How Claud learned to take the joke seriously

Still, Me and the Music is not an uncomplicatedly happy record. “It’s still a very honest and heavy record at times,” Claud says as they open up about songs such as “Let’s End on a Good Note” which deals directly with closure and moving on. “This song even makes my mum cry,” they confess, “and fair enough, right? Letting go of feelings is always really sad and really hard.” Yet Claud acknowledges that this album bears witness to their efforts to learn to live alongside those feelings. “I think like on my best day, I don’t take life too seriously,” they say, “but it’s a constant reminder, like something I need to write on my wall to remember to do consciously every day.”

That lighter outlook also found its way into the process of making the album. The title track became a turning point for Claud: after looking back on the “situationships” that had shaped so much of their earlier work and realising that one of them “really wasn’t ever anything,” writing the song helped release some of the regret around it. “I just learnt that making music could be really fun again,” they say. More broadly, Claud came to see that renewed sense of fun as a sign that they were in a better place. “I knew I was doing better when I was able to make jokes and have a sense of humour about anything.”

And the result is definitely their most laid-back record to date. “Gay Witchcraft”, for instance, grew out of an inside joke Claud shared with their friends around a book of the same name. It was the kind of title that was funny precisely because it was so absurd – until Claud fell in love and suddenly found themselves taking the joke more seriously. “Do I have to crack open that book to make this work?” they remember thinking. “I will go as far as making this joke not a joke.” “Just Kidding” follows the same logic. 

The song started with a running joke between Claud and their partner, a deliberately exaggerated declaration of love they would jokingly say to each other: “I love you so much. I want to have your babies. Just kidding. I don’t really want to have any babies, but I love you that much.” And what fascinated Claud was how something said entirely as a joke could still contain a completely sincere feeling – how, rather than cancelling each other out, humour and genuine emotion could exist side by side.

That willingness to play also extends to the studio. Claud began Me and the Music without intending to produce it and John Congleton was expected to do it entirely on his own, but as the sessions developed, Claud became increasingly involved in shaping the record. They eventually asked for production credits on three songs and Congleton told them they should have one across the whole album. It was, Claud says, part of a larger realisation about what producing actually means. “Producing is about speaking your mind, making sure all of your ideas get realised and being able to verbalise what you actually want.”

Jack Antonoff, who has also become a mentor figure for them, put it simply: “You’re already a producer,” he told them, and it helped Claud to recognise that “having ideas and curating a sound and telling people what you want” is, ultimately, a huge part of the job. Gradually, some of those instincts have become part of Claud’s musical fingerprint. Their vocals remain dry and prominent because, as they put it, “I want people to hear the lyrics.” They double their vocals around 90 per cent of the time, even though Congleton encouraged them to experiment without that familiar second voice. There is plenty of Mellotron, particularly in place of conventional strings and brass, while the guitars tend to remain dry with only a trace of chorus.

Working alongside Congleton was itself part of that education process, as Claud puts it. They speak about him with the combination of admiration and curiosity of someone who still feels they have plenty to learn from more seasoned hands. “He’s a genius,” they say, pointing to the sheer number of artists he has worked with (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Tegan and Sara, Swans...). “Even today, I’m still picking his brain about production and technical stuff.”

That same ability to place humour next to heavier subjects can be found in “She Doesn’t Love Me”, one of the album’s most pointed songs. What sounds at first like a straightforward breakup song is actually about Claud’s relationship with America – and, more specifically, what it means to be part of the LGBTQ+ community there right now.

“I was really worried that people would think I was making light of something that is really serious,” Claud admits. But instead, they found that listeners understood where the song was coming from. “I don’t actually love America but I love the community I have in America,” they clarify. For Claud, what keeps them there is not any great faith in the country itself, but the people around them, particularly within queer and trans communities that are increasingly having to rely on one another as resources become harder to come by.

That, ultimately, is what Claud wants the song to say. “We just have to try our best to organise in our communities, do what we can for each other because no one else is going to do it.” Even here, where the subject matter could hardly be heavier, Me and the Music finds a way to turn vulnerability into something shared — and, in doing so, into something that can still move forward.

That idea of finding strength in community comes up again when Claud looks back on the five years since their debut. They are struck by how much everything has changed in that time – “sometimes it feels like twenty years and sometimes it feels just like two” – and especially by how many artists around them have grown alongside them.

Claud was actually the first artist signed to Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records, which has recently been folded back into Dead Oceans, but the sense of community around its artists remains. “It was the queerest record label ever and my heart is so full thinking about it.” Claud now seems to be at a more open stage, excited to keep evolving and discovering what comes next. After everything Me and the Music carries, they remain deeply serious about the music but just more aware than ever of the people who make the journey worth taking.