MIKE McCLURE BIOGRAPHY
I started out in the garage when I was 15 years old. I had a three-piece band with
my cousin Bill Phillips and our drummer was John Humphrey (Nixons/Seether).
We played a few gigs around town but not much materialized for me until I
moved to Stillwater in 1991. It was there I discovered the "farm", which was an old
run-down farm house on the outskirts of town. Bob Childers showed up on my front
porch one day and invited me out there. There were tons of musicians who hung
out there, along with writers, painters...all very bohemian.
It was at the "farm" that I really started concentrating on songwriting. It was all
very inspiring to be around those folks. I started a band called The Great Divide and
we were the first band of the "red dirt" scene as it was
called to land a record deal. We signed with Atlantic
Records in 1997. I left the band in 2003 and started
my solo career.
Through producing Cross Canadian Ragweed I met
Joe Hardy. Tony Brown suggested that I contact
him for the mixing. Joe has proved to be the
biggest influence on me to date. He runs
Billy Gibbon's Foam Box studio in Houston.
Before that he ran Ardent Studio
on Memphis. Joe has worked with
everyone from ZZ Top, Doctor John,
Steve Earle, The Replacements, to
me. We have released Foam and
Did7 together for the infamous
Boohatch Records.
Thanks to Joe's guidance I have
learned to engineer my own projects
and we continue to work together. I
have a studio in my basement called
"M.Ray's".
