Crossing Borders with Cloud Nothings
On the cusp of his debut release through Wichita, Artrocker.TV was lucky enough to catch up with Dylan Baldi – aka Cloud Nothings – to talk, age, wisdom and rad bands. Interview by Emily Kendrick
ARTROCKER: So where are you at the moment? Has it been hectic with a lot of driving?
DYLAN: We’re in Canada and heading into New York where our show is. We usually have it under control. We’re pretty used to it by now.
AR: With your latest single ‘Should Have’ currently out, have the releases been what you wanted, would you say you’re a perfectionist when it comes to recording?
D: No, I’m definitely not a perfectionist, I tend to just kind of – I always look more at the song rather than production or anything, so if it’s in time and all that important stuff. I tend to ignore that if it’s a good song.
AR: You’re from Cleveland originally, how was it growing up there?
D: I guess it’s the same in any suburb, there isn’t really much to do, you know? Especially when you're a kid. So I just kind of gravitated towards music, naturally, as something I could do when I was bored. It brought me and my friends together as we were growing up - and in fact, even now it’s one of the only things to do! But it was a nice place to grow up I guess.
the small matter of US border crossing.
Having a unified respect for the long arms of the federal law,
we reconvene our chat ten minutes later…]
AR: Is that a first?
D: Yeah, border crossing interrupting an interview is a definite first for me!
AR: There seems to be a fascination with your age from the media. Is that something you find quite annoying – is it something you thought would make a difference?
D: Personally it doesn’t really bother me if people wanna talk about my age. So I’m 19 and all the people in the band are older than me, and most of my friends are older than me - I never thought about age as being too big of a deal.
AR: There’s also the whole ‘dropping out of school’ business, do you think school taught you a lot or has the last year really made more of an impact?
D: I think the last year has definitely made more of an impact. I don’t like when people make a big deal out of that because it makes me sound like some big drop out - I just don’t see myself in that kind of style. But I definitely think the last year or so of just touring and seeing everything, meeting a load of people has been a lot more beneficial than anything I would have done in school in that time.
AR: There are a lot of polls pitting you as hopefuls for 2011 – does that reflect the way you feel/where you’re at?
D: I try not to pay too much attention to things like that, just because if I really thought about it I might have some kind of break down or something like that. That sounds terrible! I pay attention to it obviously because I try to know where I’m at, but I mean it’s the internet – it’s not too big of a deal.
AR: Which bands do you think are up and coming?
D: Definitely this band called Reading Rainbow, they’re from Philadelphia, they’re really good and I don’t know if they’re too well known. There’s a band from Cleveland called Herzog - they’re just a rad band. We just finished a tour actually with a band called Oberhofer who're great too, a Brooklyn band.
AR: You played quite a few shows last year in the UK – supporting Les Savy Fav – how are your live shows going to differ this time around?
D: Well, we’ll be playing a lot more new songs from the new record, I think we’re a tighter band and hopefully we’ll be even better than last time we were here. We tend to play our songs pretty fast, it’s an energetic show.
AR: Lastly, do you have band t-shirts yet?
D: Yes – we will have band t-shirts by then!
RELEASE THE SELF-TITLED DEBUT ALBUM
24 JANUARY ON WICHITA
CLICK HERE TO BUY
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