Cloud Nothings: Beyond The Bedroom
In Dylan Baldi’s perfect world, creative satisfaction comes without all the baggage of being a musician. The Cloud Nothings founder consents to an interview, but makes it clear that he’s indifferent to all the trappings outside of the actual music. It’s 8:30 p.m. and he and his touring bandmates—guitarist Joe Boyer, bassist TJ Duke and drummer Jayson Gerycz—are still in their pajamas. There’s no manager, no sound guy, no additional support. Their merchandise is unmanned throughout their set, showing their ambivalence about the business of being a band.
All that matters to them is the show at hand, playing music and sticking to what they know best. They showcase a mix of both their early pop songs and newer angst-ridden, hard-hitting rockers for the 50-person crowd in Atlanta.
The differences between the songs are striking, as the band’s new album Attack On Memory is an aggressive, alternative-rock-minded departure from their earlier and lighter lo-fi pop songs. “We kind of took it to the extent that you can take it,” Baldi says. “You have to change something. I guess for this one we just made a little more intense.”
Intense is one way of putting it. Attack On Memory is more ambitious and serious, steering away from the catchier, offhand pop songs that filled the band’s first two releases.
Baldi starting writing songs for several fake MySpace band pages while he passed the time between his classes at Case Western Reserve University. Cloud Nothings was one of those bands, and songs like “Hey Cool Kid” soon spread like adorable kittens across the Internet.
The Cloud Nothings frontman put out Turning On, an early singles collection, in 2010 and the group’s proper full-length debut in January 2011. As he increasingly garnered attention, Baldi recruited his band to tour behind him, playing his simpler, shorter pop songs night after night.
Once on tour, though, they all agreed the material wasn’t challenging enough, leading Attack On Memory to become a more collaborative effort. “If you’re not growing and changing,” Duke asks, “why are you doing it to begin with?”