Happy To Be Heard

Dylan Baldi is the first to admit that Cloud Nothings are a simple band. But on the trio's new full-length Here And Nowhere Else, they've found a way to take these average elements and make something remarkable. The Cleveland group have returned with a record that stands as a logical successor to the Steve Albini-produced Attack On Memory, the new album faster, louder and more crisp that anything in the band's catalogue.

“Creatively speaking there's not a whole lot to do with the songs we make and the band we are,” says Baldi, “so as long as someone understands that the results end up sounding good.” That “someone” this time around was John Congleton (The Walkmen, The Polyphonic Spree), who, according to Baldi, immediately understood what the band wanted from Here And Nowhere Else. One thing was assured vocals.

“The reason I sang a little different, it sounds different, is that when I listen back to Attack On Memory – which I don't do very often – but when I do the only thing that kinda embarrasses me in a way is the vocal – I don't like the way I sing,” reveals the frontman. “On this one I made a point of going, 'Okay, I'm going to do something where I can actually listen to it and not be upset, not cringing the whole time'.

“I couldn't listen to [Attack On Memory], so recording that was a bane because you'd just have to listen to the vocal line, and you'd go, 'Oh, Steve, turn that off'. This one I just wanted to sing a bit more confidently, in a way that I could stand behind.”

The pace of Here And Nowhere Else is another thing that grabs you from the first spin. Baldi laughs that he doesn't know how drummer Jayson Gerycz is going to make it through a show, “But the songs just sounded better that way,” he adds. “If we played any of them slow it would just not be as exciting, not be as urgent. Not that you have to play fast to sound urgent, but with these songs you did.

“These songs are almost poppier in a way; they're catchier I guess. And I like putting barriers in front of that catchiness, so just having songs that are really, really fast can almost intimidate someone in a way, so I just like to have something there that keeps it from being a really generic and boring pop-rock album.”

Gerycz isn't the only one testing his own abilities, with Baldi admitting that he can barely pull off some of the guitar work found on Here And Nowhere Else. But when you're trying to obtain the unobtainable, you've got to push the envelope to progress.

“Every time I write a song I just try and make it better than the last song I wrote,” he reasons. “I listen to a lot of music so I think I have a decent idea of what a good song is in my mind, so I'm just working towards that unreachable goal of a perfect song.”

As much as the slacker vibe seeps through Baldi's conversational tone and the band at large, Cloud Nothings wouldn't even exist were it not for the frontman's commitment to the cause. Go back before the brilliant records, before the trio had even plugged in together, and it was just Baldi in his dorm room, avoiding class at college to make songs for fake Myspace band pages. That was 2009.

“I could just attribute it to stupidity almost,” he laughs regarding his early fortune. “The first thing that happened, I put those very first Cloud Nothings songs online and some guy was like, 'Oh, you should come to New York and play a show'. And that was like, 'Well, that means we're a real band – I'm quitting college'. Then of course for a few years we didn't make any money and nobody liked us. But the thing that made it a little more real was the first time we toured for Attack On Memory – almost every show in the US was sold out, which was insane, because the last tour we did was empty shows, so that was the first thing where I was like, 'Oh, this is something, we can do this'. I'm on some path; better than no path.”

But even though it took a few years for Baldi to make a living out of music, his parents were still happy for their son to ditch college and write songs full-time. Because as the frontman shrugs, there are plenty of worse paths than rock'n'roll. “They're proud, [but] they like everything that I do,” he says. “As long as I'm not dying of a drug overdose they're like, 'This is great, our son's great'. I could be working at the gas station and if I'm happy they'd be fine.”