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Exclusive: Inside The Long Wait For Clay Street Unit’s Debut Album, & Why It Feels Like A Breakthrough Moment
In just a few years, Clay Street Unit has managed to build a national following stronger than some bands find in their entire career – and they’ve done it without a debut album. The wait for a full-length record is finally coming to an end, though, and I it’s not arriving too late. It’s arriving at exactly the right moment.
Prior to 2025, the four songs released on Clay Street Unit’s 2022 EP A Mighty Fine Evening along with their cover of The Last Revel’s “Engine Trouble” comprised their entire recorded catalog. Each of these tracks has resonated deeply with their fans, but even so, a band of this stature typically has more music to show for it at this point in their career.
Instead, Clay Street Unit honed their craft and refined their sound the hard way – through relentless touring, constant practice, and a genre-defying live show that repeatedly turns first-time listeners into devoted fans. Viral sensations aside, most bands selling hundreds of tickets as headliners and landing opening gigs at venues like Red Rocks have at least one full-length album to showcase. If there is one thing Clay Street Unit has proven time and time again since their inception, though, it’s that they aren’t like most bands.
Benefiting from word-of-mouth and a burgeoning buzz surrounding their eclectic sound, Clay Street Unit now finds itself on the verge of what feels like a major breakthrough as momentum and readiness converge, and their long-awaited debut album Sin & Squalor appears poised to be the catalyst. Slated for release on February 13, the album features 11 tracks and was originally set to drop last summer – until a series of industry curveballs delayed its arrival, which may have ultimately been a blessing in disguise. In an effort to set the scene and give fans an inside look, I talked with Clay Street Unit frontman Sam Walker about the band’s origins, their unlikely rise, the prolonged album rollout, and what this record truly means to the band.
Reflecting on where it all started, Walker describes the earliest version of Clay Street Unit as something far more casual than it would become. “Those first few years, it was kind of like a community band. It wasn’t anything we took too seriously,” he recalled.
Connected through a mutual friend, Walker and co-founding banjo player Jack Cline met in 2020 over beers at Denver’s Zuni Street Brewing Company, just around the corner from the band’s Clay Street namesake. That same night, the two jammed for hours, unknowingly laying the foundation for what would become one of Denver’s most beloved acts.
What began as a duo quickly expanded as more musicians were pulled into the orbit. Given the casual nature of the band’s origin, there was quite a bit of turnover at first, but the majority of the band’s current lineup eventually took shape. “We started picking up brewery gigs, local gigs, and then one by one we became a three piece, a four piece, a five piece, a six piece…” Walker explained.
Brad Larrison joined the mix after word spread that the Zuni Street bartender could shred the pedal steel, and then mandolinist/songwriter Scottie Bolin and bassist Jack Kotarba, who were already members of a Denver’s killer jamgrass outfit Morsel, hopped on as well. Drummer Brendan Lamb then entered the fold after relocating from Boulder and moving in with Walker on Clay Street, rounding out the band’s core lineup that formed as organically as the concept originated.
Because Clay Street Unit began as more of a social outlet than anything else, several early members joined for the opportunity to jam with friends locally, and ultimately stepped away to focus on other paths once it became apparent Clay Street Unit was destined for bigger stages than hometown brewery corners. Most recently, Cline – the band’s co-founder – stepped back to focus on his growing family, and understandably so. For Walker, however, longevity may not have been at the forefront of his mind at the band’s creation, but the potential of the music was always apparent.
“I wrote a lot of the songs that we were playing early on, so obviously I believed in those,” he said. “And the more people responded to them, the more it started to feel like a plausible reality that people would believe in this and get behind it. I think every show that we sold out, that got bigger and bigger, gave us more confidence that this was a real thing. It wasn’t just a neighborhood band anymore.”
That epiphany would eventually shape how deliberately the band approached everything that followed – including when, and how, they release their debut album.
Their chemistry was undeniable from the start, and once word spread and the crowds grew larger, Clay Street Unit was faced with a defining decision. “It started to create a necessary pressure,” Walker said. “Do we want to just do this a couple times a year, or do want to give it a real chance and take a real go at it?” Ultimately Clay Street Unit decided to lean in, and in addition to hitting the road and touring hard, committing fully to the project meant settling down to make a full-length record.
The band teamed up for production with one of their heroes in Chris Pandolfi – the banjo picker for Colorado-based jamgrass band The Infamous Stringdusters – and entered the studio in October 2023 with a carefully selected collection of original music. And although they had a sense of direction for the project, Pandolfi helped them bring it to life.
“When we got in the studio, he really helped curate exactly what we were going for,” Walker explained, with a Stringdusters poster prominently displayed on his wall behind him. “He kept everything moving so seamlessly and effortlessly.”
What began as a professional collaboration ultimately grew into something deeper, as Pandolfi became both a friend and mentor to the band through the recording process, forging a relationship that eventually led to Clay Street Unit performing as his wedding band. By the time the sessions wrapped, the record felt finished – even if its moment hadn’t arrived yet.
The recording process itself was a collaborative and cohesive team effort, with band members feeding off one another and contributing ideas as the album took shape. The songwriting, on the other hand, mostly fell on the shoulders of Walker and Bolin, as they revisited songs they had written previously and worked on new material that would land on the tracklist.
When Walker reflects on the making of Sin & Squalor, it’s a small, unexpected instance in the songwriting process that stands out most – one that helped define the album’s ethos and ultimately gave it its title.
“I was working on ‘Let’s Get Stoned’ one night in my basement while everyone was setting up,” Walker recalled, referring to the album’s catchy lead single. “I was singing stupid lines over and over because I had the first two verses written, and the third verse just wasn’t there yet. Brad was setting up his pedal steel and goes, ‘I was actually humming this little phrase on the way over here – sin and squalor could be cool there.’ Then our piano player at the time goes, ‘Is that what your mama said?’ And I was like ‘Bam, that’s the line.'”
The magnitude of the moment wasn’t lost on Walker. That kind of honesty, vulnerability, and spontaneity had come to define Clay Street Unit, so it was only fitting it would define the album as well.
“Scottie and I wrote every lyric to the record,” Walker said with a smirk. “Brad wrote three lines and it became the album title.”
Once Sin & Squalor was recorded, the band sat on it for a while and focused on taking the necessary steps to set the album up for success. Crowds were already growing at their shows in Denver and other key markets where Clay Street Unit has established a foothold, and fans were buying tickets at a surprising pace in new markets as well. The band’s trajectory was remarkable, especially considering the album hadn’t yet been released and only a few songs were available to fans. This momentum opened the door to a record deal, and in January 2025, Clay Street Unit signed with Sony’s Monument Records.
Plans quickly came together for Sin & Squalor to be released that summer, and with a jam-packed touring schedule and a heavily anticipated debut record finally on the horizon, Clay Street Unit was on the brink of a breakthrough. The prospect was equally as nerve-racking as exhilarating, and everything seemed to be falling into place.
Nothing, however, could have prepared Walker for the phone call he received just a few months later. Sony had unexpectedly decided to shutter the Monument Records label, abruptly sending Clay Street Unit back to the drawing board just a few months before the album was scheduled to drop. Of all the bands this impacted, though, Clay Street Unit made it out relatively unscathed.
“We made a lot of great relationships, and out of all of it, I think we’re one of the few bands that landed on our feet,” Walker said. “But if you had told me when we started 2025 that we’d sign one deal – much less go through that and then sign another – I’d have been like, ‘well, that’s ridiculous. But it all worked out for a reason, and we’re in the right place to release this record.”
Though the situation resulted in a significant delay, the band soon signed with indie label Leo33, joining the likes of Zach Top as labelmates. Rather than rushing the album out independently and hoping for the best, Clay Street Unit chose to play the long game. But that patience didn’t always come easily. Much of the delay was out of the band’s control, yet Walker admitted there were moments when the lack of new music felt risky and the overall uncertainty was stressful.
“It was a crazy tug of war,” he explained. “Do we give in now, or do we play the long game?”
It was the first time the band had to truly trust that momentum alone could carry them through what felt like a crucial period for growth. In hindsight, the decision has proven worthwhile. While Sin & Squalor would have still found success had it been released last summer, the delay allowed Clay Street Unit’s buzz to grow even louder. Subsequent single releases only heightened anticipation, and as the album’s release date finally approached, the excitement surrounding the full project has reached a palpable peak.
What makes the band’s rise particularly striking is that it isn’t confined to a single scene. Clay Street Unit’s sound has long transcended genre, existing somewhere at the nexus of country, Americana, jam band, and bluegrass. Whatever you want to call it, their sound resonates wherever it lands.
“From the beginning, we’ve been a little bit of an anomaly. We don’t necessarily fit any specific lane, and we’re not on the nose anywhere,” Walker said. “We’re not the best pickers on the planet. We’re not the greatest singers, and we’re not the greatest songwriters either. But we like to think we’re pretty good at all of them, and that’s why people come to the shows.”
But for a band that doesn’t fit in, it certainly doesn’t hurt that the album release coincides with their recently announced Grand Ole Opry debut four days later, and follows announcements that the band will support Turnpike Troubadours in Jackson Hole, WY this summer and jam band royalty String Cheese Incident at Red Rocks as well. Few debut albums arrive with such a wide-open runway for exposure, and Clay Street Unit is certainly poised to capitalize.
“If we play a country festival, we’re the least country band,” he added. “If we play a jam festival, we’re the least jam. Bluegrass, we’re probably the least bluegrass – but we can fit in at all of them.”
While this sentiment refers directly to their live show, it pertains as well to the eclectic sound that can be found throughout Sin & Squalor. Although it may be difficult to pin down, the diverse sound and deft lyricism is bound to strike a chord with listeners everywhere.
Clay Street Unit didn’t arrive at this moment by chasing trends or trying to fit neatly into any particular scene. They got here by trusting the band they built, the songs they wrote, and the long road that it took to get them to this release. For the whole band, Sin & Squalor isn’t just about finally catching up with other bands, but finally sharing what they’ve been building all along, and releasing a project that the world just wasn’t ready for when they culminated its recording in 2023. Or even when it was originally supposed to be released in summer of 2025.
Sure, the album is strong enough on its own to have been a success whenever it was made available. But Clay Street Unit’s touring momentum and the buzz surrounding their sound at this exact moment make it the ideal time for Sin & Squalor to drop, positioning the band for a major breakthrough.
Still, amidst all of the hype and chaos that this process has ushered in, Walker is careful not to frame the album’s success in terms of expectations or numbers. Instead, his focus is on the simple fact that the record represents a group of people who genuinely love making music together.
“I just want it to be known that we’re really happy and proud to be a band,” Walker said. “That’s something we cherish, and this album means a lot to us because we did it together.”
As for what he hopes listeners will take away from Sin & Squalor, Walker doesn’t overcomplicate things.
“We put a lot of work and love into these songs,” he said. “I just hope people connect with them – that they know we wrote them from a place of honesty, and that maybe they take something from it that makes life a little easier.”
After years of patience, persistence, and packed rooms built on little more than word of mouth, Clay Street Unit finally feels ready to let the record speak for itself. Sin & Squalor is out everywhere on Friday – and it’s arriving at exactly the right moment.
The post Exclusive: Inside The Long Wait For Clay Street Unit’s Debut Album, & Why It Feels Like A Breakthrough Moment first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
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