Thursday, January 14, 2016

Friends with Death

Jamuary 14th, 2016. First blog post in SEVEN MONTHS. I think that is a record amount of ineptness for us.
1. We're all bad at the internet (ehh Brandon is pretty good but is also dying).
2. We're all busy as hell outside of this band.
3. It was a rough time for a while after the summer 2015 Euro tour.

Where to start??
The tour was good, gig wise, and of course there was a lot of fun had. Lots of great shows and great friends. Other than that though, it was Long. Strenuous. Exhausting. Hot. Brutal. Financially Destructive. And ultimately was almost the end for Cloud Rat.
Tensions were high for the whole tour. What can I say... it is what it is.
Who am I kidding? Tensions had been high for a long time. All throughout writing and recording Qliphoth, before and after, shit was hard to keep together. I mean fuck, it still is.
Anyways, many of you probably already know, but for those that don't, Adrian isn't playing in CR anymore. You can still catch him with Old Soul and his many other music projects. We wish him all the best health and love in future things.

So now we are back to a three piece. Brandon is playing drums, and we have yet to figure out how we are going to incorporate the noise/electronics in the live setting. We are working on it though. CR did fine for five years without live electronics, so why not again for a little while til we get it sorted.

Qliphoth has gotten a lot of love. It's a pretty great feeling, and I don't really know the words to convey how much it means to us that the record seems to have resonated well with a lot of folks. The process of recording that record was grueling, to say the least. Not the engineering or performance (JC is a dream to work with, Lakebottom Studios for life) or anything, just surrounding circumstances.
It's become agonizingly apparent that everyone in CR suffers from chronic mental illness of some sort. And dealing with all of the crazy shit that life has thrown this past couple years has been especially taxing. So many deaths and disasters and clusterfucks.
So I just want to say, thank you to everyone who has been patient and kind and helpful. And sorry to anyone who has been rubbed the wrong way or forgotten/left hanging, or in some way let down by us. You deserve better. Don't hesitate to email (cloudratgrind@gmail.com) if you have anything you want to say or ask or what not. I know that there is a hilarious common thread since this band started of me continually apologizing for being behind on emails and messages and interviews and everything. I fucking suck at all of this shit. Trying my best, but there is so much going on always. Especially now with two kiddos and everyone getting older with harder schedules to work around. But I'm gonna keep trying.

On that note, currently working on getting organized again for real. I just updated the blog (bunch of dates, new videos, a bio, drugs of faith split lyrics and streaming). Next up is answering a ton of emails and messages, then THE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING WEBSTORE that I've mentioned for about three years now, and never put up. Fuck.

So, hopefully will be seeing many of y'all at upcoming gigs and we can hang out and be friends again. We are sloooooowly writing and discussing future records and junk. Grind til death.

Cheers. - Whiskey