Arkansas indie-pop duo, joan – comprised of Alan Thomas and Steven Rutherford – have been dazzling listeners with their upbeat (and rather infectious) eighties-meets-nineties nostalgia for the past three years. After the success of their 2018 debut EP, portra – which was streamed well over 50 million times – the band is now ready to release EP two, cloudy, out today!
cloudy just might be the best material the duo have released thus far. Managing to combine two decades worth of nostalgia into one modern body of work, cloudy is described by the band as “an EP about seasons: created in the fall, introduced live in the winter, finished in the spring, released in the summer. we made “cloudy” to tell a story of one relationship and the fact that love can be messy but so beautiful. you know you shouldn’t be with them right now, but you have to be with them, right now. as we were finishing the record, we were forced to be in quarantine and spend more time at home. we both took to walking every evening, and would text each other pictures of the sky while doing it. it felt like the name for the ep had fallen in our laps after talking about it one day. clouds can create a beautiful or terrifying scene, they can bring refreshing rain or a destructive storm. when you see clouds, it’s probably not great at the moment, but it will get better. that’s what this ep is about – getting better, growth, loving harder, and learning from mistakes.”
With emotional highs and lows running rampant throughout its six tracks, one can’t help but begin to wonder what their debut full length will entail. Only time will tell, but for now we’ll just stare at the sky and press play.
We asked the band to delve into cloudy in this exclusive track-by-track commentary. Enjoy and don’t forget to pick up a vinyl here!
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“try again”
this song starts the EP, and it was the last song finished while making the EP. we were in an early 2000’s inspired phase of writing, and i remember alan sending a little loop with a midi acoustic. it was super simple, but we knew from the start that it was special and needed to be on the EP. after writing it, we sent this one off to andy and told him to go nuts on the production. if you listen closely, you can hear samples of me and alan talking to each other as well as andy beatboxing under the beat.
“want u back”
ummm hiiii did someone say breakbeat?? when we were writing this song, we put down a piece of cardboard and just started breakdancing for hours and hours. it just felt right. the bridge on this song is one of our favorites that we’ve written. it’s one of those that just felt like it wouldn’t work unless it was in this song. we also ended up having to restrict ourselves a good bit on this one production-wise. any time we tried to add something, it didn’t feel quite right. it took a bit to figure out that the bones of the song was what we needed to stick with.
“magnetic”
so this song is pretty special because a version of it was released by alan’s previous band (we met and became friends from our bands playing shows together). his band wrote this song during that sort of in-between season before we went full time into joan. i remember hearing it and wishing we could go forward with it as our song, but it just didn’t feel right at the time. as we’ve continued along, though, this song has stuck with us in the back of our minds, and this EP just felt right to re-work it and release it as our own.
“cover girl”
wow this song took FOREVER to figure out. we’ve been playing this song live since our very first show in 2017. it existed as a different version, but never quite felt complete. so when we were recording with our best buds andy and matty, we just wanted to flip it on its head and start all over. it landed in this like Disney channel a la early 2000’s space and we instantly fell in love with it. it’s a simple love song about fawning over the person of your dreams. we’re so glad this one is finally out!
“love me better”
we’ve been in a writing season where a lot of songs we have been working on have a bit of “swing” to them. this was one of the first we really dove into with that vibe. this song has some serious attitude. the drums harken back to the days of teddy riley, where the drums would just absolutely slap you in the face. we really wanted the music to convey the lyrical persona on this one – “i need you to love me better!!!” this song def has personality and sass.
“brokenhearted”
this is one of our favorite songs we’ve ever written. we always try to write songs that feel timeless, in the same manner that a lot of our heroes do, and this one feels like our best shot at that so far. it’s a heartbreak ballad, but feels like a song that even if you haven’t had that kind of heartbreak, you can still identify with in some manner. it’s a sad song, perfect for a rainy day reminiscing.
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