Cloud Control to major domination

Australian band Cloud Control have a hit on their hands with their debut album ‘Bliss Release’ but it’s their non-stop gigging that has made them so popular

FOR CLOUD CONTROL, the road seems to go on forever. The way the band’s lead singer, Alister Wright, tells it, they’ve been on tour for years.

Since forming in 2007, the band from the Blue Mountains, just beyond Sydney, have played shows in every venue in Australia that would have them, and now, especially since the success of their debut album, Bliss Release, has become a bit of a hit, they're doing the same thing in Europe and America. It's a campaign for world domination, one indie rock club and festival stage at a time.

Speaking from London, where the band are now based, Wright says it’s easier to tour from there than from Australia, even though it’s their gigging at home that pays the bills.

“The thing about Australia is that even though the gig circuit is limited, you can make a living there,” says Wright. “We used to do a lot of runs up and down the east coast, where you do Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. You might do a few regional gigs inbetween. It keeps you busy for a while and helps you to build up the fanbase while you try to get radio play.”

But the band made a strategic decision to leave home and try their luck elsewhere. “For us, it was either go back into the studio to put out a second album really fast or try to break in different places and release the next album at the same time all over the world. It’s more ambitious, but it’s what we’re trying to do. I think it will be worth it in the long run.”

When Wright talks about how success in Australia has funded overseas campaigns, it’s a reminder that it’s not just Irish bands who use home support to pay for foreign tours.

“You do have to leave Australia. It’s not really sustainable: it’s a very small place and you run out of venues pretty fast. But at the moment, we’re losing money everywhere we play in the world except Australia. That’s where we make the money we can afford to lose when we play in Europe.”

Cloud Control have more than just Australian dollars in the bank. Bliss Release, with its charming hooks, dashing harmonies and bouncy melodies, is proving a hit, and wide-eyed pop nuggets like Gold Canaryand There's Nothing In the Water We Can't Fighthave endeared the four-piece to a wide audience.

The constant gigging, though, has done most of the work. The band play Dublin again tonight, their third visit to the city in six months, a state of affairs they have replicated in other countries in 2011. (It’s Wright’s fourth visit to Ireland; he was here separately during the summer to hang out with his Irish relatives in Rush, Co Dublin.)

He isn’t complaining. He and the rest of the band knew what they were signing up for when they told their label and management they were game for anything.

“We said to them that we’re prepared to do the work and to tour as much as they think we should do. But they’re aware that we need time off. We had two weeks off at the start of September and we’re taking January and February off to write new material as well.

“I feel like we’re getting ready for the next album, and we do want to play new songs, but it’s still amazing to play the first set of songs to new people.

“I’d never been to Europe before this year and it’s been a lot of fun. The hardest thing for me personally is not having enough time at home to yourself, but the general excitement does make it worthwhile.”

Wright and the rest of the band are already figuring out what that album might sound like. After all, Bliss Releaseis quite at odds with how Cloud Control play live. The subtleties and textures on the record take a back seat when the band start to rock out.

“When we started out as a band, we wrote songs in a thrashy rehearsal room which didn’t really have any dynamics to them,” says Wright. “They were just throwaway and thrashy and loud and worked really well in small clubs back in Sydney.

“But when we wrote the album, we had to make an effort to do something which would have more subtlety and layers and bring out the psychedelic side of what we did. When we play live we still try to have fun and play loud and getting people dancing, but the album was a much different thing.”

Album number two, Wright says, will have a lot more punch. “It will be a fairly different album without us even trying too hard to make it different,” he says. “The first one was written over such a long period of time, and some of the songs were written not long after we formed. Since then, we’ve toured so much and listened to so much different music that it naturally will be a different sound. I get the feeling that it will be more like how we play live.”

Cloud Control play the Academy, Dublin, tonight