Listen: 13th Floor MusicTalk with Cloud Nothings

Cloud Nothings have just released their new album, The Shadow I Remember and bandleader Dylan Baldi was on the blower to tell 13th Floor all about it.

The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to Dylan about recording the new record in Chicago with renown producer/engineer Steve Albini. This is the second time Cloud Nothings have works with Albini so we had to ask what brought them back.

Click here to listen to the interview:

Or read a transcription here:

DB: I’m chilling, I’m home.

MD: Let’s talk about making the record then. Where did you record it? Was it in Chicago?

DB: Yeah, we did it in Chicago at Electrical Audio with Steve Albini.

MD: Now this is not the first time you’ve worked with Steve, right?

DB: True. We did one with him in 2012, a record called Attack on Memory. And this is the first time we’ve gone back to work with someone, two times in a row. We switched up engineers and producers and things every record up til now.

MD: So what is it about working with Mr Albini that brings you back to him.

DB: The vibe is just good. Personality wise, we’re most similar to him. Out of everyone we’ve worked with in the past, it really does feel, like… well, he’s from Montana, but there’s a sort of mid-western work ethic to the whole thing. It feels good. You can work, you can get the record done. You can chat the whole time and goof around, but you’re kind of there to do a job. That’s how we think about it. We go there ready. We don’t want lots of intensive creative input necessarily from the person, like recording/producing the record. He’s perfect for that.

MD: He does have a reputation for that. He’s one of these guys who, you get a different story depending on who you’re hearing it from. He’s kind of an enigma to those of us who’ve never met him.

DB: He’s opinionated on things and depending what the situation is, he is sometimes more inclined to share his opinion and sometimes not. I don’t know what he thinks about our music. We didn’t really talk about that. So I feel the things he’s really opinionated about are music business and morals and ethics and things like that. Generally, those are totally sensible to me. And I could read it and maybe if I disagreed with him fundamentally, I would read that as ‘this asshole’ but to me, it’s making sense. So I think he’s a nice guy.

MD: So what does he do sonically to make Cloud Nothings sound like Cloud Nothings?

DB: (laughs) You know, he does a lot more than people tend to give him credit for I feel. The thing with him is, he puts the microphones in a room and it’s the most basic idea – no frills or anything. And that’s true in a sense, but… and I think I didn’t really notice this the first time we recorded with him cos I was 18 and didn’t know what I was doing…

MD: Nobody knows what’s going on when they’re 18. (laughs)

DB: That’s true, least of all in that situation. I was like – this guy? I’m talking to this guy? This time coming around here, I noticed during the mixing process and everything, he is really keyed into just making tiny, subtle little changes throughout the song, so he’s almost playing the mixing desk in a way that – when you think of someone just putting mikes there and recording it should just sound like a band. But if you or I tried that, it would not sound like a band. It would not sound quite right.

So he does all this other stuff, he’s always fiddling around. I feel like it’s not part of the Albini mythos necessarily that he’s working on that level. But he’s super paying attention to everything that’s going on and always making tiny little adjustments throughout the whole mix.

MD: Now according to what I’ve read about this record and your song-writing approach, you’ve kind of gone backwards in thinking about early song-writing practices and bringing them forward. Is that accurate or not?

DB: In a way. I think I just wanted to hyperfocus on just really melodic sort of things. The record prior to this one was – all our stuff is melodic, there’s always lots of melody, the vocals are catchy. Everything is doing their own melodic little thing. But there is often a sort of chaotic noisy element to the production or the playing. There’s sort of a grinding sound that comes along with the way we play. And I kind of wanted to pare that down and just make it interesting through strictly the tones.

I wanted to be playing the melody throughout the whole song so you could focus on just one… so you could say I want to just listen to this guitar, specifically for the whole record. And you can do that hopefully it is interesting to only have that one thing going on for the entire time. I wanted to have that capability to capture attention for the entire duration of the record. And then when you put it together, I wanted it to make sense, of course. So that was what I was thinking.

MD: And your vocal performance on the record, do you alter it and approach the songs differently depending on the song itself or do you have a standard attitude as far as singing?

DB: I don’t really have a stock approach. I think throughout the last ten or eleven years that we’ve been a band, my voice has audibly changed. And not like a puberty way. We did start when I was pretty young, but not that young. I guess I’ve become more confident just singing the way I naturally do.

I feel like the first couple of records were almost like an affectation and I was trying to sing in a specific way, but now I’ve become more comfortable with the actual… something that’s more akin to my speaking voice almost. It’s been a slow process. You know, having to hear yourself constantly and this is just how it sounds. And every time instead of being… I want to change it, just kind of focusing on it and making it as realistic as possible.

MD: I did notice that on the track, Am I Something, which I think there’s this psychedelic video going along with it, you have taken on a Johnny Lydon type sneer, in your voice. (laughs)

DB: Yeah, that one’s a little sneery. I always feel I sneered a little too hard on that song. Listening back, I kind of want to undo the sneer, but can’t do it now. (laughs)

MD: And speaking of vocals, there’s a female vocalist that’s showing up on Nothing Without You. Can you tell me about her?

DB: Yeah, that’s Macie Stewart. She plays in a band called Ohmme. She lives in Chicago and happens to be very close to the studio we were recording at. I’ve known her for a little bit. I met her when my girlfriend’s band was on tour with Ohmme. So I met Macie through them. But I just needed someone to sing a part that was quite literally too high for me to sing. So Macie, luckily was around, and comfortable doing that. So we just brought her in to…one take, kill it. She’s an incredible musician. And that was it.

MD: Now of course the band is more than you. There are three other gentlemen: TJ, Chris and Jayson. Tell me a little bit about them and how you work together in the studio.

DB: I’ve known Jayson and TJ the longest. They’ve been in the band essentially since the very beginning. Chris is also an old friend of everyone’s but he joined in, I think, 2015. They’re all just friends who enjoy playing music together for a long time. So the sound of the band has kind of changed and worked as we’ve all been influenced by all different things.

So it’s fun to try to cater the songs to the way we’re currently playing together. We’re pretty good at feeling out what the other person is going to do before you even do it, you know? At this point it a bit of a telepathic connection by now. And it’s kind of fun to subvert that, in a way. And that was maybe a goal with some of the stuff on this record, too.

MD: And there’s also a bit of synth player playing, a guy named Brett? Is that right?

DB: Yeah, a guy name Brett Naucke. Another Chicago friend of ours. We’ve known him for a while. He is a really synthesiser player, I guess you’d call it. And he makes low electronic records. He used to play in a band called Oh No in Chicago for a little bit. He’s just an old friend whose very talented.

MD: Chicago has quite the adventurous music scene, doesn’t it?

DB: It really does. I feel like it’s an example for other places. It’s a really adventurous music scene and everyone is connected in a really friendly way. There’s no divisions across genres necessarily. It feels like everyone is kind of comfortable supporting everyone and playing with whoever. That’s not something you necessarily see everywhere.

MD: Back to the album. The artwork is kind of interesting. The album cover and the title. Is that all springing from your mind?

What’s the story there?

DB: All the art for the records has been me just taking photos. So since 2012, all the cover art is just photos that I’ve taken. I try to pick something that is representative of the period that I worked on the record in a way.

So this one is a trail near our drummer’s house and it’s called The Erie Canal Towpath, I think. But I got really into running while I was making this record and that became a big part of my life. And that was the trail I went up and down. Who knows how many miles? And so I happened to take that picture one day and thought it was nice and kind of made sense to put it up there for the cover.

MD: Erie Canal Towpath. That’s interesting.

DB: You probably know about Lake Erie.

MD: Definitely. I used to go to camp on Lake Erie when I was like eight years old and they would send the kids off to camp.

DB: It’s a good lake. You can’t really swim in it anymore. Maybe you could when you were a kid.

MD: No! You couldn’t even back then. (laughs)

DB: Yeah, it seems pretty disgusting. But it’s nice to look at.

MD: So now the album is coming out imminently. How are you approaching this? Obviously you can’t play out, so?

DB: Yeah, my girlfriend keeps saying ‘What do you want to do to celebrate?’ And it just feels so weird. So we are putting out a live show. We played in an empty venue in Cleveland called The Grog Shop and that comes out the day after the album is released. I think that’s probably the 28th for you guys. So that will be out then. And it’s just us playing through the new record in an empty room.

MD: That’s gotta be weird!

DB: It was real weird. It’s like – I get why people are doing it. And I’m glad we did one. And it kind of almost gave me ideas how I’d do another one if we had to do that again in the future. But honestly, I’m just hoping that we don’t have to do that again. And we can just get back to playing a regular show sometime sooner or later.

MD: That would be nice. Have you been down to this part of the planet before.

DB: Yeah, yeah. We played the Laneway Festival and that’s the only time I’ve been to New Zealand in particular. And I think it was just Auckland. But I have very nice warm memories of being in Auckland. We didn’t do much. We just walked around the city and went to parks and sort of sat around. But I think we had a really nice time somehow. And yeah, Australia we’ve been to, I think maybe three or four times now, including Laneway. It’s one of my favourite places to play. And there’s so much good music that has come, historically, from New Zealand and Australia that it’s always kind of inspiring to be down there.

MD: It’s a pretty cool place. I mean, we’re all locked down, in that no artists can come from outside, so we’re stuck in a local scene, which is a good local scene to be stuck in. There’s still bands like The Chills and The Bats are still around.

DB: You’re lucky.

MD: Neil Finn lives around the corner from me.

DB: Wish they were coming here!

MD: Well thank you for taking your time to talk to me and talk about the record. I hope it does well, whatever that means these days. And hopefully you’ll get to hit the floorboards and play in front of some real people soon.

DB: Yeah, we’ll see. Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to talk.

Cloud Nothings The Shadow I Remember is out now on Carpark Records.

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