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Indie rockers The Cle Elum have shared 'Old Folks,' the new single taken off the duo's upcoming debut album, 'It's OK If It Falls Apart,' out Aug 16 on Winston Sounds. The album features guest vocals from Matthew Caws of Nada Surf and Josh Caterer of The Smoking Popes.

For Sarah Sargent Pepper and Ian Lee, first came love, then came a business marriage, then came the baby, their indie rock outfit The Cle Elum. “The band was formed in the total wrong order,” Lee jokes, ahead of the duo’s long-in-the-making debut album, It's Ok If It Falls Apart, out Friday, August 16, 2024 on independent label, Winston Sounds.

The Chattanooga, Tennessee-based couple – both starting out as drummers – first met in 2011. At that time, Lee had logged an extensive history with rock and punk acts including Bad Oskar, Woolworthy, Not Rebecca, Tom Daily, Electric Airlines (with Ed Roser from Urge Overkill), Kevin Lee (with Jon Brant from Cheap Trick), Goodbye Satellite, Anita and Led Zeppelin 2. Sargent Pepper had also spent a good number of years behind the kit and behind the scenes as a tour manager and merchandising pro.

With the couple finding themselves “inseparable” and a “true force of nature team,” they devised a way to stay together on the road, establishing their company Affordable Tour Solutions that provides support for a wide range of acts including Manchester Orchestra, Nada Surf, Son Volt, Wolf Alice, Andrew Bird, Iron and Wine, Bright Eyes, Cursive, The Get Up Kids, Lucy Dacus, The Black Angels, Sylvan Esso and many others.

But being on the road also provided Sargent Pepper and Lee with the support they needed to give The Cle Elum its own set of wheels. “We have been touring nonstop for 10 years. We’re surrounded 24/7 with incredible inspiration,” says Sargent Pepper. “Part of our story is, ‘How much inspiration can you take?’"

Their road crew experience, creating safe environments for artists to perform, also served them well as a collaborative duo, especially as they found time to focus on The Cle Elum when the pandemic shut down the music industry. “When making art, you have to be extremely sensitive to the input of the other person, and this sensitivity and care for each other was critical when these songs were written,” says Lee.

What resulted was a rich collection of songs – Sargent Pepper on drums and Lee on vocals, guitars and keys – like the foot stomping power pop anthem, “Handclaps and Tambourines,” the catchy alt rock ditty, “I Am A Robot” and the pensive, harmony-filled narrative, “Goodbye Night Sky.” The all-encompassing musical style harkens back to the band’s name, borrowed from the eastern Washington town where Sargent Pepper often went camping as a child. It honors the native Kittitas people, with Cle Elum translating to “swift water,” which says Sargent Pepper, “fits the character of the band’s interest in not being defined to any category of music.”

“We relate to concepts like non-binary or open source (in tech), and feel these concepts are important in art,” adds Lee. “We identify as a rock band, who think like punk rock people, but we might want to write a country song. We want to be both DIY and we want to be part of many communities. We believe in the power of music to bring people together.” Their music did much of the same as their own community rallied behind them on a number of songs with Nada Surf’s Matthew Caws guesting on “I Am A Robot” and The Smoking Pope’s Josh Caterer appearing on “Goodbye Night Sky” and “Did I Get High.”

If there’s one unifying theme to It's Ok If It Falls Apart, it’s that when people come together – in music, in life, in love – it is a powerful thing. “Do we need governments anymore? Are the 1% really going to win? There’s more of us than there are of them, and all they seem to want to do is keep us arguing with each other so we don't look at them. But when you tour you meet a completely different set of people in every city. You realize that there are very few people who are not trying to improve things,” says Lee. “The system is broken, people are not. It’s okay if it falls apart, because we can work together to fix it.”