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It’s become something of a cliché in recent years – a bunch of hip New Yorkers release a killer first single, are fast declared “the next big thing” by the music press, follow up with a disappointing album and inexorably lose the title to another band of young hopefuls. Here, while The Cloud Room fall foul of many of the usual mistakes, their account is slightly more interesting than most. Indeed, first released in America back in 2005, the band’s debut record has spent a while gathering dust before making its way across the Atlantic. So what’s the story?
Back in winter 2004, the band’s tempestuous front man J faced a life-changing moment when he tested positive for Aids. Incredulous, he spent an agonising 18-day wait for confirmation of the results of a retest. They came back negative. Finding salvation in music, J dealt with the traumatic experience by penning ‘Hey Now Now’, a three-minute blast of euphoria celebrating his second chance at life (sample lyric: “Pay the bus fare! And we’ll find a new reason, a new way of living!”). The song itself was perfect – a delightful blend of choral guitars, enchanting vocals and contagious melody all melded together with a distinctly ‘80s styling.
So what next? Quickly siding with a small media promotions company, the band set about trying to promote the single on American college radio to attract the interest of major labels. There was just one problem: they didn’t have any other songs to go with it. Eager to make the most of their one-record deal, the band’s promotion company pushed them for a full-length record to support the single. And so, the band hastily set about dusting off old demos and ideas and fashioning them into proper songs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, whilst ‘Hey Now Now’ gathered pace on college campuses, the lack of strong supporting material put the brakes on the band’s progress. In theory, the song should’ve hit the mainstream. In reality, it only managed to reach the bedrooms of the most wired bloggers and indie-scenesters.
