How Cut Worms Got His Name (and Other Revelations)
Max Clarke taps into a warm, nostalgic sound from the '50s and '60s to produce music that is both indelible and unforgettable.
“It was a reference to a William Blake passage from a book called The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” says Max Clarke about how he devised the name Cut Worms, the moniker under which he records and performs music.
“There’s a section where Blake has this tongue-in-cheek thing called ‘The Proverbs of Hell,'” the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter continues. “And Blake lists — I don’t know how many — like a hundred proverbs that he made up that are speaking to the morality of what at that time was seen as kind of evil. One of the proverbs was, ‘The cut worm forgives the plow,’ which I took to mean that when you’re moving forward and creating something, and trying to get things to grow, things get destroyed and new life comes out of that.
“And also, there’s the idea of a worm getting cut in half and becoming two,” he adds. “But then also just the fact that it was a worm, this lowly kind of disgusting thing that most people think of as being just gross and in the dirt, but actually enriches the soil. They’re squirming around down there making everything above better.
“But also, it is a worm and it’s insignificant and you could step on it. That’s probably the most extensive answer I’ve ever given to that question.”
Critics sometimes judge the name harshly, Clarke notes. “I’m constantly seeing little blurbs with people qualifying the music, saying things like ‘band name aside,’ or calling it a stupid band name. I feel like a lot of critics don’t like it, but I don’t really care.”
Like it or not, it’s a memorable name. The lanky 32-year-old Ohio-raised musician crafts equally memorable music to go along with it.
Clarke’s latest album, the self-titled Cut Worms, his third since 2018, is his best yet. It embraces his tendency for creating songs that evoke a bygone era — a melding of the ’50s, ’60s, and early ’70s into a pastiche of nostalgia that feels comfortably familiar but fresh. Clarke composes songs that are both instantly accessible and infinitely replayable.
Take “I’ll Never Make It,” with its jangly, reverb-drenched electric guitar undercurrent, sustained brass section, and gently bopping 6/8 time, all floating beneath Clarke’s distinctive, melancholic tenor. It could be straight out of a ’50s sock-hop. Or “Don’t Fade Out,” the album’s appealing opener, ever-so-slightly evocative of Motown.
“Too Bad,” the album’s closer, however, is the bona fide showstopper, featuring a soft, soothing start, underscored by a Fender Rhodes piano, which gradually gives way to a dynamic crescendo that carries the song into anthem territory — albeit a restrained one, as Clarke is careful not to overplay any of his musical hands.
There isn’t a wasted track on Cut Worms, and that’s by Clarke’s design. “When I discovered The Beatles, that was the big moment for me,” he says. “It was like the light bulb going off. Every single one of their songs is written as a hit.
It seemed like other bands that I’d listened to previously, you’d get maybe two or three really solid songs on an album, and the rest of it just felt like it was just in-between stuff. When I discovered The Beatles, I realized it was possible to just make every song really good. So that became the impossible standard I set for myself.”
He admits that his music is influenced by the past but bristles a bit at the suggestion that its purpose is to evoke nostalgia.
“I just love a lot of music from those times, so I think it just naturally comes through in what I write,” he says. “I see the songs that were written in those periods and the quality of the melodies that were written then. They just feel, to me, as the strongest stuff that I’ve heard in my life. So I just try to do that as best I can, try to go after that sound.
“I guess the tones I end up using evoke some of those time periods,” he concedes. “But I’m certainly not trying to make a period piece, historical reproduction, or only looking backward — which I feel is the impression I get that some critics think. I feel like what I’m doing is relevant, at least to me, in the modern age.”
Cut Worms and his band perform on Wednesday, Sept. 6, at Songbyrd, 540 Penn St. NE. John Andrews & The Yawn open. Tickets are $23.18. Visit www.songbyrddc.com.
The Cut Worms Tour runs through Oct. 11, ending at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg. To see all dates and cities, visit www.cut-worms.com/tour.
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