Claude Proves Everything is Fine When Everything is Not
By Meggie Gates
Photo by Tom Gavin
The world is warming and the end is waning, a constant consistent with Claude’s music. On a day overcast with gray, we talk about the gray of the everyday, the monotony of wading through the meaningless and the way she captures it with relative ease and comfort. The harmony of her dream pop pours from speakers like a lovely lullaby, one we tell ourselves every night as we settle in to facing another day tomorrow. “Oh the world is ending, but everything is fine.”
With Michael Mac on Bass, Joseph Farago on keys and backup vocals, and Kate Samson on drums, Claudia Ferme has managed to create a world so visual, you can physically feel your toes sink in to sand dancing around on rugs to the beautiful simplicity of her songs. “I’m drawn to simplicity. Since my music is more dreamy and ethereal, it wouldn’t sound right if I had a ton of stuff going on,” she answered when asked about how she managed keeping every individual part unique in her songs. “I’m really anal about music going with the lyrics and my lyrics flow a certain way rhythmically. I’ve been lucky to find people who know how to add things that work with the simplicity of my music.”
Claude’s strength lies in marrying complexity with simplicity. The groovy shift of guitar in “Reality” to the upbeat tempo of “Fantasy” showcases the band’s capability to carve out a sound unique to them. The entirety of their 2018 EP Enactor recaptures the carefree attitude of long skirts brushing upon grass in the summer. The kind of photos you see online that bring a sense of peace of an easier time when the sun rays fell right in your open window. Moving from her surf pop origins with college band Her Again, Claudia fell in to dream pop after moving back to Chicago following graduation. She wrote her first song Enactor three years ago and it is one she is still incredibly proud of.
“The lyrics for Enactor is based on a book I read in college,” Ferme tells me. “It’s about this guy who had a traumatic brain injury and must learn how to move in the world again. It conveys the question of what it feels like to move through being a person and that’s what people struggle with in general.”
Behind the world she creates lies the emptiness of being alive, lyrics that tackles the existential anxiety of surviving young adulthood. Written after the 2016 election, “Everything is Great” is one specific example of the stress we feel navigating tumultuous times. Teasing her idea for the song’s music video, she explains to me the process behind visuals she chooses for her songs. Only a year old and the band has already filmed two music videos with more on the horizon, a strength not many new musicians expand upon immediately. I emphasize this to Claudia after hearing the idea behind “Everything is Great” and tell her I love the simplicity of her “Enactor” video. Something about a girl grooving in nature to her own music is so wonderfully cathartic.
Claudia’s latest music video, “Turn,” points to the maturity she has managing video content that accompanies her songs. With the use of old school visuals playing behind lonely lyrics, the pixelated graphics offer an artistic approach to old school VHS reels. It reads as if it was a screensaver on a Windows computer, emulating choppy videos you would find back in the early 2000’s. Pastel flowers line her face as she peers in to the camera with grainy eyes, an emptiness reflecting her longing search to find comfort in the arms of another. The video follows her hands as they stretch across the screen, utilizing space to explore movement when the time is right. What punches up the appeal is the colors that offset Claudia. As she turns in sync to her lyrics, yellow and maroon filters expand and shrink to match her plaid blazer.
“Turn is literally a physical movement so I wanted it to reflect the lyrics as much as possible,” she says. “My roommate CJ came up with the visual aspect and the colors that go well together. It’s really visually appealing.”
Technology, in general, is a topic that often occupies Claudia’s thoughts. “Screen,” the first song off her EP, tackles the disconnect people face today trying to communicate through a million different mediums. We harp especially on how bad Instagram can be for artists and the rat race that comes with trying to keep up creatively. For all the positives that come with connection, the dark side is seeing everyone who feels further than you. It’s hard to put blinders on when measuring your success by someone else’s, a point Claudia and I return to twice in the day. If anything stands to threaten artists constantly, it’s the appearance that everything is fine even when it’s not.
“I can spend way too much time on Instagram comparing myself to people in music with a ton of followers and think I don’t matter or what I’m doing is dumb and everyone is cooler than me,” she says. “It’s just such a well for very negative feelings and thoughts. It’s such a waste of time.”
We start the day with a handshake and end with a hug, a reflection of how warm and encompassing Claudia is. As we walk down Southport under a dim sky, we laugh about how Tobey Maguire is the only Spiderman we ever needed. She realizes her car is the other way but continues talking to me anyways, a light so intoxicating it extends to the overcast weather. “I want my music to be honest,” she tells me over coffee, noting how much of a cliché that may sound like. “Right now I’m focusing on getting my full-length album out there but it can be really hard not to compare yourself when you see someone else doing something that works.” Authenticity oozes from every direction as she clarifies what she hopes will come from her music. At the end of the day, she wants to do whatever will satisfy her most.
“I can either be miserable and not do what I want to do or just go for it,” she says as we admit how tired being one person in a sea of many is. “If someone else can do music and make people think they’re important then I can do it too. I try to keep that in mind sometimes.”
I reiterate one last time how much her music means to me before we part. My thoughts of aimlessness have been wandering with tired legs lately and it’s nice to meet an artist occupying that space as well. “For me it’s like why not create art. Nothing matters, we’re all going to die someday.” We follow each other on social media and I wave goodbye to her as she goes, bouncing down Southport with the energy of someone who’s drank an entire pot of coffee. At night, I show her music to a friend of mine and they look out the window.
“It makes me feel okay with where I’m at right now, like I can slow down and just take it all in.”
It makes me feel okay, too.
Claude will be celebrating her music video for “Turn” healing the Empty Bottle December 17th. Be on the lookout for her album early next year.