Page 91 - ION Indie Magazine JulyAugust 2018 Issue

Music by Half Deaf Clatch

“Boxcar Bulldogs”

Interview and Photography by Mal Whichelow
www.facebook.com/MalWhichelowPhotography

“What in the name of all that's good and holy is a half deaf clatch?” I hear you ask. And I can
empathize with your thoughts as I, too, once stood in that very same place asking that very same
question. But as it turns out, the explanation is simple…and I shall elucidate. Andrew McLatchie
(affectionately known by his friends as “Clatch”) has a slight hearing impairment in one ear due to
overdoing it in his days of thrashing out the metal gospel along the East Coast with sludge/stoner
band Battalions. And there we have it -- a guy called Clatch who's a bit deaf. But “Bit Deaf Clatch”
didn't have that ring to it, so the “Half Deaf Clatch” moniker was born, and quite fittingly -- while
there may be other Andrew McLatchies wandering about on this planet, you can bet your bottom
dollar that there is only one Half Deaf Clatch.

I use the word “fittingly” because Clatch has carved himself a niche in the blues world that is his and
his alone. He is inclined to do something different when writing new material and will willingly put
his head above the parapet -- while his contemporaries can only look on in awe from a safe distance
and watch to see if his ideas fly or die -- then come out when the coast is clear. Being something of
a trailblazer, the safe, tried and tested route is not for Clatch. And he has been rewarded over the
years with eleven nominations in the British Blues Awards finals, with 2018 seeing him nominated
in three categories: “Acoustic Blues Act Of The Year,” “Blues Songwriter Of The Year,” and the most
gratifying for him, “Innovation In The Blues In The UK.”