By D J Collacott
Frequently mentioned in the same breath as The Strokes, Joy Division, Interpol and Bowie, Brooklyn based five piece The Cloud Room are one of the hottest new bands to emerge from the big apple. The band's music touches on 80s post punk, with a healthy slice of 'Strokes- esque' garage rock underpinning their melancholic pop sound.
The Cloud Room calmy and unassumingly seated themselves in the bar of the Camden Barfly for the interview. The first thing noticeable is without really trying they radiate lounge style cool in abundance.
Our first questions are briefly postponed for the band's sound check, but soon we begin to chat about their many brushes with disaster (from flats burning down to gigs taking place during hurricane Katrina), David Bowie, the international success of Pepsi ad song 'Hey Now Now' and much more.....
Liberation Frequency: Tell us about the situation with the fire at J’s apartment that almost wiped out the recordings for the new album?
The Cloud Room (J Stuart): The day before my birthday last year I was at work and got a message saying ‘hey man this is your neighbour Ian, sorry to hear about your flat burning down, if you need a place to stay you are welcome to stay at ours’ and I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. Then the next message I got was from the landlord who has a very thick maybe Ukranian accent saying ‘Yeah hey your house burnt down so maybe you should call me.’ So I get a car home and found out it had burned down because a space-heater had come on – it was switched off but a power surge switched it on. All my clothing was burnt, but anyway we were working on over-dubs for the new album and my computer was totally burned and my hard drive with all the music on it. But I took the hard drive into some teccy place and they were able to surgically remove the music and it survived! And that is partly an explanation for the odd name of our little EP which we paid for and kinda give out to fans called ‘Please don’t almost kill me.’ But that’ll show up in the UK next year.
LF: How did you get involved in the sound-track for the new Steve Buscemi film ‘Delirious’?
The Cloud Room: Our music licensing company pitched us onto them, we were really excited about it as we are all total or at least semi-fans of Steve Buscemi, plus Tom Dicillo (the writer/director) has made some great movies.
LF: You are the first unsigned band to be used in an international ad campaign (for Pepsi), how did this happen and do you feel this has helped launch you into the mainstream?
The Cloud Room (Jon Petro): I think it happened because someone was who was working with the company who was making the commercial with Pepsi knew about the song (Hey Hey Now) and found it online and brought it in along with some other songs of ours and they universally loved it and chose it. So it was really by chance and quite lucky. In terms of mainstream it was much more than that, as a result we were in virtually every continent except I think North America, and we would have never been heard like that if it wasn’t for this. |
LF: Do you feel that currently being unsigned (in the US) gives you more power and creative freedom?
The Cloud Room (J Stuart): In one way definitely yes, as we just recorded this EP (Please Don't Almost Kill Me) with our own money and did whatever we wanted, but I guess the downside is we don’t have much money so if we did have a label we could plunder their bank account and hire Phil Spector or whatever.
Jon Petro: I think he’s a little cheaper these days.
J Stuart: Yeah I think if you go record at his jail cell you get 50% off.
LF: You have been quoted by the press as having a famous fan in David Bowie, have you ever met him or any other famous fan?
The Cloud Room: We have never met him and we don’t know if he is a fan, our producer for our new EP worked as an engineer on his (Bowie’s) new record, but beyond that and beyond knowing that he was at the concert in New York City when we opened for Muse... we don’t really have any knowledge as to what his opinion of us is. He hasn’t asked for our autographs yet.
LF: (J Stuart) Is the title for your recent EP ‘Please Don’t Almost Kill Me’ also a reference to you being falsely diagnosed with HIV and how did this change your life?
The Cloud Room: That title is a general catch all for all the near disasters we have encountered. Our first tour in London was the week of the subway bombings, and another tour we did in America was following the path of hurricane Katrina, so there is just these strange coincidences that keep happening. Things have actually almost conspired against us.... but that is a much longer title.
LF: What do you feel about the current US and UK music scenes and commercial trends?
The Cloud Room: Everyone’s talking about the new Radiohead record (and the fact they are allowing people to pay whatever they like for their new album) and as always they are such an amazing intriguing band..... so as far as trends, it still feels like the wild wild west and no-one knows what’s happening and what’s going to take shape, it’s quite exciting. I never thought I would pursue not having a label in America for so long, but it has got to the point where you don’t necessarily need a label especially to release an EP. But as far us being on A&G in the UK especially being thousands of miles away..... I don’t think we could have released ourselves over here just via the web, so it is definitely advantageous to have a label.
LF: Who do you count as your biggest influences musically?
The Cloud Room (Steve): We all have different things that we are into, but there is a certain sphere of music that we are all into which is pretty much everything good you know from the Beatles to Bowie. Then we have things we butt heads on, like I love Beck’s Midnight Vultures but Jon hates it.
Jon: Don’t even get me started man, seriously!
David: Another example being Jon loves Morrissey but I don’t like that sh*t at all, but we get on more than we argue.
LF: What is the best musical comparison you have heard, and the worst?
The Cloud Room: People have said Bowie and the Kinks, Peter Murphy trying to sing like David Bowie? It’s always immensely gratifying to hear your name mentioned alongside those bands/artists.
J Stuart: One of the interviewers in Korea said we sounded like a combination of Strokes and Interpol, so I started trying to sing like a Strokes song with a Paul Banks voice and I really enjoyed that but when I did it these guys had stony faces, I got crickets.
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After the interview the band casually took to the Barfly stage to deliver what can only be described as an immense and emotive live performance. Brooding frontman J Stuart eschewed raw emotion throughout the set even briefly leaving the stage during the song 'Waterfall' to lean almost prostrate over a front speaker.
The songs ebbed and flowed from quiet whimsy to crashing crescendo, demonstrated aptly with an exhilarating performance of 'Sunlight Song' a track from the band's soon to be released self-titled album. The set built slowly before pacier previous single 'Blackout' with it's infectious bass hooks and the slightly edgier sounding 'Hunger' increased the momentum. The band's mix of catchy melodies, riffs and dancey electro grooves kept the appreciative Barfly audience in the palm of their hands. Signature and closing tune 'Hey Hey Now' sounds just as good live, leading to a rare conclusion The Cloud Room really do live up to and surpass their own hype.
The five NY hipsters blend some of the better elements of band's like The Strokes, Bloc Party, Interpol, and The Killers into a synth infused alt pop cocktail. Listening to The Cloud Room for the first time is like stumbling upon something special that you feel too selfish to share..... as then it wouldn't be nearly as special! Sadly you know it's only a matter of time before people catch on.
To listen to and find out more about The Cloud Room visit their Myspace
or the band's main website here.
or to watch the video to 'Hey Hey Now' go here
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