Zal Cleminson - The Sensational Alex Harvey Band & Orphans of Ash

Zal Cleminson - The Sensational Alex Harvey Band & Orphans of Ash - in conversation with David Eastaugh

A self-taught guitarist, at the start of the 1970s he played and recorded with the Glasgow-based band Tear Gas. The musicians in that band then provided the backing for Alex Harvey in The Sensational Alex Harvey Band (SAHB). Cleminson was an extremely distinctive stage presence with SAHB owing to his white-face mimemakeup. He started wearing the mime makeup when the band started playing larger venues, so they could see what he was doing on stage easier. Cleminson has said "The mime face came about with bigger gigs - more people could see what I was up to".