“We kind of wanted to circle back to more of the rock venue feel. We enjoyed the intimacy of the last one, but we got a lot of feedback from people who felt trapped in their chairs,” Cloud Cult founder and primary songwriter Craig Minowa tells me, laughing. March of 2022 saw the release of Metamorphosis, the Minnesota experimental indie rock outfit’s first full-length in six years, which was followed by quite a bit of touring, with most dates taking place in fully seated listening rooms, including our own City Winery (It was fun, but I can confirm the feeling of being trapped in a chair.) Craig and I are chatting via phone, ahead of a four-date jaunt through the Mid-Atlantic later this month, including a return to the Music Hall at World Café Live on Friday, August 30th (There are actually rumors that Cloud Cult may be playing two shows in Philadelphia that day, but you didn’t hear it from me…) “This one will definitely be a bigger rock show, more dynamic, going into some deep places and including some older songs that we’ve never played before,” he tells me of the band’s upcoming dates.
August 8th saw the release of Alchemy Creek, Cloud Cult’s follow-up to Metamorphosis via the band’s own Earthology. However, Craig tells me that he’s gotten to be a huge fan of utilizing Patreon over the past few years, so a lot of the band’s biggest fans had been familiar with many of the songs for a while: “It’s really interesting, a lot of times it’s shared the week it’s made, so you get this feedback real-time, what’s hitting people and what’s not [laughs].” And when I ask if he’s had any favorite reactions to the new material, Minowa tells me that there was one that really stood out: “My favorite comment of the whole year that really stuck with me was when someone heard our single, ‘I Am A Force Field,’ and all they said was, ‘Holy fuck!’ [laughs].” He also tells me that Patreon seems to be the perfect fit for his process of making music: “I got into music because I love writing songs, and along with that goes going out on tour and playing live, but Patreon goes really well with the songwriting process… Every week you’re releasing new songs and new videos.”
Craig explains that Alchemy Creek – which was written and recorded over the course of two years in a tiny cabin studio on wheels in the middle of the Wisconsin woods – was a bit of a return to the early years of Cloud Cult, who have been releasing music since 1995: “Back in the earlier days, there wasn’t really any thought of how the songs were going to be performed live… but as things started to pick up and touring started to pick up, there was much more conscious thought about, ‘How are we gonna do this in a way that’s gonna be performable?’” “With this, it was sort of a process of going into the studio like we did 10 years ago, like, ‘It’s just gonna be what it’s gonna be,’” Minowa tells me of Alchemy Creek.
After Cloud Cult’s four East Coast dates, they’ll head to the Northwest for two dates in September, prior to two hometown shows in St. Paul at the end of the month. “We pretty much all have young kids now, so we try to break up the touring,” says Minowa of the shorter treks the band tends to do these days. However, he tells me that there are some very special shows coming up early next year: “We’ll be back out in January on a run of Southern dates. We have two special shows where we’ll be doing the Light Chasers album front-to-back at Western Carolina University with the dance team, who choreographed a dance to go along with the entire album, which is something we’ve never done before.”
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