Feature: David Cloyd Decodes ‘Red Sky Warning’
Photo Credit: Taylor Ballantyne
How did you come up with the theme?
I think Mark Twain was right about writing what you know: I got married and had kids, so I wrote a bunch of songs about what it was like to get married and have kids. What’s most fascinating about following Twain’s advice is finding out you really don’t know what you know at all. We can all be fooled by our first reactions, our gut instincts, our personal version of the truth. Songwriting is how I process my experiences, discover what they really mean to me, how I really feel about it all. So that whole “life imitates art” versus “art imitates life” question absolutely starts with life for me.
How did you approach the arrangement and composition of the music for ‘Red Sky Warning?’
I used to start recording songs before I finished writing them, which felt a lot like fumbling my way through the dark with a blindfold on. This time around, I really focused on fully realizing the songs before I committed a single note to tape, which meant I truly understood the feeling I was trying to share within each one. That purpose really drove every decision I made after that, including who the “band” was. Even though they were all me, each member had a defined purpose, and that limitation was absolutely liberating.
Which song(s) from 'Red Sky Warning' do you think best represents your artistic vision?
Honestly, I’m an album artist through and through, so if any of these songs didn’t best represent themselves and represent a crucial element of the artistic vision of the album, it wouldn’t be here. As soon as I got “Ocean Of Hours” together, I knew it captured the tone of the album—organic and sinewy, epic and cinematic, but still very close and detailed, chaos and control pulling on each other. And “Walk The Earth” acts as a foil to that one, because even with the instrumentation pared down to just vocals, acoustic guitar, strings, and a glockenspiel, it still creates that same feeling. It’s probably why they work so well as the first and last songs on the album.
Can you tell us more about you as an artist?
“Me as an artist” is not separate from any other part of me. I’m an artist when I make breakfast, when I drop my kids off at school, when I walk into to the grocery store, when I go to work in the studio, when I sleep. I truly believe that’s the only way to be an artist—once you understand that you can’t go without it, believe that it’s a valuable way to spend the time you’re given, you have no choice but to give yourself to the idea of it.
How do you continuously grow and evolve as an artist?
I live in perpetual discomfort with new material that’s not complete, and I work ruthlessly and obsessively on each song until the tumblers fall into place. The feeling I get when I finish something is wonderful, but it can’t compete with the act of writing. So I’m never really satisfied, which may sound torturous. But when you’re an artist, you know it’s just an occupational hazard—that state of being is a source of complete and utter joy for me.
