Cloudkicker’s Ben Sharp Reveals How the Intronaut Collaboration Came Together
One of the biggest stories of last week was the announcement that Cloudkicker (aka Ben Sharp) would play live for the first time ever this coming spring. With freakin’ Intronaut as his backing band for a month-long tour! Unreal. I was standing with Metal Injection’s Frank Godla when I got the news and he straight up lost his shit when I told him (check out Frank’s exclusive in-person interview with Mr. Sharp from a little over three years ago if you haven’t seen it yet — his Cloudkicer fanboyism knows no bounds!). Sharp has gone on record multiple times as saying he didn’t want to, or wasn’t able to tour, so why the sudden change in heart?
Turns out it wasn’t so sudden. In a blog post published earlier today, Sharp reveals exactly how the collaboration came to fruition. Given all the moving parts it’s kinda insane that it actually ended up happening. Here’s Ben:
What a crazy week, in both my work life and music life. It’s nice to have a day to hang out with the dog and the wife and have an excuse to be lazy and wear sweatpants because it’s 6 degrees (or -14 C for those outside the US).
I have been in contact with Intronaut since right after Beacons came out. They played a show in Columbus in late 2010 and after [being blown away by] the set I hunted down their bassist, Joe, and offered him a Trader-Joe’s-bag full of CDs and LPs and said something to the effect of “you guys might like this.” According to them, they were so taken by my complete lack of trying to get them to do something for me that they gave the album an honest listen and actually liked it a whole lot. We’ve been in touch since then.
It was either Sacha or Dave or both who floated the idea of using Intronaut as Cloudkicker’s band. I thought it was a nice gesture but didn’t really take it seriously since I figured there wouldn’t be any way to make a live show happen given the distance between us and my work schedule that has me traveling 3-4 days a week. Fast forward to this past fall when they came through Columbus again and we spent the evening discussing what the realities of a tour like that would be. It was definitely a fun topic to discuss, but moreover I was impressed by their genuine excitement to maybe, one day, have the opportunity to do this. And the fact that they are musicians of such caliber and professionalism made it obvious that there would be no problems handling the music and translating it to a live show with minimal time in the same room rehearsing it, so long as I provided them with appropriate materials with which to prepare.
That night I wrote an email to my company’s HR department asking for the month of April (after Intronaut’s tour with Between the Buried and Me) off as a leave of absence. I framed it as an opportunity to expand a side business that provides our household with a measurable percentage of our yearly income…which it is, in a way. I told the guys that I would keep them posted, but I was almost certain that my request would be denied. It took about three weeks to get a response, and to my astonishment and the astonishment of many of my co-workers I now had April 1 to April 30 totally free. Ye gods!
After that came a lot of talking to people on the phone and emailing people that I’m still not sure what they do and behind-the-scenes planning and “Are you sure you can’t do anything in March?” “Yes, only April” “What about May?” “No just April” and generally being confused about what was actually happening.
In the midst of this, the band and I worked out a set list and I went back and remixed the songs to make it possible for a finite number of band members (specifically guitarists) to play them. I sent this out to everyone as a full-band mix as well as a mix tailored to each instrument. The hope is that when we are ready to rehearse at the end of March, everyone will come together like a puzzle. I’ve been practicing on my own at home and it gives me shivers to imagine being a piece of this puzzle—creating music live that I’ve spent so much time being immersed in by myself, and doing it as one unit in coordination to a room full of people that are as excited to hear it as I am to play it, and then doing that for a month. What a trip.
Here are all the dates as of today as well as links to buy tickets where available:
4/1 Atlanta, GA @ The Drunken Unicorn
4/2 Jacksonville, FL @ Roc Bar
4/3 Orlando, FL @ Backbooth
4/5 Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
4/6 Austin, TX @ Dirty Dog
4/7 Houston, TX @ Fitzgerald’s
4/10 Tempe, AZ @ Club Red
4/11 West Hollywood, CA @ The Roxy
4/13 San Francisco, CA @ DNA Lounge
4/14 Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theatre
4/15 Seattle, WA @ Studio 7
4/16 Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre
4/18 Edmonton, AB @ Pawn Shop
4/19 Calgary, AB @ Republik
4/22 Billings, MT @ The Railyard
4/23 Denver, CO @ The Marquis Theatre
4/25 Minneapolis, MN @ Skyway Theater
4/26 Cleveland, OH @ Agora Ballroom
4/27 Poughkeepsie, NY @ The Chance
4/28 Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
4/29 Philadelphia, PA @ The Barbary
4/30 New York, NY @ Gramercy TheatreI think that’s about all I can say about it. I hope to see you at one of these dates. I know we aren’t coming to every city possible, and I apologize if you feel left out (specifically Toronto, Chicago, and the Carolinas) but a lot of time and effort went into planning this tour—which must have been especially difficult given the intended scope conflicting with my schedule restrictions. I had no hand in setting it up, but I’m sure I couldn’t have done a better job. There is so much more that goes into planning something like this than I ever imagined.
CRAZY stoked for this tour to roll through NYC. Since it’s the last date of the run we’re sure there will be all sorts of shenanigans and partying to follow.
Also, what’s the over/under on how many demo CDs Intronaut will be handed on this tour as a result of this story? 100? 1,000?
