Welcome to our first Throwback Thursday article!
These days the multi-million-streams Berlin pop singer Cloudy June needs absolutely no introduction: having exploded over the last 2-3 years, she’s as indie as they get: she did it all by herself, with no management, label or team; just her and a couple of friends she made the music with, a friend who did some photos, and with a never-give-up attitude she beat the tiktok algorithm.
After daily posting, frequent releases and lots and lots of work and self-belief; she exploded, ending up in all the spotify editorial playlists you want to be in, winning a huge audience of fans on tiktok and getting multiple millions of streams on her singles on Spotify. More recently she’s signed up to Columbia Records and has her face three storeys high on Times Square, New York.
We’re of course proud to be have been the first blog ever to feature the young singer who still called herself Cloudy Verdecia (actually before this article, there was one where she played a ukelele…but I can’t find it….). So here’s our Throwback Thursday article dug up from the archives of indieBerlin / indieRepublik, in 2019….
Cloudy Verdecia has been around the block a bit despite her young years…
Her debut solo EP is out today – and with her Cuban mother and rock n roll father, a few years in metal bands, you’ll be surprised how gentle and winning her first solo outing sounds. We chatted to Cloudy and asked her some stuff…
indieberlin: Tell us a little bit about your musical background.
Cloudy: My first encounter with music was through my mother, who is Cuban and played guitar while I was in the womb. I grew up mostly at my dad’s, who is a big fan of Classic Rock like The Beatles and The Kinks so there was always good music playing. Later I joined the school band where we started experimenting with Progressive Rock and Metal and I got a lot of inspiration from the Swedish Death Metal Band Opeth, even though the music on my Solo Project is rather soft.^^
indieberlin: How did you come up with the name Cloudy Verdecia?
Cloudy: My full name is Claudia Terry Verdecia, my dad took my mother’s name, but I never really liked the ‘a’ in Claudia. That’s why I always tell people to call me Claudi. So it became Claudi Verdecia and later ,,Cloudy” because friends of mine had written my name like that from time to time and in the end I just went with it! Also there’s a high chance that you will bump into me on the street because I’m staring at the clouds, so it fits perfectly.
indieberlin: How does the songwriting process work for you?
Cloudy: It has changed a lot. But recently it went a little something like this: When I wrote ,,Heartless” I woke up hungover one morning and suddenly the lyrics and the melody for the first verse popped up in my head. Out of nowhere I just went: ,,Oh, I love you, love the idea of your emptiness” in my mind and immediately jumped up, ran to my guitar and searched for the chords to it. 3 songs on my EP came to being like this.
indieberlin: Where do you get your inspiration from?
Cloudy: Music-wise from various genres, such as progressive Rock and Metal but also Folk and Indie Pop. Lyric-wise from the people that I meet.
indieberlin: What was your biggest stage fuck-up?
Cloudy: I once dropped a guys acoustic guitar at an open mic. It had no scratches but that moment still haunts me today. Also, not really a fuck-up, but I once almost passed out on stage when doing a really long scream when I played with my Metal Band. Everything turned black for a moment, luckily no one in the audience noticed it.
indieberlin: What was the nicest compliment you once got?
Cloudy: ,,If your voice was a substance, it would be smoke” by Iris Fly.
indieberlin: Do you prefer to play big festivals / stages or smaller club gigs?
Cloudy: There is something nice about the intimacy at smaller gigs and open mics for example. But I feel much more vulnerable at a smaller place and I get to let go more when I play bigger shows.
indieberlin: In ten years you look back to today and think:_____________
Cloudy: It didn’t matter as much as you thought it would.
indieberlin: Do you see your songs in colour or in black and white?
Cloudy: Thinking of my EP, ,,Heartless” is green, ,,Distant Satellite” is dark blue, ,,Candelight” is orange and ,,Dreaming Of You” is a very light blue.
indieberlin: Do you want to greet somebody ;-))?
Cloudy: I want to greet Nicolas, who is my best friend and who produced my EP. Thanks for not getting tired of me!
Check out Cloudy Verdecia on soundcloud!
Or the video teaser for the EP!
Jump back here for our next Throwback Thursday feature article!
