Clapp was raised two blocks from the San Francisco bay in a Joseph Eichler-built home in Foster City, California, where his mother and big sister taught him piano as a young child.
He also studied the violin until his teen years, when he joined like-minded musicians Dan Jewett, Larry Winther, Chris Boyke and Maz Kattuah for form a garage band alternately known as The Batmen and The Morsels.
Despite primitive production values, Clapp's ear for melody and economical pop arrangements captured the interest of Kattuah, who started the Four Letter Words record label while he was in the Mummies.
Four Letter Words issued Clapp's first release under his own name, a song called "Very Peculiar Feeling" on a split flexi-disc with Japanese pop band Bridge (1990).
After being hit by a drunk driver on the way to the last show on The Orange Peels' Sun Moon tour in late 2013, Clapp and Pries decided to move to the Santa Cruz Mountains.
He has also worked as a recordist, producer and mix engineer with The Ocean Blue (Waterworks), the Santa Cruz collective The Incredible Vickers Brothers, Alison Faith Levy, and three albums by The Corner Laughers, among others.