'It took a long time': Austin icon Gary Clark Jr. gets honest about new album, 'JPEG Raw'

“It’s weird, I come back to Austin and there’s murals of me,” Gary Clark Jr. tells the American-Statesman over a late lunch on South Congress at Joanne’s.

We’re discussing his legacy: Prodigious guitar player who cut his teeth at the right clubs, “next big thing” who's played with everyone from the Foo Fighters to Stevie Wonder, Grammy-winning champion for his city.

But he’s also a one-note symbol to recent transplants.

“I’m like the Capitol building,” he deadpans.

Clark Jr. is a fashionable Black man known as an A+ shredder. He says he always has a camera with him. It’s an aesthetic that’s seeped its way into Austin’s boutique hotel class: Flat hats, V-neck tees, vinyl records as decor.

Clark Jr. personifies our sisyphean quest to live a cool Texas life, where we can smoke briskets in the backyard and jam with friends. Where we take our kids to breweries on the weekends.

But Clark Jr., the “introspective blues guy” as he put it, does not get enough credit as Clark Jr. the songwriter. And that’s an image he hopes to reconstruct on his new album “JPEG Raw,” which arrived on Friday (after this story was written).

It’s one that took five years to tweak. 

2019’s “This Land” took aim at American racism in the Trump era and won him three Grammys. “JPEG Raw,” an acronym for “Jealousy, Pride, Envy, Greed, Rules, Alter Ego, Worlds,” is also marked by themes of social justice and restlessness. It’s a spirit he’s grown to embrace — citing political rapper Mos Def as a recent influence — and let inform his work because he doesn’t want to pretend that he’s just here for a good time. 

Clark Jr. explained the long wait for his fourth studio album, his complicated relationship with a city that hasn’t always loved him back, his pivot to all-star dad, and how he’s ultimately a proud “product of this environment.”

That means keeping an ear to burgeoning new music like hip-hop, while also being adored by the “purple lens, cowboy hat, sundress” blues lifers that Clifford Antone originally put him in front of.

At one point, I asked him what it feels like to be adored by white boomers, and he knowingly laughed.

The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

American-Statesman: Has your music created a local aesthetic? The flat hats. You go to the Otis Hotel and there are Gary Clark Jr. records. How do you measure your influence?

Gary Clark Jr.: By observation. I remember coming back home and my face was painted in a lot of places: streetlights up and down Congress with my face on it. I go down to the Friends bar from time to time and I’ll see a young blues guitar player covering my songs.

I don't know what that means.

I remember the Gary Clark Jr. of ‘07 opening for every legend that came through town. When did you go from “next big thing” to “this is your city”?

Coming home from the Grammys. I feel like I brought it home for the city, too. 

How does hip-hop influence your music?

The way that I produce music: I would borrow my dad’s Casios and keyboards, program a drum beat, record that.

Do you feel like you’re kind of a bridge between Clifford Antone’s old-school Austin blues and modern music? And is that fair? Because this creates a perception that you’re not a good songwriter, you’re just a shredder? You’re a guitar guy.

I don’t really feel anything about it until people ask me. I get it: Your first impression is what you associate with them, whether you saw me with Jimmie Vaughn or at (defunct hip-hop club) Plush.

Tell me about the new album.

It took a long time. 

Why?

Five years. So you release an album in 2018, then you tour the album for two years. So really it’s been like 3 years. So everybody, relax.

The record is a collection of songs. I wasn't planning to do a Gary Clark record. But I was locked down. There was a pandemic. 

So the album is about what?

The album is about images.

How so?

I choose to have an image, to put out a brand to help sell music. But sometimes it’s not all badass rock stars. Sometimes I have a tough day.

I (originally) wanted to do a party record. Had just come back from the Grammys with three of them. And it was like no, locked down.

I’m not here to be someone’s idea of who I am. Just write a bunch of good songs.

What’s it feel like to be an icon?

There’s moments where, like yesterday, I tried to drop my daughter off at school and she had a complete meltdown. I’m not thinking about icon, I'm thinking “How do I dad the (expletive) out this?” 

It would be iconic if I pull this off. And I had two other kids who had to go to school. So I was like, I'll circle back. Dropped them off and then I had a talk: How can I help you because you gotta go to school?

Just needed an attitude adjustment. If I could crack a smile, we should be all good.

You have 3 kids ages 4-9. Do your kids influence your music?

Kids are honest, so they’ll tell you if they like it. They don’t care who made it or why they made it.

If I play them something, or if they’re in the car, like I caught my daughter the other day singing one of my songs.

So I catch them singing the hook to “Triumph.” Or even management will be in the studio, and be like “I don’t think that’s it” and I’ll say “Well, my kids like it.”

Kids tell the truth they don’t have any reason (not to). They don’t have any shame. 

Do you ever think about being a Black man in a white city? As a Mexican-American sometimes I’ll be downtown, see all the tech bros, and feel resentful.

There was a point in time where I was wearing this silver peace sign thing. I was over on West Sixth, and I walked into this club that I normally walk into — and I'd been gone for a while — and the guy (at the door) was like, “No bling.”

I’m in a hoodie and Chuck Taylors and have a peace sign.

Yeah, it can be frustrating. I try not to let that shake me.

We’re both from South Austin. It was pretty rural 20 years ago. In high school you had the kickers who had Nokia phones with Confederate flag cases.

I had kids say that their parents said that they couldn’t play with me. That I couldn’t come over to their house.

As a grown person in this city, I also don’t move around like I used to. I stay around my folks.

Is this album political?

It’s being a part of the human condition. Just acknowledging that (expletive) exists. If we don’t, we push this narrative of unicorns, fairy dust, meadows, rainbows. 

If that’s where you’re pushing the art, and that’s what all the movies are about, and that’s what all the music is, you’re not getting any grit, there’s no representation of like, “Hey it’s (expletive) over here. I get that y’all are partying and it’s all Candyland and all that, but it’s not really like that for us. It’s not really like that for most people.

Some of the music that I grew listening to was about change. “Concrete Jungle” by Bob Marley and the Wailers. “Get Up, Stand Up.” “Move On Up” by Curtis Mayfield. “We Gotta Live Together” by Sly And the Family Stone. “What’s Going On?” Marvin Gaye. “To Live and Die in L.A.” by Tupac.

That’s how hip-hop got me: As an expression. I feel this angst. I feel this frustration.

They don’t see what we go through, walking by us with a lunchbox saying, “Have a nice day.”

What's 2024 bringing Gary Clark Jr.?

I’m excited to bring my family out on the road. I think it’s time.