Cloakroom :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

cr

On Indiana power trio Cloakroom’s new album Time Well, the band weds shoegaze’s blurry impressionism to post-rock heaviness and a rootsy framework. It’s a heavy record, but its heft is due to more than the thick layers of guitar. On songs like “Seedless Star” and “Concrete Gallery,” singer Doyle Martin conjures a particular atmosphere with his airy vocals; listen closely, and the influence of country rock and blues emerges, woven deeply into the band’s dream rock aesthetic. But that influence can also be heard explicitly — see the band’s cover of Songs: Ohia’s “Steve Albini’s Blues,” in which the band inhabits the song of another heavy metal-leaning Indiana boy — and Time Well‘s “Hymnal,” which finds the band reworking the 19th century American spiritual “Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord),” imbuing the traditional song with space rock textures.

Recently, AD caught up with Martin to discuss the band’s particular synthesis and how the record came together. Below, our conversation, edited and condensed for clarity.

Aquarium Drunkard: Where does the Time Well idea come from? Is there a concept that unites the record in a way?

Doyle Martin: I wouldn’t say it’s a concept record by any means. We were throwing around a couple record name ideas and we liked Time Well because [the record] was this little investment. We threw a bunch of our time and energy and thoughts and feelings into this hole and we can’t really get it back, you know? [Laughs] It’s always kind of metaphysical, thinking about or going into the recording studio, whether it’s doing so ourselves or going into someone’s studio. Taking a studio tour, I love thinking about how many thoughts have bounced off other people [in that space]…You think, “Oh wow, there was some wild shit made here. There were a lot of arguments. There was a lot of drinking.” [There’s] just a lot of human interaction [that goes on] in one of those places.

AD: I read somewhere you have an attraction to the late-night radio show Coast to Coast AM. Was there a paranormal element to the title as well?

Doyle Martin: I did hear about this urban legend about these marines or whatever [in the Middle East] discovering a “Vimana,” this ancient Sumerian vessel and it was stuck in this “time cave.” Though they did get this glimpse of alien technology, they were stuck in this hole — this “time well” — forever. I’m like, “Damn, did they age? Can they get out? Can we visit them?” If you Wikipedia it, there is in physics a loose definition people have thrown around for a “time well” as something that is theoretically possible.

AD: So it all dovetailed in your imagination – it worked as a metaphor for the thing you were creating and the space you were creating it in?

Doyle Martin: Yes.

AD: You hear a lot of shoegaze and post-rock in the record, but also a distinct thread of country, roots, folk, and blues. How does that play into the sonic identity of Cloakroom?

Doyle Martin: I’ve been listening to a lot of that stuff for a long time; so have our other two boys, our other two cloaks [Brian Busch and Bobby Markos]. I was talking with someone about us signing to Relapse. There were asking about “heavy music,” and they asked, “Do you think this curtailed to be heavier as it’s out on Relapse?” I had to think to myself, “I don’t think so.” We didn’t change our tuning or do anything like that. A heavy record, to me, can be a country song. Whether it’s lyrical content or harmonies, some songs are just heavy to me. I think a Townes Van Zandt song is just as heavy as a good metal song.

AD: Sure, like a Neurosis song or something– which comes to mind because Steve Von Till did those Townes cover albums.

Doyle Martin: Those covers are so good. They’re really scary.

AD: Did you grow up with country music?

Doyle Martin: I did. But the “Hymnal” song on the record…so many people have covered that, I wanted Cloakroom to join the ranks of people who have covered “Were You There” along with Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash, and all these other people. My mom was a cantor at a Catholic church. I was dragged there all that time for choir practice. I’d listen to them sing and do homework or read a Goosebumps book or some shit…I was forced to listen to their harmonies, and I still remember [them]. If I hear one of those songs, I find my brain remembering the lyrics. It’s because I was sitting in choir practice the whole time.

AD: That kind of gets into you on a cellular level. “Were You There” is a haunting melody. Do you find hymns heavy on a lyrical level?

Doyle Martin: Oh yeah, absolutely.

AD: Your bio notes the Indiana landscapes where you live. So often we music writers will cling to something like that and say, “This evokes the landscape of insert place.” But does that really feel like part of your perception of your music?

Doyle Martin: Not really, but maybe a little under the surface I guess. We are subject to live in this place. I think this little part of northwest Indiana is great. It’s a weird ecological environment: there are venus flytraps and pitcher plants and weird things that grow out here. Maybe subconsciously it influences us. I also think it makes our band – when we say we’re from Indiana, it’s all the more astonishing I guess. Which kind of sucks, it’s like, “Oh, they’re from Indiana and they play shows and have records, good for them. Great job, Hoosiers.” I’m like, uh, okay.

AD: Well, some pretty great stuff has come out of Indiana. You’ve got Secretly Canadian and associated labels out there. I mean, Jason Molina, alone. Indiana is a good place to come from as far as my record collection is concerned.

Doyle Martin: It’s not like we’re a diamond in the rough. There’s a lot of cool things to come out of here. I don’t think it’s because necessity, [because] of the barren landscape we live on. I think it’s a pretty little place. words/j woodbury

One thought on “Cloakroom :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Comments are closed.