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Alistair Macdonald "Zal" Cleminson (born 4 May 1949, Glasgow, Scotland) is a Scottish guitarist, best known for his prominent role in The Sensational Alex Harvey Band between 1972 and 1978. In 2017, he put together a new rock band - /sin'dogs/, which recorded and released a 4-song CD and toured Scotland and England at the end of the year.

This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. (May 2010)

Zal Cleminson
Zal Cleminson,2004
Background information
Birth name	Alistair Macdonald Cleminson
Born	(1949-05-04) 4 May 1949 (age 73) Glasgow, Scotland
Genres	Hard rock, blues rock, glam rock, heavy metal
Instruments	Guitar, vocals
Years active	1965–2008, 2017–present

Career

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 mime makeup. 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".[1]

When SAHB split up, in 1978, they decided to tour as the Zal Band, recruited The Tubes' vocalist Leroi Jones and 19-year-old Billy Rankin on guitar, who later played with Nazareth. In 1979 Cleminson joined Nazareth[2] and recorded two albums with them, 1979's No Mean City and 1980's Malice in Wonderland. He also worked with Tandoori Cassette, who toured (several live recordings exist) and released a single; no album was released. He was a regular guitarist with singer Elkie Brooks on many of her tours throughout the 1980s. He wrote and played on Brooks' album Minutes as well as one track on No More The Fool. Cleminson has also toured with Midge Ure on his Gift World Tour 1985 and Bonnie Tyler.

During the 1990s Cleminson played with The Party Boys, a casual band that, at various times, featured former Marillion vocalist Fish and Nazareth's Dan McCafferty and Billy Rankin as vocalists. This band became a reformed SAHB (Sensational Alex Harvey Band), in 1993, with Zero Zero vocalist Stevie Doherty; it recorded a live album titled Live in Glasgow 93.

In 2004, SAHB reunited alongside The Shamen frontman Max Maxwell and performed various tours and festivals between 2004 and 2008, releasing their first album since 1978's Rock Drill which was entitled Zalvation: Live in the 21st Century.

As well as performing with SAHB, Cleminson was a member of the now-disbanded outfits Ze Suicide and Oskura.

In 2006, he appeared in his début acting role as Wilson in the western film A Shot in the West, for which he wrote the theme music. In early 2008, he announced his retirement from the music industry and stated he would never perform live again.

Cleminson also spent a few years living in Cyprus with partner Rachel, and it was there that he had a vision to begin writing new material which would become his latest and potentially his 'final' music project. Cleminson decided to come out of retirement in 2017 and form his own band Zal Cleminson's sin'dogs with keyboardist David Cowan as he approached him to co-write and collaborate on early demos of what is now their debut album titled 'Vol.1'.

Cleminson knew David Cowan from performing with SAHB tribute 'The Sensational Alex Harvey Experience' and knew he also a personal friend of legendary SAHB drummer Ted McKenna. David has also worked with SAHB bassist Chris Glen with his band The Outfit from 2013 - 2016 before shortly after joining up with Zal for Sin Dogs.

The majority of the musicians in the original line up of Sin Dogs were actually part of The Sensational Alex Harvey Experience. These members were William McGonagle on guitar and Nelson McFarlane on Bass. The original drummer was Scott Cowie who had also worked with The Complete Stone Roses and Sandi Thom to name a few.

In 2018, Scott left the band and the band brought in Louie Malvessi for a short spell before he was replaced by Carlos Marin.

The band performed their first UK tour at the end of 2017 and this was followed by an extensive UK tour in 2018, a studio album titled 'VOL.1' shortly followed and then appearances at some major festivals which included Cropredy Sweden Rock, A New Day, and more.

In October 2019, Cleminson announced on Facebook that he would no longer be performing with Sin Dogs for reasons unknown while in the studio recording their now unreleased EP 'MUTATIS'.

Mutatis was going to feature reworkings of two classic SAHB tracks 'Isobel Goudie', and 'Faith Healer' as well as 3 brand new original tracks, but Zal decided to call quits on the band and form a new project 'Orphans Of The Ash' with William McGonagle. Orphans Of The Ash was the original title for the Sin Dogs second studio album which would have been released sometime in 2020.

Since the split of the band, David has formed his own band called The Meissner Effect which feature some of Scotland's top musicians as well as working with Rory Gallagher bassist Gerry McAvoy with 'Band Of Friends', The Greig Taylor Band, Paul Rose and The SAHB Experience.

Carlos joined Gin Annie for a short spell before forming his own band 'Humanity Deluxe'. William McGonagle's projects are currently unknown other than his involvement with Orphans Of The Ash.

In 2022, rumours began to circulate that /sin'dogs/ had reformed with a new line up which didn't include Zal Cleminson or William McGonagle. The band made an announcement earlier in the year that they were reforming and are currently working on a new studio album. This new line up according to online sources is Peter Scallan (Lead Vocals), David Cowan (Keys), Nelson McFarlane (Bass), Todd MacLeod (Drums), and Andy McLaughlan (Guitar)

Zal will be releasing a novel sometime in 2022.

Cleminson is referenced in the novel The Sacred Art of Stealing, by the Scottish author Christopher Brookmyre, as the basis of the disguises worn by bank robbers during a heist, and inspired the name of the character Zal Innez.

Guthrie Govan has cited Cleminson as one of his most important influences and considers him to have been "his Jimmy Page" in his early guitar development.[3]

References

External links

• Interview in Guitar Player (May 2006)

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