Bleached and sober

Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough is a fitting title for the new Bleached album. The release marks the first time the Clavin sisters (Jennifer and Jessie) have written and recorded an album completely sober. It’s a detail they could have kept under wraps, but they decided the reveal could help their fans in the midst of similar struggles.

“It was definitely something we had to think about when the album was already done and it was about to be released. ‘Do we want to talk about our sobriety?’” Jessie explained. “Jen has three and a half years, and I have a little over two and half years now. We just realized how much it had changed our lives, and I think it was important for us to express that for anybody who is going through any addiction or having a hard time with life in general. I think we wanted to just be able to talk about it and let people know that ‘Hey, you’re not alone. We go through this too.’ We did decide that we would talk about it and be an influence and be role models. In writing and recording this record we were totally sober, and I think it was the first time we had both done that. It was just eye-opening.”

The duo spent the last two years on the road opening for bands such as The Damned and Paramore and, for the first time, experiencing life on the road with clear heads.

“That was a new thing too. To go on the road sober was very different,” Jessie said with a laugh. “To be totally honest, I think that from my personal experience I didn’t believe that I would actually be able to get sober. I think that’s what goes through a lot of people who are trying to get sober. It just doesn’t seem like it’s for you. You think you’re just an individual that has to drink or do whatever you do and that’s how you get by with life. When I had about four or five months sober, we went out on the road and I was just on this high of being sober. To go on tour and see it and not even want it — there was that.”

The natural high of newfound sobriety is evident all over their latest album. There is a heavy pop influence on this release. They wanted to craft an album that would get their fans dancing. To amplify the hooks, producer Shane Stoneback brought out their inner Duran Duran on grooving tracks like “Hard to Kill.” It was a bit of a return to their roots for the Clavin sisters, who grew-up in Hollywood and were influenced by the likes of The Go-Gos and the film Valley Girl. It wasn’t actually their era, but they got a retro-education via cable TV.

“We discovered VH1 Classic,” Jessie explained. “It was this station right next to MTV. We were growing up in the 90s, so we were watching more MTV of the 90s, but we were super-inspired by the 80s. When VH1 Classic was discovered it was all those videos that we were able to watch back to back for hours. I remember just watching it and waiting to see what the next video was. It was like an addiction.”

Bleached plays the Casbah on September 5.