An East-Coast-based band, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah has an unusual name and an even more eccentric sound and ever since they released their self-titled and self-produced debut album in 2005, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah has recruited some majorly devoted fans.

After frontman Alec Ounsworth formed the group in Massachussetts, the band moved to Brooklyn and Ounsworth to Philadelphia, but they continued to work as a united entity, with Ounsworth taking the train to New York every weekend for practices. Since releasing its first album, the Brooklyn-Philadelphia based group has singed with the UK’s Wichita Recordings.

“I was encouraged to study music when I was a kid,” front man Alec Ounsworth said in an interview with PopMatters.com. “My brother still plays the cello, so we both continued with it. But my family wasn’t necessarily a musical family. I grew up taking lessons and became attached to it on my own, so I discovered a lot of this stuff by myself.”

The band embarked on a 2007 U.S. and Ireland tour through mid-November and will be playing shows at both small and larger venues in big cities such as New York, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, San Diego and Austin.

The band has attributed much of its recent success to being grounded and staying in touch with the real-life scenarios and situations that help inspire them to continue writing songs that reach out to audiences and make a personal connection, according to Ounsworth in a PopmMatters interview.

“I think music by its very nature has to be autobiographical in some sense,” Ounsworth said in the interview. “I write about things that matter to me directly, so it may not seem as abstract to me as it might to other people.”

Visit the official Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Web site for more information about the group.