Rachel Hamar, left, and Chad Hamar of Cloverdayle.
Rising country star Jason Aldean will take the stage at Bend’s Les Schwab Amphitheater on Thursday night, but Bendites should get there in time to catch one of their own in the opening act, Cloverdayle.
The Portland-based country band is led by Chad and Rachel Hamar, and Rachel Hamar is a Bend native and a 1997 graduate of Bend High School. Her maiden name is Hoyt, and her parents — who now live in Portland — are Ray and Sue Hoyt.
As you might expect, Rachel Hamar is nearly speechless with excitement about opening for Aldean at the biggest venue in her home town.
“It’s fabulous,” she said in a telephone interview last week. “We’re excited.”
Hamar grew up in Bend singing in church and other public settings, but got her first real “club” experience as a 15-year-old server at Hudson’s and The Hot Rod Grill, a couple of long-gone restaurants on Wall Street.
“There was a jazz band that would play in the bar every Friday and Saturday night, but they didn’t actually have a singer, so during my breaks I’d go in and I’d get to sing,” she said. “That was good gig experience when I was in high school.”
At Bend High, she sang in the choir and discovered country music back when Reba McEntire, Faith Hill and Martina McBride dominated the airwaves. After graduation, she moved to Portland for college, where she met Chad Hamar in a singing group. The two quickly clicked, began playing music together, and eventually married. They recently celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary.
Both halves of the couple have long wanted to make a living playing music, Rachel said.
“Both Chad and I have always wanted to be professional musicians. From the time we were 2, pretty much, that was the goal,” she said. “Moving over (to Portland from Bend) was not so much, ‘Let me go find a band to play with’ or ‘Let me go find a venue,’ but it was more like I’m just going to go do the college thing and get as much of a music education as I can and see what happens.”
The Hamars played around town at coffee shops and the like “for a long time,” Rachel said, and even drew interest from an indie label that wanted the duo to go for a more “pop” look and sound. A CD and tour ensued and the Hamars learned a lot, but the end result was not ideal.
“It was not a good fit for us, so we took a few years where we were just songwriting and teaching,” Rachel said. “Then about a year ago, we changed direction as far as how we were going to market ourselves, because we knew if we tried to do anything … publicly again, it would have to be done our way (so) we could believe in it and really own it ourselves.”
That new direction became Cloverdayle, a band that mixes true country music with a little bit of laid-back singer-songwriter influence, lots of good acoustic guitar twang, and Rachel’s rock-solid voice. The couple has hired some top-notch players to back them up, and things have taken off; besides Aldean, Cloverdayle has opened for Lady Antebellum, Jake Owen and Tim McGraw.
Oh, and they won a chance to open for a little ol’ country singer named Kenny Chesney at Clark County Amphitheater in Washington.
The opening spots have given Cloverdayle a chance to reach thousands of potential fans, and the band tries to make the most of those opportunities.
“We love going where we can win over new … fans,” Rachel said. “A lot of the shows that we’ve gotten to do, there’s a lot of country fans that either have never heard of us or have heard of us but haven’t seen us, and so we love getting to go in and really prove ourselves.”
That’s the plan in Bend, too, though you can bet there’ll be a large contingent of friends and family there that are already fans.
“We’re gonna rock it,” she said. “It’ll be fun.”
Cloverdayle opens for Jason Aldean at about 6 p.m. Thursday at Les Schwab Amphitheater (344 S.W. Shevlin Hixon Dr., Bend). Tickets cost $34 and $54 in advance and $36 and $58 on the day of the show. They’re available through The Ticket Mill in The Old Mill District or at any Ticketmaster outlet. Read up on Jason Aldean by clicking here.
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