempo, fun crowd-pleaser where he strives to create something broad enough for his audience to love while bringing even the most cynical songwriter to his feet right alongside them.
From a songwriter who is working on 20 new songs at any given moment (“my ADD is very prolific,” he laughs) while reworking his entire repertoire whenever he hits the stage, Wonderland is every bit the calling ca
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