Photo by Jaxon Left
Formed in a shared East LA lockout, Clarion makes fired-up shoegaze driven by the collective intuition of members Saya Oliva (bass/vocals), Anthony Sanchez (guitar), and touring drummer Javier Flores. If they’re not playing a DIY gig at a Denny’s, they’re back in the room where it all started – jamming, debating, refining, and shaping a sound big enough to swallow the space around them.
Drawing from the in-your-face ethos of bands like Fennel, Sonic Youth, Hum, and Julie, their latest six-track EP Blue Fairy is a harsh, abrasive mix of shoegaze, post-punk, and noise-forward rock that sets them apart.
We sat down with Saya and Anthony to talk songwriting, viral success, fan culture, and the strange things that seem to follow Clarion wherever they go.
ALEXA (CULT MACHINE): When you were building the Blue Fairy EP, what felt different compared to your first EP?
SAYA: We put a lot more attention to detail because we had time to do so. Adding more layering in terms of Anthony’s guitars and my vocals, and just adding little sound effects. We had a lot more time to sit down with it.
ANTHONY: I think the best way to summarize it is: more time and money. Those are the two big words. We just had, like Saya said, more time to give more attention to detail. And luckily, we’re very blessed to have more money to spend more time in the studio completing the project. The EP that came out before was completed in three days.
And that was doing bass, vocals, drums – all in three days.
SAYA: The first version was very DIY.
ALEXA: And on this last one, how long would you say it took you guys to complete it?
SAYA: Since we did the studio sessions, it took an extra two and a half weeks?
I kept getting sick… Actually, every time I record vocals I get sick like crazy.
ALEXA: We’re gonna have to start sending you teas. Anthony’s gonna have to start making you tea every morning.
Do you guys think being in LA geographically benefits your music? Do you feel like people are able to find you easier, or do you just feel the creativity from being around other creatives in the city?
ANTHONY: I don’t think necessarily so, in all honesty.
Saya and I, and our drummer Javi, have been in the scene for a pretty good amount of time. We’re really acquainted with the scene in LA and we have a good amount of musician friends. But I don’t really think that being in LA affects the music too much.
Me and Saya, we really preach to people – especially when they come up to us at shows and they’re like, “Should I move to LA to make the dream happen?” and we’re like, no. Stay home. Because you are going to move to LA and pay three times as much for anything. You can do everything that you would do in LA at home.
SAYA: We blew up because of the internet, not because of where we are.
The only thing I will say that works out for us is that we’re in a big city where there’s a lot of people. So people will be like, “Oh, this band is from here, you have to see them” after seeing us online. But it’s the internet that comes first. Put yourself online.
ALEXA: You guys said for your first EP it took three days – for songwriting-wise, how do you know when a song is finished?
SAYA: When you sit back and you’re like, “Oh yeah, this sounds good.”
ANTHONY: We’ve written three songs so far have to or will go onto the album. What I tell Saya and Javi, especially when we’re writing, if we’re playing the same song over and over and it just doesn’t feel right, I don’t like to push it.
I don’t like to be like, “We need to finish this song.”
It will eventually come back to us and we’ll finish it on some random Tuesday at 4 PM. It really is when we finish a song and Javi puts his drumsticks down and we all look at each other.
SAYA: It’s not even spoken, it’s just a mutual feeling that the song is done. And then we start debuting them at live shows because we’re so eager and itchy to play them. That’s like a good indicator that we’re ready.
ALEXA: Is how it’s going to sound live a big consideration for you guys?
ANTHONY: Yes and no. I’m a big preacher of it, but sometimes I don’t follow it myself.. so it’s a little hypocritical. People shouldn’t go out of their way to not sound how they would sound live, because sometimes they make themselves sound really extravagant in the studio but then they falter when it comes to translating that to the live setting.
That can let people down. It’s not an active thing we always think about, but I think all our music just really translates the same way live as it does in the studio, thankfully.
ALEXA: Yeah, and it’s a big thing with stage presence. Like, everyone’s hearing your music, and then the day they get to see you – that’s what keeps them coming back.
One of my favorites from you guys is “Inertia.”
SAYA: That’s also my favorite song!
ALEXA: I was listening on the way here, I was like, yes! This is the one.
What about your guys’ personal favorite tracks from the EP?
SAYA: From the EP, my favorite song to perform live is “Media.” It’s just such a fun song dynamically.
It may not look like I’m having fun live.. but it’s the only song where I have to stand still to perform because it requires a lot of vocal dynamics and I have to use a lot of my diaphragm.
A lot of times when I’m really tired and push myself during shows, I almost pass out at the end.
ALEXA: How are you prepping for shows?
SAYA: I do warm-ups (STARTS HUMMING)
Wait, I’m not gonna do it right here..! (LAUGHS)
But I try to be mindful about not screaming too much during the day. A lot of times on tour it’s really hard because these guys make me laugh like stupid, and it hurts my throat by the time of the show.
I have to stop talking for a little bit, and it’s difficult.
ANTHONY: There are moments in the drives to venues, like a six-hour drive, and I’m usually the first one driving in the morning while these guys fall asleep. And it’s always on the dot – two and a half hours in they both wake up at the same time.
Like you guys were dead asleep two minutes ago and now you’re awake and talking about the most random thing.
SAYA: Javi and I always make this joke that we’re Bluetooth linked. We fall asleep and wake up at the same time.
ALEXA: Anthony, what’s your favorite song from the EP?
ANTHONY: I think my favorites are “Tetra” and “Blue Fairy.” Both have such a big crescendo in their drops. The last hook going into “Blue Fairy” – I posted a snippet of that way before the EP came out and people were messaging me: “Please send me the demo, please send me the demo!!”
I will die on the stance that that is the best hook we have written so far. Whenever we perform it live and we execute it flawlessly, and it just drops perfectly – I’m just like, wow, this song is amazing.
It’s a massive understatement to say people are listening. The duo’s breakout single “Hello Juliet” has exploded, racking up an average of 300k streams a day and easily clearing 50 million total plays across platforms. The track found a massive second life in the anime community, quickly becoming the unofficial, high-octane anthem for Jujutsu Kaisen’s Ryu Ishigori, with countless fan edits celebrating the character’s sheer destructive potential.
ALEXA: Earlier you were talking about social media and how that was what made you blow up – how did you guys feel when “Hello Juliet” went viral and all the anime edits started coming out?
I know you’ve personally said you’re a big fan of anime, so how did that feel seeing your two worlds collide?
SAYA: I thought it was so fucking cool.
A little fun fact about me – I used to watch a lot of edits. I even used to make edits, but I’m never telling anyone my account. I used to be part of stan culture with bands and anime. So it’s cool to see something that I made, that my band made, become a part of that world. It’s like a full circle moment.
ANTHONY: People sometimes ask me how I feel about the edits and everything – it’s not a good nor bad thing. It’s an excellent thing, because I love that people are connecting it to so many different things. People are just showing their interest, expressing themselves how they want to.
We’ve had a couple people come to our shows cosplaying as the characters from the edits they made. I love seeing it. Truth be told, it’s awesome seeing people find a safe space at our show to express themselves however they want.
They show up dressed however they want and they’re there for the music – and no one says anything, and no one should. We have awesome fans. They show the fuck up for us, which is more than we can ask for.
SAYA: My favorite is seeing people cosplay as the girl from the first EP. We’ve only seen two so far, but when people show up with the costume – one girl had a pair of glasses and attached a flower to it with fake blood going down her face.. that is so cool to us.
I made that drawing on a whim.
ANTHONY: We were all not that satisfied with it at the time.
SAYA: I do most of the art for the band. It’s all just silly little quick drawings. It’s very humble.. Just an excel drawing watercolor pad. The one you’ll find at Michael’s.
ALEXA: Hey, that’s all you need to start!
ANTHONY: Whenever we hop in the car, I see the little drawing packet. I’m like, “Saya, put this in your house.” Every single design we have, besides the digital ones, is in there. You open the trunk and it’s like, this is how it started.
ALEXA: And the fans are making those costumes themselves – you can’t buy that. They’re taking the time because your music has emotionally affected them so much. That’s just a beautiful thing.
SAYA: It really is.
ALEXA: Okay, and this is kind of a silly question. Who’s Juliet?
SAYA: Okay, in terms of me coming up with “Hello Juliet” – that was purely because it was catchy and it rolled off my tongue so naturally for the song.
But I believe Anthony has found more meaning in it.
ANTHONY: Truth be told, like Saya said, there is no “Juliet.” There’s no physical Juliet. It’s not written about a specific person named Juliet. It just fit the song.
People even ask, “Is Saya’s name Juliet?” No. Juliet is not a physical person..
But it’s awesome that people are able to put that name to someone they relate to. Whoever you find meaning within the song, Juliet can be whoever you’re thinking of.
SAYA: The way I go about my vocal melody and lyric writing; I hum out a melody and I ramble a lot of random vowels. That’s very important, because vowels can change the complete tonality of a song and whether a hook is catchy or not.
I record these demos, and I listen to what I naturally pronounce, and then I fill in the blanks with actual words and give it meaning.
So a lot of times the songs are kind of built on a whim and we add meaning based on what’s happening in our lives at the time.
ANTHONY: I think the best thing we can say, especially for our music, is that people will find their own meaning in it. I have a very sentimental connection with “Hello Juliet,” but I also have a sentimental connection to “Sunhail48” which is about a cult on the surface, but also about experiences from my personal life.
Whenever someone sits down and digests our music, the best approach is: if they’re able to connect it to something occurring in their current life, they will find meaning in it regardless of what we tell them the song is about.
SAYA: It’s a personal experience for the listener. The EP is whatever you find in it. I can’t tell you what you can and can’t pull from it.
ALEXA: What’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened at a show?
SAYA: Okay, there’s an experience that happened with Anthony and me after a show in Albuquerque. Does after-the-show count?
ALEXA: A thousand percent.
SAYA: So, we had just finished playing.
Security was kicking kids out for crowd surfing, but honestly it seemed more like a power play that security was doing more than anything. We ended up telling kids, “Do not crowd surf or you will get kicked out!” cause we wanted everyone to enjoy the show.
After we were done playing, we were outside loading up behind the venue, and this guy starts yelling at us from the top of the building. We look up and we’re like, “Hey… How did you get up there…?”
ANTHONY: That was what first came to mind! How did he get up there?
SAYA: He said they kicked him out, so he climbed up to the roof. There was a glass window on top and he watched the rest of the show from the roof.
Then he was like, “Wait, don’t go nowhere,” and he started climbing down the building right in front of us.
ANTHONY: And Saya and I look at each other and I’m like, “Saya, he’s gonna fall in the dumpster.” And Saya’s like, “Don’t say that.”
We tell him to be careful and boom! He fell right into the dumpster.
SAYA: It was almost comedic timing, he fell right after we told him that.
ANTHONY: And the thing that sucked is there was no garbage in the dumpster – nothing to break his fall.
SAYA: The only thing that caught him was the plastic lid, and it bent through!
ANTHONY: I looked at Saya and I thought, oh my God, he just knocked himself unconscious.
SAYA: But then he popped out and goes, “Sorry guys. Can I get a photo?”
SAYA: We had to give him a photo. We had to! (BOTH LAUGHS)
He was so sweet but we were just so baffled.
ALEXA: That’s one way to get a photo with the band…
SAYA: Is there anything weird that’s happened to you during a show? (ASKING ANTHONY)
ANTHONY: Honestly, I think the weirdest thing for me is when people come up to you and don’t know who you are. And this could be right after they watched us cause maybe they didn’t process the faces on stage.
So sometimes at the merch table, someone will say, “Oh my God, these guys are so amazing. are they gonna come out to take pictures?”
And I’m standing right there and being me, I kind of mess with them a little. I’m like, “I don’t know, maybe they’re in the back..”
SAYA: The funniest one was Javi and me at the merch table for Panchiko, and this girl was asking us, “Have you guys been working for Clarion the whole time?” And Javi and I just look at each other and go, “Yeah, yeah, we have. We’ve been on the whole tour.”
I was like, “I’m so tired… They don’t pay us.”
ALEXA: Just slandering your own name (LAUGHS)
ANTHONY: There’s another time where someone came up yelling because they wanted a photo with Javi, and I’m just standing there. Obviously I’m not one to self-insert myself in the picture because she really wanted a picture with Javi.
But from my POV, I’m like just standing there and she turns and deadpans right at me and says, “You can be in the picture too!”
And I was like… oh my God (LAUGHS) It’s just the way she said it.
ANTHONY: The weirdest and funniest things are just the fan interactions.
SAYA: They’re so sweet though! It’s just so funny. Some of them really don’t know what’s going on and neither do we.
SAYA: The funniest one was in Reno. We’d just finished playing and I came to the merch table, and some guy comes up and asks, “Are they going to come out to take pictures? Where are they?” The guy walks away and I’m like. Did he not realize I was just on stage..?
SAYA: One Big Party was also really weird – or more like a fever dream.
ANTHONY: No shade to the promoters or hosts. I think they were doing the best they could with what they had. But it was crazy.
The night before, we went to support our friends. We left to Arizona really late, like 1 or 2 in the morning, got there around 6 AM, and load-in was at 9 AM. Only about three hours of sleep.
And even then, Saya and Javi were giggling their asses off in the airbnb and I’m like, “Guys, we have to be up in three hours.”
SAYA: So we load in, get to the festival, and it’s apparent that nobody knows what’s going on. Thankfully all our friends were there.
ANTHONY: And I ended up setting up all the stages because nobody knew what was happening. I was like, “Oh my God, this festival’s not gonna happen if we don’t set up.” I started coordinating and telling people where to take things – and I’m literally playing this festival and now I’m working it.
SAYA: There’s a video of me yelling during our set saying some very foul things at the sound guy. Like, “Stop fucking with it, leave it alone!” That was pure frustration from the whole day.
We hadn’t eaten, hadn’t slept, it was hot, no shade anywhere. And the sound guy was putting the vocals up and down. We couldn’t hear ourselves!
ANTHONY: I wouldn’t even say it was a bad show. It was just… all around. Probably the weirdest show and festival we’ve ever played.
ALEXA: They gave you a little Hayley Williams moment when she was yelling at the lights guy during “Hard Times”…
SAYA: Ha – yeah.
ALEXA: Someone’s getting fired..!
SAYA: But it’s nice that so many people were really happy we still showed up.
Everything we went through that day, just being there for the fans who stayed till our set, it made it all worth it. It wasn’t just hard on the artists. It was hard on the attendees too. The fact that they stayed and enjoyed it, that made the weirdness all worth it.
Shoutout to everyone who went to One Big Party and braved the elements.
ANTHONY: There was no food, no places to cool off, and our set got delayed by three hours. They roughed it out just as much as we did.
As soon as we finished, I spotted a back door open. Someone was counting cash in the back of the warehouse. I went up to him and asked, “Do you mind if we load out through that door?” He looked at me and said, “I don’t give a fuck.”
We left immediately, got Cane’s, went back to the Airbnb, fell asleep, woke up, and were like — okay. Holy shit. The debrief was crazy.
ALEXA: And now that our interview is kind of closing up — for someone who’s a brand new Clarion fan, what song would you recommend to really get to know your sound?
SAYA: This is really hard because a lot of our songs are really diverse. But maybe “Blue Fairy” is an amazing start cause it’s loud, and like Anthony says, we do a lot of crescendos and building the pace. “American Girl” is also great, I love that one.
ANTHONY: I think the two songs I would choose are “Taxidermy” and “Sun Hail.” I think those two really encompass what we are. But the biggest thing we want to tell people realistically is: the recorded experience is not the same as the live experience. When we play live, it’s not about making it sound similar to the recording – we just put our heart and soul out on that stage.
We’re a live band. So it’s going to hit differently regardless and it’s gonna change regardless whatever they like. Even “Hello Juliet” – we try to play it at the recorded tempo, but live it hits harder. It can be faster and harder.
SAYA: We’ve had people come to our shows and say, “I did not expect this. They are so much harder live.” Some people have even stood right in front of us and said, “I got sweated on. I got spat on.” and like, I’m so sorry.
Our show is definitely an experience. I can say that very confidently. It’s why in some of our captions I always write “come experience the sound” because that’s how I feel about our live show.
It’s more than just hearing. It’s feeling.
ANTHONY: We’re unapologetically loud. That’s part of the tone, part of the tonality, how we shape everything. The recorded experience is not going to be the same as live because rooms are different, the air is different, everything is completely different.
If you want the true Clarion experience, please come to a show and have fun. That is the biggest thing – come and have fun. You’re paying $20 to $25 for a ticket. Come have fun. Move. Bop your head. Move your foot. Cause when people have fun at our shows, we have fun as well.
If there’s one takeaway from talking with Clarion, it’s that you haven’t truly heard them until you’ve stood in front of their amplifiers. They are a live band down to their very core – unapologetically loud, beautifully chaotic, and fueled by the shared sweat and energy of the rooms they play. Whether they’re dodging rooftop-climbing fans or pulling double duty as stagehands at a dysfunctional festival, Clarion are building something that goes far beyond a viral internet moment. It’s a community of kids showing up, dressing up, and finding a safe space to be themselves through the music.
If you want the true Clarion experience, you’ll just have to go feel the volume for yourself. Luckily, you won’t have to wait long. Their blistering new single “Jilt” drops this Friday (June 5), and tickets for their highly anticipated debut tour across Europe and the UK are on sale now.
So whether you show up in full, blood-splattered cosplay of your favorite anime character, dressed as the girl from their first EP art, or just in a beat-up t-shirt ready to get sweated on in the pit – just make sure you show up. Move your feet, bop your head, start a mosh pit and just be.
