This past weekend, whilst hitchhiking up the West Coast and back to his hometown of St. Louis, guest Apes on Tape contributor Sean Lawlor journeyed to Sasquatch Music Festival at the Gorge to catch one of his current favorite bands–Cloud Cult. Sean noted that Cloud Cult alone nearly sealed his commitment to make a pitstop at Sasquatch. You can read Sean’s full, poignant, immersed review of Cloud Cult’s set, but Sean also interviewed Cloud Cult band leader Craig Minowa. Enjoy.

Apes on Tape: You guys have been together for quite some time now. Would you mind giving a brief history of the band – when you got together, how the band formed, etc?– for those unfamiliar with the band?

Craig Minowa: Cloud Cult started as a solo studio project of mine. I didn’t have a plan to make a band out of it, I just liked writing music. When They Live on the Sun came out in 2003, the third album, there was a lot of buzz on college radio with the album, so I decided to make a live band out of it. We’ve had a lot of wonderful band members come and go over the years, but everyone has been a gift.

I’ve read that you run an organic farm and record your music on the farm as well. Could you give us some information about the farm and how it came to be? In ways is running the farm connected to your music?

I’m as interested in environmental sustainability issues as I am in music, so the two have combined over the years. With the release of the second album “Who Killed Puck” in 2000, it was really clear that I needed to create a system for releasing the records in an environmentally friendly way, because there weren’t any other labels doing that to the degree that I needed. So Earthology Records was created, and we developed ways of making CDs from reused materials. The farming aspect ties in, as we now have an environmental nonprofit, Earthology Institute, that my wife, Connie (a painter in the band), created. We have a lot of plans for our land here, in regards to providing sustainability workshops and an eco-retreat center.

I know you are also into “live painting” during your shows in which an artist paints throughout the performance and then you auction the painting off to the crowd. What is the whole idea behind this practice? Does the money from the auction go toward future recording endeavors?

The original idea behind it was to help provide a more interesting stage show. We used to invite people in the crowd to bring their paints and setup their own easels.  The idea was to create this sense of communal art. It started to get a little out of control when things started to grow for the band, so we started working exclusively with two full time painters, Connie Minowa and Scott West. They also spearhead all the design for merchandise and album artwork, so it’s a great relationship. The money from the sales goes to paying bills.

I am often struck by the life-affirming spirituality of your music, spirituality that even tinkers into mysticism. Have you been influenced by any particular spiritual tradition more than others? How would you describe your spirituality? Does it involve belief in a “higher power”?

For me, music is a very sacred art form that helps me connect to my personal spirituality. The Cloud Cult album creation process helps me through my own self growth, healing, and spiritual seeking. I’m a pretty broad spectrum seeker when it comes to being influenced by world religions, philosophy and science. So my personal belief system, which is constantly evolving, really has inspirations from as many places as my eyes get a chance to see.

Onto specifics. “Transistor Radio” is a tremendously beautiful and nostalgic song. How did your relationship with your grandfather affect the songwriting? Is there a reality behind the stories of the song (going through canyons and caves, sleeping in brothels, sailing on bicycle boats, etc.), or is it all metaphorical/allegorical?

That song is very metaphorical and is all about the journey of living and learning. I believe that whether we’re aware of it or not, we all get a lot of guidance from the loved ones who have left this living plane. So this story is about a little kid who is brought on a journey by his deceased grandpa, who talks to him through the kid’s transistor radio.

The album Light Chasers takes the listener on a tremendous journey through time and space. Would you call it a “rock opera,” or is it something else entirely? How was the original concept for the album conceived?

Every Cloud Cult album is a personal search through twisted roads of philosophy, so I decided to make an album that was both a metaphorical and literal journey to find “God” and the Meaning of Life. So this album follows and individual from birth to realization.  It’s sort of a sister album to “Who Killed Puck”, which came out in 2000, and was also a concept album that was a storyline of an individual’s search for the Grand Mystery. Light Chasers is the brighter side to that story.

“There’s So Much Energy In Us” blows me away every time I hear it – it seems to document a journey of consciousness from searching to discovering. Are there any particular philosophers whose “written words” helped “build the fire”? What does the song mean to you?

Thanks for the kind words! The song wraps up the storyline of the album and is the moment where the character undergoes complete exhaustion which turns into “realization”. I’ll say it over and over that I don’t have the answers. I’m a seeker like everyone else and have always spent a lot of time searching. But when we lost our two year old son, it became more of an obsessive search. I want to find the “Other Side” so I can find him. I want to figure out how to go through the “light at the end of the tunnel” without actually dying, so I can hold him again. And the music, album after album, reflects the search for that. In “Who Killed Puck” the character actually dies looking for God, which, given it was written 12 years ago, reflected more of my personal darkness during that time. In “Light Chasers”, and specifically in the end song, the character, in his darkest hour, suddenly has a realization that God is everywhere and that it’s always been that way, but he couldn’t see it. So we spend our lives “chasing the light”, and in actuality, it’s always been here. It takes a firm commitment to consciousness and presence in order to see that truth even on a sporadic basis.

A big recurring theme in your music is traveling. What does traveling mean to you? How is it connected to music/creativity?

The physical concept of traveling, in the songs, is always a reflection of the deeper search for Meaning and Purpose.

Does music still play an important role in our modern world? How would you describe that role?

Music is one of the most powerful medicines and one of the greatest destroyers. It is magic. You can shift a person’s mood, mindset and even direction simply by playing a certain type of song. The songs that make it on popular radio and inundate the masses not only reflect their mindset, but they mold and define it. I see a lot of talented musicians and songwriters who have no idea how much responsibility they have in regards to the product they are putting out there.