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Cloud Nothings: "The perfect pop song needs that element of chaos to it"

Dylan Baldi is always searching for the perfect pop song. As part of his quest, the Cloud Nothings frontman has been writing a new song every single day...

Dylan Baldi is always searching for the perfect pop song. As part of his quest, the Cloud Nothings frontman has been writing a new song every single day for the last year and a half. This would seem like an enormous undertaking to most, but not for someone whose name is rarely mentioned without the word 'prolific' cropping up alongside it in a sentence.

"It's a weird, ephemeral thing being a musician, I felt like I needed to have an actual representation of me doing something every day, so at the end of the day I can say, 'this is what I did today'. Now that we've had touring stripped away too, it's nice to have evidence that I existed today."

Since Cloud Nothings' beginnings a decade ago as a scrappy, lo-fi solo project, Dylan seemingly has limitless musical energy, always plugging away, determined to keep moving forward - you just need to look at the band's ever-expanding discography for evidence. As they prepare to release their new record 'The Shadow I Remember', Dylan himself has trouble recalling how many albums the band have produced, with numerous EPs, splits and compilations peppering the timeline. (According to their label Carpark Records, it's their fifth studio album as a full band and ninth under the project name.)

"We've also screwed with the timeline for putting out records before this one even comes out," laughs Dylan, referring to the surprise internet release of the dreamy and more delicate 'The Black Hole Understands' in 2020, recorded via email between drummer Jayson Gerycz and himself while quarantining separately.

"I doubt 'The Black Hole Understands' would have existed if it wasn't for the lockdown situation. The plan was always for 'The Shadow I Remember' to come out in February 2021, so we were still going to have a year of essentially nothing to do after recording it in February 2020, though I'm sure we would have done something, but it probably wouldn't have been a record like that. It's hard to make something intense when you're not physically with another person and when you're doing it in a sort of sterile way with a guitar plugged into the computer, so those tracks came out a lot cleaner and poppier."

This element of spontaneity has always been a characteristic of Cloud Nothings' approach to creating music, with Dylan stating in the past that nothing the band does is on purpose; that everything is off-the-cuff and reflected upon after. He admits, somewhat ruefully, that things tend to be more considered these days.

"For a while, the band was our collective life, we really couldn't do anything outside of it, it took up so much of our energy and our time. Now it's harder to have that connection as we live in different places so we have to take advantage of the time we get. The songs are a little more thought out before we play them, everything is a little more ordered and deliberate."

"I think that it's something I'm almost starting to resent in a way - well maybe not resent, that's a strong word. Whenever we get the chance to do something again, when we're all vaccinated and ready to go, I would like to switch it up a little more drastically. I suppose alternating between the slightly chaotic and more measured reflects my two states of mind, they're always at war in my head. Subsequently, I think the perfect pop song also needs that element of chaos to it, like it's always about to fall apart."

"Everything I do is working towards the ideal song, the ideal album"

For someone who is keen to keep pressing ahead, it's interesting that 'The Shadow I Remember' saw Cloud Nothings return to Electrical Audio in Chicago to work with Steve Albini, who recorded their first studio album as a full band, 'Attack on Memory', in 2012.

"We've done every record with somebody different up to this point, but so far, Steve has seemed like the person who has most accurately captured what I think the band sounds like. When we practice in a basement, that's what I think of as 'the sound' of this band. We can play on a big stage, but that feels kind of foreign to me, I always want our records to be accurate depictions of what I'm hearing when I'm standing in a room playing with these guys. No one seems to be able to do it exactly like him."

Whether it's the comfort of recording with someone they have worked with in the past or the benefit of having more time and experience compared to the first time around, 'The Shadow I Remember' captures Cloud Nothings at their best, taking the thrashy, pummelling punk the band have perfected and blending it with Dylan's talent for creating indie-pop hooks. It's very much a Cloud Nothings record, but Cloud Nothings at their most accomplished and assured.

"One of the things I'm most proud of about this band is that there's a through-line from album to album. The producer may change and the sound of the songs changes, but there's a core element there that carries through no matter the particular style of an album we make. When you're trying to sell an album, people are always looking for a story. For us, there isn't a story, in fact, the story is, 'hey we're still doing this ten years down the line, isn't that crazy?!'

Something that's always been present throughout each Cloud Nothings record is Dylan's tendency to veer towards life's more existential questions. "Am I something? Do you see me? Does anybody living out there really need me?" he asks in his signature growl on 'The Shadow I Remember''s lead single 'Am I Something.' Given his existential leanings, it makes sense that Dylan is always searching, always seeking better. His desire to constantly keep pushing forward is almost Sisyphean, though he jokes he's pushing a Garage rock band up the hill, rather than a boulder.

"I'm always obsessed with being able to learn from the past and being able to always move on and keep the good things and throw away the bad things, kind of working towards some idea of yourself that will never exist but it's always the goal. That's why I make these songs: everything I do is working towards the ideal song, the ideal album. It's all just refinements to this core thing that I think exists out there somewhere. I don't know if I'll ever get to it, but the fun is of searching for it."

So how is that search coming along? Many would argue that Dylan has already come close to crafting perfect pop, but in his typical modest fashion, he's not quite so sure.

"Well, I always think I'll make a song, and think it's a great song, but then the next day I'll listen to it and be like 'urgh, why did I think this is good?' so I'll start over again. That's another reason why it's so easy for me to write a song every day, because every day I think I've got to improve on the last one."

Taken from the March issue of Upset. Cloud Nothings' album 'The Shadow I Remember' is out 26th February.

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