Music guy

By Ben Garmisa

Thursday, March 6, 2008

“Did you hear about the deaf girl, the one whose song’s gone No. 1? Three minutes of silence on the radio is the best damn gift for everyone.”

That lyric off Cloud Cult’s last album, The Meaning of 8, really sums up what they try, successfully, to do: make music that’s different than everything on the radio. Cloud Cult, or at least its current incarnation, came about in much the same way that a lot of bands these days do: personal tragedy. In Cloud Cult’s case, however, the tragedy was much more than “emo boy loses emo girl, cries”—it was more along the lines of “thoughtful father loses infant son in his sleep.”

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Craig Minowa, Cloud Cult’s singer/songwriter, has taken this life-altering experience and from it created some of the most beautiful music imaginable. Since 2002, Minowa has written upwards of 100 songs dealing with virtually every aspect of his family’s loss. Each album the group has released has had an overarching theme or message, from birth to death, life and the afterlife, and the medication used to deal with those topics. Cloud Cult’s newest album, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes), is a masterfully produced album about, according to Minowa, rebirth and learning how to deal with life’s hardships. Like the rest of their albums, Feel Good Ghosts is printed on 100% post-consumer organic plastic. At times thoroughly depressing and at others beautifully uplifting, Cloud Cult has a unique talent for making dichotomous styles mix well with each other. The album’s third track, “The Tornado Lessons,” ends with overdubbed electric guitar riffs that merge into piano chords that would fit equally as well in a children’s fairy tale while what sounds like a chipmunk sings over acoustic guitar. The song ends with a powerful crescendo of crashing drums and then, without skipping a beat, the fourth track, “When Water Comes To Life,” comes in with an orchestral waltz (violins, cellos, et al). If lesser musicians tried to do the same thing, the listener would almost certainly find themselves scratching their head, but Minowa and Co. somehow make it all work as a cohesive package—and they do it well.

Their live show is amazing as well. Cloud Cult tours with two live painters. Starting with white canvases, each of them paints onstage while the band performs. By the time Cloud Cult’s set is through, they have produced incredibly detailed paintings. It’s an intense experience. These paintings are then auctioned off that night, and the band uses the proceeds to purchase credits in order to stay carbon neutral while touring. As someone who has been to a lot of concerts (upwards of 200), I’m rarely impressed. Cloud Cult, however, is an atypical band that truly proves that those who say “the best art comes from pain” are right, and is certainly among the top unsigned acts in the country.

Late last week I had the opportunity to ask Minowa some questions about his newest album and environmental beliefs. Here's what he had to say.

Jayplay: Each of your albums tends to have an overarching message of some sort. What would you say the "message" of Feel Good Ghosts is?

Craig Minowa: It's about rebirth and about learning to hold your chin up when things are difficult.

JP: What's with the chipmunk-y voice at the end of The Tornado Lessons?

CM: A totally different song was originally written and recorded. During the last week of recording, I decided to double the speed of that recording and record something totally new on top of it. The chipmunk voices are the old vocals at the increased speed. The song is kind of like two songs in one, because if you removed the tracks of the new piece and slowed it down, you'd have the original 4 minute song which was about something different.

JP: How did Feel Good Ghosts come together? Was it more a group project with everyone involved in the writing or a single person's idea fostered and brought to fruition by the band?

CM: I do the writing and recording up here at the farm and send the band those tracks. Most of the string parts are originally performed on the keyboard, and they embellish and record the real instruments. We had a hired studio drummer for this CD and we added Shawn Neary to the lineup, who was formally the bass player of Tapes 'n' Tapes.

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Cloud Cult's stage performance is incredibly complex, involving two painters, a video screen, as well as the band themselves.

JP: Were there any songs that were particularly hard to write?

CM: Yes, there was a song called "A Place" that I ditched off the album last minute, despite having put more work into it than any other. I just couldn't work out the glitches in time.

JP: On a personal level, which of your albums did you have the best time making?

CM: The Shade Project and "Who Killed Puck" were my favorite writing experiences. It was before the band had any kind of name, so there wasn't any pressure from critics or fans to have it sound any particular way. I feel like this album sounds like how I want it to sound, but it takes me longer to get to that point, because I have to battle the inner demons to get to that point. There are a lot of censors in the head that stop you from going a particular direction, because you're worried about how people will respond. It takes brute force and a lot of time to ultimately get back to the point that you just don't care anymore.

JP: Which album is your favorite?

CM: They are all very different albums and reflect different moods. So it really depends on my mood which one will be my favorite, but I think Who Killed Puck and They Live on the Sun are the two that consistently please me.

JP: How did the live painting start?

CM: My wife and one of my closest friends are painters. It's a great way for us to be able to enjoy this project together and be in a band together.

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Violinist Shannon Frid prepares for the show.

JP: Why is environmentalism important to you?

CM: Environmentalism should be important to everyone. Translated literally, it's the science of learning how to survive, as a species, as long as possible on this planet. If you're interested in keeping things alive, you have a natural inclination to be interested in environmentalism.

JP: What do you, as a band, do to help the environment?

CM: 100% postconsumer recycled and organic cds and merchandise, biodiesel van, solar panels, geothermal recording studio, we've planted over a thousand trees, we power our albums and tour with wind power and we're constantly looking for ways to do things better.

JP: What prompted you to start doing those things?

CM: I've been like that as far back as I can remember. I can even remember almost getting fired from my very first job at Pizza Hut, because I hid all their aerosols and tried to get them to use this hand pump spray device I concocted. It's just something I feel very deeply about, and there's no option to live and work in any way other than in a manner that respects the other life forms that are sharing this little sphere with us.

JP: Now that your fan-base is growing rapidly, do you think it will be harder to maintain your "green" tours and label?

CM: No. In fact, we will likely be touring less, because I really want to focus on expanding our farm and the other sustainable aspects of our lives. It's easy to keep cranking out albums in a sustainable way, but I'm an introvert, so touring burns me out, and it's expensive to do in a green fashion, so it needs to be done in moderation. Cloud Cult was never created for the sake of being "big". We are what we are, and if our green mentality limits our ability to become the next mega-rock band, that's fine with me. I need to die feeling like I had a big impact with all the little things I did, not feeling like I had little impact with all the supposed big things I did.

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