Great news! I thought that perhaps the guys of The Cloud Room may have forgotten about agreeing to do an interview for vdov.net. This was happily not the case. They just happened to be in Australia rocking out in another hemisphere and the qulity of this interview more than makes up for any delay experienced. There is talk of couch surfing, slow football, and I get taken to task for joking about selling out. You can’t go wrong with this thing. These guys are an independent New York based band that has a great album out on the streets. I saw the band at The Troubador in Los Angeles not long ago and was really blown away. These guys are great on the album but monsters on the stage. Below is the interview that I just got back from front man who goes simply by J. You have to love independent bands that take time for fans but don’t make enough money for health insurance (buy the album or you are putting their lives in jeopardy is the take home message). They have mp3s and videos available for free download.

-Give us a little background on the band. When did you form, where are you all from, when/how did you decide full time music was your calling?

*The first version of The Cloud Room began in 2001, but didn’t become serious and all-consuming until 2004. I had been working in film but became disenchanted with how creatively unsatisfying it was working on shoots (i.e., dumping the water from actors’ water bottles and refilling them with Absolut Orange). I’m from Silicon Valley, drummer Jason Pharr is from Mississippi, Steven the keyboardist and David the guitarist are from Rochester and Jon the bassist is from Boston.

-Do you guys have any hobbies/jobs/recreations outside of playing music.

*After two months of touring, I think we’ve pretty much forgotten what our hobbies used to be. The new ones include watching Arrested Development & Wonder Showzen and playing a very slow version of football that other people might call “watching tv”. I personally tend to read big disaster/history books, including The Great Mortality, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (fantastic, by Richard Rhodes), The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, and 1491 (another great one, and a great companion if you’re reading Guns, Germs & Steel). I’ve also been reading an eyeful of rock bios, including one that destroyed any romantic notions I’d had of heroin– Up And Down With The Rolling Stones, by Tony Sanchez.

As for jobs, we do a mix of bartending, night security, music gigs, and a whole lot of couch-surfing.

-Your name “The Cloud Room” where did that come from?

*A speakeasy was built at the top of the Chrysler Building in 1930, called The Cloud Club. It had a sort of romantic outlaw appeal to me, because, although not presently a romantic outlaw, I’d one day like to be.

-I saw your show at the Troubadour recently and the crowd was a very bizarre mix of people. It was about 50:50 LA hipsters and Beverly Hills frat boys and sorority girls. Do you find your crowd changing at all as your popularity rises?

*I hadn’t noticed any kind of change. But then again, my eyesight has gotten pretty bad, and I’d like to attribute that to the hell that is trying to find affordable health insurance in New York City. It’s been four years now of finding out that I make too much money for government programs, too little to afford private insurance, I do the wrong kind of freelance work to join the Freelancer’s Union, I don’t qualify for the artist group, etc., etc. etc. (literally, three et ceteras) But, I think I’ve found a solution, because traveler’s insurance only costs $40 for a month, so I might try to see a doctor while we’re in Australia. I never wanted to make a concept album, but maybe this is ripe for one. We’ll call it Tummy.

-How has tour life been treating you? What are the best and worst aspects?

*The best part by far is meeting so many different people and hearing their stories, drinking their favorite drinks. And it’s really odd hearing people talk about our music the way I talked about Blonde Redhead or Sonic Youth or Pavement when I was growing up. The worst part is missing home and the feeling that life is marching on by while we drive around in a little bubble of clouds and rock.

-You went to SXSW which must have been incredible. Any good stories from Austin?

*We played the after-party for the secret Flaming Lips show, and got to see the show standing next to Peaches. A guy brought his girlfriend up onstage and proposed to her, which is always enjoyable. You know, just starstruck stuff like that. Britt Daniel was at one of our shows, which excited our little cloud hearts. We got to play with some fantastic bands, including SoundTeam and Forward Russia. Saw a phenomenal Japanese band called Afrirampo, and a couple of our favorites including Foreign Born and Love Is All. With this much name-dropping, you know it was good.

-Your sound has some obvious post punk influences, but who do you consider your biggest influences, both musically and stylistically.

*I’m curious what the post punk influences are. Name a few: ____________________, _________________ and a little bit of __________________. We seem to make music that has elements of all different eras. For example, “Waterfall” always sounded to me a bit like Marc Bolan and Pavement. “We Sleep In The Ocean” (the band’s favorite, by the way) sounds a little like a mix of Lou Reed and U2. Hell, I don’t really know. Our new stuff has taken on a life of its own and we’re just letting it go wherever it leads us.

-If you had this guy locked in a windowless, sound proof room and no one knew he was missing… would you let him go?

*Yes, after a couple beers.

-Give us a little history on your debut album. Where did you record? Tell us some good stories. How long did it take? (it is excellent by the way)

*We recorded during the first week of November in 2004. I had this fantastical idea that Kerry was about to win the presidential election, so I suggested we wait to record the up numbers until the 3rd, and be able to capture the euphoria of the moment in our songs. Hah! My bandmates were a bit more cynical about the whole affair, and were perhaps more educated about electronic voting machines in Ohio, and so voted down the idea. The music, lyrics, mood all took on a decidedly darker tone after the election.

The schedule was so tight that we got to LP-length only by the seventh and last day, when I wrote a couple quiet tracks, including Sunlight Song.

-I see that you are appearing on Last Call with Carson Daly, and you got written up a little in the New York Times. What are your plans on selling out? Big time? Not at all? Just a little?

*Is Bob Dylan a sell-out? The Beatles? The Walkmen? I don’t know what that really means anymore, since the whole culture of licensing has become widely accepted as a new revenue for bands. Record sales are decreasing, so advances are getting smaller. Labels are starting to encroach on band merch income–which will probably lead to people downloading band t-shirts. I think if a band is trying to make honest music, they’re on the right track.

-What projects do you have in the works? Anything you can let us in on?

*This summer we’ll be touring with French Kicks. We’re also working on new songs and are thinking of an EP or something in the fall, LP in the spring. We’re free agents now, so we’re pondering the spectrum of choices, including doing it ourselves. I’m trying to get a handle on how the industry is changing, and where it will be in a couple of years, and how we can bring it all crashing down with thunderous power chords.