by Sebastian Mackay
From journalist in training to co-vocalist of Cloud Control it’s been, well, it’s been a dream run for Heidi Lenffer and the rest of the band (lead vocals and rhythm guitarist Alister Wright; drummer and percussionist Ulrich Lenffer; vocals and bassist Jeremy Kelshaw round out the lineup). From Australia to England and then to the United States, Lenffer says it was the furthest thing from a nightmare (and from her former job managing auto cue for newsreaders at Australia’s national broadcaster).
“It was in no way a nightmare (breaking into the US). It was a waking dream…now that we have a label in America and we can go there it’s a completely different world,” Lenffer says over a shoddy phone line from somewhere in Australia. “I could do nothing but tour for two years in America and be happy. The difference between States is huge.”
They’ve been here four times in the last year and from the adventures they’re having, it sounds as though it’ll soon be the band’s second home. But they’re not here on luck alone. They toured Australia to death and back, then moved on to the UK where they recorded the debut in analogue (“we had six tracks and two of them broke so we only had four and we produced it ourselves”) to digitising the new release Dream Cave.
Moving from analogue to digital brought with it an endless number of tracks and, naturally, lead to what would be ground breaking experimentation for the band. But it wasn’t a full blown free for all that lead to incorporating dubstep or metal (not that it was ever going to).
“I don’t worry about alienating our fans” Lenffer begins, “we love them. We don’t want to piss them off, but a greater mandate is that you have to please yourself.”
Cloud Control want to be a career band and Lenffer acknowledges that losing some fans comes with the territory of growth.
“[Want to be less] beholden to public opinion. If we lose people along the way then that’s what’s going to happen. With [Dream Cave] we lost a lot of people but we gained a lot who didn’t like what we’d done on the first album.”
Audiences are fickle, almost by default, but Lenffer says they don’t concern themselves with how they’re going to survive in the industry. “The industry will take care of itself,” she says. “We concern ourselves with our survival as a unit and if we’re happy. We have regular conversations about it.”
Being happy is a big part of what Cloud Control are about. They decided about three years ago that they wanted to be a band that reflected the happiness in the world. Lenffer says there are many bands that do a good job of reflecting the misery and that she’s happy to leave them to the dark arts. The ethos comes straight from the movie Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
“Be excellent to each other.” Lenffer says. “It’s a good way to be and good mandate for the band to have moving forward.”
Lenffer says they have a role to play in giving people a respite from the world. And being excellent to each other, and to their fans, is a big part of what Cloud control are all about. Catch the band, and all their excellent songs, tomorrow night at Union Transfer with Metronomy.
