Newcity Chicago: JT and the Clouds
Published by: Newcity Chicago
Date: April 10, 2009
Format: Web (www.music.newcity.com)
Type: Music Feature
Cloud Nine: JT and the Clouds got soul
Jeremy Lindsay, the singer and guitarist of JT and the Clouds, knew that Toledo, Ohio wasn’t going to offer his band as much of a chance to be noticed as a city like Chicago would. So, seven years ago, he and the band made the move. “Chicago’s definitely been everything that I imagined it to be in terms of it being a good pressure cooker for great music,” says Lindsay.
Although the band isn’t quite in the position to leave day jobs behind just yet, short, but frequent, tours keep the band moving and growing, gaining notoriety outside of Chicago. Later this month, the band will go to the southwest for a week and then in May, they cross the Atlantic for a week of shows in the United Kingdom.
While the band’s last record was released under the name JT Nero, conceptually a solo project for Lindsay, the full band played on the record. “I had just written a batch of songs that didn’t feel like typical Clouds stuff. It was just different, kind of a darker patch of tunes, a little softer and hopefully a little sweeter at points, so it just kind of seemed to lend itself to another project,” says Lindsay.
The band is back to writing songs for an upcoming JT and the Clouds record, a record that is currently still untitled. Lindsay draws influence from the Motown era of music as well as Booker T and the M.G.’s and Otis Redding. This influence is evident through the regular addition of instruments such as saxophones and Hammond organs that lend to the band’s self-described “soul” sound.