Being successful means staying busy. Mike has only had one day off in the last three weeks. He s busy promoting his new CD "Everything Upside Down." He recorded the solo album "Twelve Pieces" while still with The Great Divide, but this is his first solo project with his new band since leaving the group. His new band, which has been playing together now for one year consists of guitarist Rodney Pyeatt, drummer Eric Hanson & bassist Jamie Kelley. The CD is scheduled to be released April 1, with a series of release parties starting with the Bricktown Wormy Dog on April fool s day.

When I talked to Mike he was getting ready to play a show in San Angelo, TX.

"We're playing at a place called The Little River Club," said Mike. It's already sold out, so it's our first sold out before we got there show, so it's monumental. We recorded the CD in Belton, TX. We produced it ourselves, we are our own record label. Just kind of doing it all in-house. After going through a few major label deals and seeing how much you actually make out of all that, it's just not worth it."

After leaving The Divide Mike decided to take his music in a more rock and roll direction which caught some of his fans off guard.

"Well, you know at first it was really different because they didn't really know what to make of it because I come out doing a lot of brand new material," stated McClure. " People knew me from The Great Divide and I still do a few songs from those days that I still like, but the show is primarily mixed up of a few of those and stuff off "Twelve Pieces" and now our new album. It just takes awhile to get people acclimated to new songs. That's why we did the EP thing to kind of help get the word out and get some songs out. Now people are reacting stronger to the new material than my old stuff and that's a good sign."

Mike recorded and released a series of three EP s to get his music out to the fans quicker, but is uncertain if he would do it that way in the future.

"I don't know if I'd do it again," said Mike, "but it was successful in my mind's eye because by putting those things out we were able to pay for all of our recording cost. So, we're entering this phase of having a new album with a clean slate as opposed to being twenty or thirty grand in the hole. I got the music out to people which I wanted to get as quickly as possible, as we were recording when we were able to kick them out. It was just kind of a cool deal. The new CD has got all of the EP cuts and then six more bonus tracks."

As with "Twelve Pieces" Mike produced the new CD himself. I asked him if it s harder producing yourself as opposed to another artist.

"No, actually it's easier," Mike said, "because I know what I want to hear and it's just a lot easier. I found the perfect band for me. We can go in and just talk about something once and knock it out. Working with other bands you kind of have to walk the line between how they sound and what you can add to it. There's a little more psychology that goes on working with someone else, where with me it's just real instinct. I've got a group of people that can follow my instinct. I trust theirs and they match with mine well."

McClure is riding high having produced the new Cross Canadian Ragweed CD, "Soul Gravy" which debuted at number five on the Billboard Country chart. He is already starting to get attention.

"Well, I've already started seeing a pretty big difference," Mike said. " I've been going around and talking to radio stations kind of promoting our new band single, and you know they've got Soul Gravy posters on their walls and they ask me about that. It kind of ups your profile really."

With Ragweed's success, do you see that opening up some doors for other Red Dirt artists?

"Yeah, I hope so " stated Mike. " I think The Great Divide was very instrumental in opening a lot of doors for people. It was just at a time when want we were doing, no one was really doing it. I'd go down to Texas and see Robert Earl Keen and Jerry Jeff Walker and no one was doing that kind of stuff in Oklahoma. We started doing that, writing original songs, then other people started writing original stuff. Not that that's a pioneering thing, but to make it successful kind of was. I think that Ragweed can't help but open doors for other people out in this area. It just gradually keeps getting bigger and bigger."

McClure got the chance to work with Lee Ann Womack who sings on the Ragweed single, "Sick and Tired."

"That was fun, that was exciting for me," Mike said. "I know all these guys that I work with at the studio and I've known them for years, it's nice to be around someone who makes you a little nervous."

I asked Mike his opinion on the Nashville scene and the major labels..

"I don't really see everything as scenes anymore," McClure said. "To me it's like, if there's a good studio out there and a good artist I'd love to work with, I don't care if it's there or in Timbuktu. There's just not a whole lot of need for me to go out to Nashville right now. I know that's where the big wheels turn, but I don't know for how much longer. I think major labels or any sort of labels are in such a bind right now. There's just a small amount of people who are selling a huge amount of records, and that's all the industry caters to. I think that there's going to be a rise of these independent labels that are just farming out all of the different tasks that a label is supposed to do. Luckily I got to sit in those Atlantic offices and kind of watch what's going on. I saw what was supposed to go on; it didn't go on; but now I can find those pieces of the puzzle myself and just hire them out. I think that's going to be the new diagram."

Downloading music from the Internet is changing the face of music today. McClure has a healthy attitude about it.

"Well, you know it's something that is here to stay," said Mike. "At first it kind of scares you because your primary source of income for someone doing what I do is through album sales. Now someone will come up to you at a show and say, My friend bought your CD and all of our friends burned it, we love it. On one hand it's great because people are hearing your music and they come to shows and buy t-shirts and stuff like that. But you know on the other hand, I wish they'd all bought it and that would be a great deal. It's something that's here and there's nothing anyone can do about it other then to try to come up with a new way to generate income, but I think that will breed creativity through necessity."

Does it bother you when someone bootlegs one of your live shows?

"Not at all, especially those live things, I encourage that," Mike stated . "If someone wants to set up and record anytime it's welcome. I like for people to go out and buy an album just because we've got so much cost in the thing. It cost several thousand dollars to go do that, but if it's a live show I don't have any money that's being lost. It's a night that can be remembered, and as long as those people want to listen to those that otherwise would have been forgotten. I always keep an eye on Pearl Jam. I think they're very savvy business people. They've recorded all their shows and sold all those things, and man that's just a brilliant idea. To me, I just want to be able to sell enough to pay my bills and be comfortable. You know, I don't need ten million dollars or whatever. Just as long as I can find enough program that works to allow me to do that. That's what I've been trying to build over the last year."

Rest assured Mike McClure will continue to be a builder of the Red Dirt sound for years to come, through his own music and producing other Oklahoma Artists.

--Terry Smith