One artist, one vocal, one guitar.

Amongst the albums that influenced Red Sky Warning, Pink Moon is one of the weirdest outliers. And I would argue it’s the scariest of all of these records, namely because there really are only a handful of records that I can think of where it’s just one person and one instrument and that’s it. One artist, one vocal, one guitar, nowhere to hide. It’s like listening to someone walk a tightrope. Anyone who’s ever tried to record music should greet this album with the respect it deserves.

Making my first album Unhand Me, You Fiend! was largely a reaction to being trapped in band after band and not feeling like I could really just do what I wanted. And, right, you sacrifice a little bit for the democracy, but someone’s always got to be driving the car, and essentially, every band I was in, bless our little hearts, we tried to share that duty and not have one person leading. It’s very difficult to pull off, and when I got out of the last band that I was in, I was just so grateful to not have to check in with anyone that I just let it all go. But it’s never “just you” driving the car. As my producer Blake Morgan and I worked on that, I realized how different my approach was. When I started recording that album, I didn’t have any finished songs. I had ideas, and I was working them out as I went. All kinds of crazy, cool, and interesting things happened because of that, but in the production process, I think we cut 40% of what I recorded.

After Unhand Me, You Fiend! (my first album), we made a second album called I Could Disappear. We took all the songs from Unhand Me, You Fiend! and reduced them to one instrument and one vocal. Reversing that process was really a really fascinating experience, because it forced me to level up my songwriting game in exactly the way I needed. Another big takeaway from that – when you only have two things in the mix, you can make them both really loud. If you put Pink Moon on at the same volume as Back In Black, the closeness of the acoustic guitar and his whispered voice feels equivalent. It’s exciting to me how much music and sound there can be in just two tracks.

I rewired myself as an artist through that process, and I can’t go back – not really interested in doing so either. As I was sending my final sessions for Red Sky Warning to Blake to produce, he kept giving me this same note “There aren’t very many harmony vocals.” And I replied, “Yeah, I know – that’s on purpose.” We added doubles here and there, something that is very much in both our DNA. But as we got to the end of it and we had the big picture, he really understood why I chose to do that. Nick Drake inspired me to choose simplicity with regard to this one crucial aspect. I wanted to see how pared back I could be, really walk that tightrope.

My favourite tracks on the Nick Drake classic… “Pink Moon” (the title track) is simply one of the most magical songs ever put to tape, and even though the very small piano part briefly deviates from the “one vocal, one guitar” formula, it clearly belongs there and nowhere else. The shuffle at the heart of “Place To Be” is impossibly peaceful to be sharing such a song of loss and regret. And the walking chromatic lines in “Parasite” feel like they reinvent the wheel.

This album proves just how loud a whisper can be.

Taken from an interview with David Cloyd in July 2025 about what albums inspired his latest album, “Red Sky Warning,” out now on ECR Music Group. https://ecrmusicgroup.com/artists/david-cloyd/