11: Dylan Baldi (Cloud Nothings)
The Cloud Nothings frontman discusses staying motivated on the run and on the road and his goal of running a marathon in every state.
Hi! If you’re new here, I’m Arielle Gordon, a music journalist and (very) amateur runner. Running Up That Hill is a newsletter in which I try to connect those two things by interviewing runners in the broader music world about their habits, tips, and tricks. Read past issues here.
On the run with Dylan Baldi
If you’re looking for a band to improve your splits, you could do worse than Cloud Nothings. The Philly-via-Cleveland band makes the kind of fast-paced, distortion-laced rock that will push you past the finish line when your motivation’s waning on the last leg.
Cloud Nothings frontman Dylan Baldi has only been running for a few years, but he’s already been bitten by the bug: He recently decided to run a marathon in every state, and his band’s latest album, the sun-soaked Final Summer, even features a direct ode to the sport on “Running Through the Campus.” In the latest edition of Running Up That Hill, we chatted about his transition from biking to running, the best Cloud Nothings records to run to, and why he’ll never run a marathon in Fort Wayne, Indiana again.
What inspired you to write “Running Through the Campus”? I really resonate with the lyrics (“I never run for anyone else/ It’s just a thing I do for myself”) in the way I think about running.
This is the first record where I literally wrote about things in my life very directly. That one is literally about running. There's this little campus next to where I live in Philly, and my route goes through it. Sometimes I have to get my run in at night, and there's nobody there. It makes you think, “What am I doing? I don't really need to be running right now. I could be hanging out with my friends.” I go through little cycles where I'm like, “Why am I doing this,” but eventually, I always come back to, “I like it. It's fun.” That song is just sort of reckoning with that and coming to that conclusion.
I read in a recent interview with Dan Ozzi that you started running a few years ago, during the pandemic. What was your ramp up process like?
Sadie [Dupuis] was into it. She's been on and off since high school. But I was anti sport as a child. I was all about sitting and listening to weird records and thinking, “Why would you ever play baseball?” I think as an adult, I realized maybe it's good to be healthy. Sadie was always trying to make me run with her. And I initially didn’t really want to. I was all about riding bikes for a bit. But then eventually I started getting into it just as a nice activity to do on tour, honestly, just to see a little more of a place, rather than just being at a venue, maybe at a bar next to it, and then a crappy hotel in a suburb near there. That's not that exciting. So it's nice to cruise around on tour and see some stuff for a couple miles. And then Sadie said, “I'm going to do this marathon in Cleveland.” I'm in Cleveland a lot. It's where I'm from. And I was like, “I'll do the half marathon. Why not?” I really enjoyed the process of training and getting ready for that. And then doing the actual race was fun. And then, of course, it just kind of spiraled from there. And now I'm doing marathons. Actually, I was supposed to do a marathon yesterday, and I had a really bad time. I didn’t actually get through it.
It was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, because I'm trying to run a marathon in every state. Indiana just fit in, because we're about to go on tour, and it was close enough to Ohio. I flew in a couple days ago and tried to do this race yesterday. I was ready for it. It was going to be good. And then eight miles into it, I just started feeling really, really bad, like, super lightheaded and weird, and I don't know what was going on. I ended up throwing up all over the place and deciding I wasn’t going to finish this. Still, I want to run weirdly after even having a thing like that happen. So I must like it.
When you're on tour, do you look up routes before you get to a city to see where the best running is? How do you maintain your running schedule when you're touring?
I try to run six days on tour too. It is harder, just because sometimes you're up late, but I think I'm pretty good about it. When we did a big tour with the Menzingers and some other bands, and they were on a bus, and we were just in a van. We were doing these big, long drives every day, pretty much chasing this bus that would drive overnight, and that made running pretty hard. But I think this tour will be fine. Normally I'll just kind of wake up and go outside and just start running and see where I am, unless there's some nice landmark I should go towards. I just kind of head in some direction and just try to remember the route I went and do a little loop. That's, that's kind of what's fun about it to me. It's just another little nice way to see more of a place. Like I was saying, sometimes you're on tour and you don't feel like you saw anything, even though you went to a million different places. Running helps with that.
What do you get out of running that is different from what you got out of biking?
Just the ease of doing it. Having a bike is hard. Honestly, I stopped riding my bike when I moved to Philly. My bike immediately got stolen, right off of my porch. I just had my bike locked up there, and then one morning I went out there and there was no bike. And I thought, “This is stupid. I'm not going to spend a bunch of money on a bike if someone's just going to steal it.” Maybe they need it more than me, but I kind of want my bike. With running, I can just put shoes on and go and still be able to be out in nature.
Are you into running stats? Do you look at your splits and that kind of thing?
I'm pretty aware of that, because I'm always training for some sort of goal, usually a marathon that I want to get done in a certain amount of time. I don't really listen to music or anything too much when I'm running, but I try to when I do a race or something. I'll always have something on, and I try to time it to where I want to be, energy-wise, throughout the race. So this one I just did, I had a little playlist that was like that. It started with that David Behrman record On the Other Ocean, which is kind of a weird thing to listen to while running through desolate Fort Wayne. And then I forget what was next, because I barely made it through even that. It started getting faster and more rocking as the playlist went on. But I only got through my electronic zone before I just puked everywhere.
Do you change up what you listen to for different runs?
I change it up a lot. I listen to a lot of music in general, and running is kind of a good time to do that. But when I'm just running around at home, I don't really listen to anything for the most part, or I'll do a podcast or something, because music starts to annoy me for whatever reason. While I'm running, it just starts to sound like obnoxious noise. I don't really know why that is, but when I'm kind of just cruising around at home, I don't really listen to too much, or I'll listen to podcasts about running. But when I'm racing, I'll try to put on music just to keep the gears turning.
Do you ever listen to masters from a new album when you're running?
I do listen, actually. The last little race I did before this was a half marathon with Sadie before she went on tour. I listened to two unreleased Cloud Nothing records during a race, and that got me through almost the whole thing. I thought, “These are fast, maybe this is a good thing to run to.” I can run to our music. And I think maybe other people can too.
What’s the best Cloud Nothings album to run to?
Oh, what would a good one be? They're all pretty uptempo. Here and Nowhere Else is probably a good one to run to. That one's just really, really fast the whole time. I feel like that'd be a good energy boost. I haven't listened to that record in 10 years, but I think it's probably a good one to check out.
When you're running, do you get creative ideas about music you're currently working on?
Sometimes I do, but for the most part, I'm just thinking about my life. I use it to think about how to solve little issues, and less so for music stuff. But I will listen to stuff now and then. If I'm making a record, it's worth thinking about if I want to change this one part of the song, or what the lyrics are going to be for a particular part. I listen to something over and over while I'm running sometimes and work on it in my head. But I prefer the turn-your-brain-off-and-just-see-what-happens mode of running, rather than trying to really go deep on some demos.
What is a typical running schedule for you when you're not on tour?
I run six days a week. I try to do it in the mornings, usually. Now I'm always training for something because I want to reach my goal of running a marathon in every state. I just follow these plans I find online that are six days, building up and building down, as you do for a marathon.
How many states have you hit so far in your marathon goal?
Well, Indiana was going to be number six. This is a pretty fresh goal, but I gave up in Indiana, so I feel like it doesn't count. I gotta go back. And honestly, I'm okay with that. No shade to Fort Wayne, I had a great time there. There’s great coffee at Firefly Coffee. Wooden Nickel records, great store. The marathon, not that great. It was kind of ugly. I've gotten kind of lucky with the other ones I've done so far. I was just going through these beautiful places. And this one was pretty much just like, you're looking at Fort Wayne, which is fine, again, lovely city. But if I want to come back and do Indiana, maybe I'll find one out in a park or something.
I just sort of woke up one day and thought, “I'm just going to see if I can run a marathon in every state.” There's no real reason behind it. It just sounded kind of fun. But then a guy emailed me the other day, actually, and he happens to be a race director of this trail marathon in California near Tahoe. He is a big Cloud Nothings fan, and was like, “I'll pay for your entry into this race if you want to come down here and do it.” I was like, “I will.” So that's the next one; that's in August. I feel like that's the only race director/Cloud Nothings fan crossover that'll ever happen, so I'm taking advantage of it when I can.
Are there any particular races that you are interested in doing?
The ones that I'm more curious about for the landscape are mostly ultramarathons, which I am slightly scared of. But I have friends who do that, and they're normal, and they seem to have lives outside of running too. Sadie especially, is like, “If you try to do an ultra marathon, all you're going to do is run.” That's kind of all I do already, so it won't be that different. There's one up in Oregon that goes through this beautiful Lord of the Rings-looking forest for 50 miles or something, and that's appealing to me.
Then some of the ones that I'm really curious about are out in Arizona, in the desert. There's this company Aravaipa that runs a bunch of races down there. That is appealing to me, just to see if I could do it, because I don't really like heat, and I'm wondering if I could manage a race like that, just to see what happens to myself.
Those both sound beautiful. I hope another Cloud Nothings fan will pay for your admission.
That's the dream. If you’re reading this newsletter, pay for me, please. I can't afford it.
It takes a lot of endurance to do what you do every night. Do you feel like you’re stronger as a singer or a performer because of your running?
I think it's almost the other way around, because touring takes mental endurance. Up until recently, we were always on tour. That's a pretty serious mental challenge—I'm in a van all day, I'm on a plane all day, I’m not really doing anything, and I’m seeing the same stuff over and over and the same people every day. So you gotta find ways to deal with that mentally. Running, especially if you're running long distances, is a lot of thinking, “What am I doing? Why am I doing this?” I have the same thoughts when I’m on tour, driving through just the middle of nowhere for the fifth time that year. I’m like, “Why am I seeing the same rest stop in Montana again? What am I? Why am I here?” It's easier for me to tune those thoughts out while running because I'm so used to tuning it out on the road. As far as physical stamina or something, I'm not running around on stage or anything. I'm yelling a lot, I guess. But the shows are maybe not so much informed by the running. Jason, our drummer, is the one who really exerts a lot of energy on stage. He should start running.
Gearspace corner: Is there any running gear you recommend?
I am so bad about having nice things. I literally just have my shoes. I don't even know what brand they are right now. Honestly, I just wear shoes until they fall apart, and then I go to the store and get some other shoes. Sadie got me a really nice running watch from Garmin for my birthday last year, and I used it once, and I haven't used it since then.
I’m not anti-gear, but I really don't have much. I just have some clothes I get at Target to run in, and my shoes, that's about it. I have those Aftershokz headphones, the bone conducting ones? Earbuds fall out of my ears even when I’m just sitting still. I wish there was more bass in the Aftershokz, but what can you do? Overall, I think my gear is very, very simple stuff.
Is there any musician, dead or alive, who you'd want to go on a run with?
I'd run with some really old classical guy. I feel like they think more than me. I'd run with Beethoven. What was he like? Was he a good guy? I'll run with him and I'll get to the bottom of that. I’ll figure out what kind of guy he is.
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