WEEK OF 12/13/19

CLAUDE

Coming off a very successful year, Claudia Ferme, who has taken up the moniker Claude for her intimate dream pop project, has opened for quite a few excellent touring acts, was featured in many local lineups, and recorded a full length that is due next year. We sat down with the homegrown talent ahead of Claude’s headlining turn at Empty Bottle this Tuesday, December 17th, (tix are $5) to talk art, her inspiring day job, and what inspires her to keep going.
-Kyle Land

CF: Claudia Ferme

How long have you been performing as Claude?

CF: It’s been around two years now. I started at the beginning of last year. 

It precipitated from you writing songs at the end of college?

CF: I had a band the last two years of college, but the songs I started writing for this project came out of the way I was feeling at the end of college. Feeling existential about what I was doing with my life and moving back home. 

Where did you go to college? 

CF: University of Indiana Bloomington. 

There’s a good music scene there correct? 

CF: There is. 

Quite a few venues, a lot of bands come through there? 

CF: Yeah, and the house show scene there, the DIY scene, is really big. Most of the shows I played, and other local bands play, were basement shows. 

What was the band called? 

CF: Her Again (laughs) 

You have new music on the way? 

CF: Yes, I’m working on a full length. The first single, “Turn,” is out and I’m releasing another single early next year. 

Any preview on what the title will be? 

CF: I have a few ideas on the title but I’m still deciding. 

There is a theme that runs through your debut EP Enactor of how entertainment and technology affects our lives personally and socially? 

CF: I think anything you are surrounded by influences your work, whether intentional or not. There is definitely a little bit of a theme of technology and how it has affected me, and how I perceive how it affects the world. I don’t go that in depth. 

You go fairly in depth, there’s a whole song about film.

CF: (Smiles) Yeah, “Screen.” It’s funny because I’m rerecording the songs on my EP and including them on the album, because I feel like those songs deserve more potential than those recordings gave them. 

Where are you recording? 

CF: I’ve done the bulk of the recording at Decade Music Studios. My bassist Michael (Mac) who is recording everything and helping me produce the album, he co-runs Pallet Sounds so we’ve done other stuff there as well. 

How’s working at Pallet Sounds? 

CF: It’s very low pressure. Michael and I just trying out ideas. I love recording there. Decade is a great studio and they have really great equipment, but it feels like I have to…(makes focus gesture, with fingers to temples) it has to be perfect, I can’t fuck up. With Michael, we’re still working hard but it's more fun.

So what took you down the solo performer route?

CF: Even with my band I was writing all the songs. I would come in with the lyrics and guitar parts and then the other members would add stuff on. Maybe because these songs feel a lot more personal than my old music. The songs for this project are more introspective than the material from Her Again. 

Do you find it more difficult to be solo? 

CF: Kind of, I’ve always had trouble… I feel like a lot of artists have trouble separating. They have a persona they put on when they’re on stage. I’ve never felt that divide. It’s hard for me to separate me and the artist, it’s interchangeable. Maybe it’s hard because the songs are so personal. 

It’s not an act, it is you. You’ve had various labels put upon your music, such as “existential dream pop,” do you identify with a certain genre? How would you define it in a phrase?

CF: Music about questioning yourself and your life, but still has pop sensibilities.

The Chicago scene is very large and diverse. Did it take some time for you to feel accepted? 

CF: It took some time, like you said, there are different pockets. I’m in a certain pocket of the scene but there is so much more that I am not...maybe by playing more I’ll get to know more...it’s so hard because its so big and so diverse. You have to be playing shows for a long time to really break in. 

What are some bands you admire or have influenced you in Chicago? 

CF: I’m a huge fan of Tenci, Fran, Lala Lala, Sen Morimoto, there are a lot, there are so many more…Girl K… there’s so much good music in Chicago. 

A little outside of your life in music, you said you work at Ravinia in admin? 

CF: The program I work for is called Sistema Ravinia. It’s a branch of a music education outreach program that started in Venezuela, called El Sistema. It’s popping up all over the U.S. in the last three or four years. It looks to incite social change through music. I have some connection because my Mom is from Venezuela, and I feel culturally connected to it in that way. A lot of the population that we serve is Hispanic so I also do translation work, communication with families. It’s a free after school orchestra program, so they get their instruments for free, music for free, and transportation for free. It’s really cool. 

Last time I saw you, your Dad played with you. Did you get your musical interest from him? 

CF: Both of my parents were really encouraging of all of my siblings and I. We always had to do a sport and something creative. I grew up playing piano, was in choir at school, but I always refused to take guitar lessons from my Dad for some reason. (laughs) Then when I was a sophomore in high school I started taking guitar lessons. I was in School of Rock for a bit. They had this showcase where you would sign up to play Wilco songs or something, I played at Schubas at sixteen, and that was my first taste of performing. And I started writing songs around then. I had a dream to start a band. There are a few videos out there of me in School of Rock shows. (laughs) I’ve exposed myself! 

How do you find time to balance the job and your artistic endeavors?

CF: The nice part of my job is it’s part time. I’m not making a lot of money, but they are really understanding when I have shows and are really supportive. 

What drives you to make music, to keep producing your art? 

CF: I go through waves of feeling like why does what I’m writing about and making music about matter? I’m just one person. But there is always something, when I want to give up, always something that makes me want to write. It’s a form of therapy and comfort. Creativity is important in general, so why not me. None of this matters anyway I might as well do it while I can. 

What do you mean, “None of this matters anyway…”? 

CF: That’s the existential talking. (laughs) You can look at it both ways. None of this matters, we’re all going to die, so I’m not going to do this; or I’m going to do this because none of this matters 

I think that what you’re referring to is maybe a generational shift in the information age, that young people feel like they have to produce art in order to react to the world around them. 

CF: In general, I think, because we’re feeling watched all the time. Because of social media we feel a pressure to constantly be making things in order for people to pay attention. There is a lot of image pressure, information pressure. It’s constant…  

There is a constant pressure to be successful as well. It’s everywhere. 

CF: It feels like the worst and the best time. No one is making any money, that plays into it. But we need art and music to deal with what's going on in the world. And with social media anyone can put themselves out there and make music, anyone can do it.