Northern California’s Redwood have returned with “Cloud Colony,” a monumental self-released work that marks a decisive evolution in their sound. Blending Heavy Psych, Space Rock, and elements of Doom and Proto-Metal, the album crafts a dense yet expansive sonic universe — one where fuzz, atmosphere, and cosmic tension coexist in perfect balance. Through eight immersive tracks, Redwood redefine their identity within the modern Heavy Rock spectrum, offering a journey that’s both visceral and transcendental. We had the pleasure of speaking with the band to learn more about the creative process, the themes behind “Cloud Colony,” and their vision for the future.
Let’s start from the beginning: when did you first start working on “Cloud Colony” and how did the creative process evolve from the early sessions to the final recording?
Writing and recording for the new album started about six months ago, typically the releases are written and recorded in a relatively short period of time, just to keep an inspirational edge to the album. A lot of bands spend a long, long, long, long time riding and recording an album, which is great, But for me, if I take too long, I lose inspiration and I just wanna work on something else. Redwood is a solo project, so I write and record and mix everything on my own. It wasn’t any different than other releases I’ve done, just a few more songs added, and a little extra time. Typically, I record drums in one day, all of them are improvised, and I just build structures of similar drum beats that will match structures of verse, chorus, bridge, and so forth. Then I come in with recording bass, then guitar, then guitar solos, then any kind of synth or atmospheric background. I just listen to it for weeks and write lyrics, record vocals and mix everything together for a few weeks, then I have a new release.
The album feels conceptually cohesive — like a journey through cosmic and emotional dimensions. Was there an overarching theme or narrative connecting the tracks?
The album begins and ends with the sound of the cockpit of a spaceship in deep space. I wanted to make this album the soundtrack of what I imagine to be a cosmonaut on a deep space journey, almost like what he hears on the radio. Almost all the themes are about space, which has been a fascination topic of mine for years. I think it’s really cool that you picked up on that vibe before I even said anything.
“Doomsday Darling” is a powerful opener, setting a strong tone right from the start. What made you choose this track to introduce the record’s atmosphere?
I really wanted to punch in the beginning of the album with something that grabs the listeners attention, something with an explosive entry into the sound, something that showcases the solos and rhythm that I really gravitate towards. The intro to the song is a little bit long, so I wanted it to be a massive punch right off the bat so that the listener didn’t have to sit there and wonder when the song was gonna start. As far as the lyrical content, the song is a love letter to the asteroid that fictionally destroys earth. I picture a prophet writing the letter to the asteroid that he knows about that is on track to collide with earth, and he is thanking the asteroid for bringing an end to all of humanity’s wrongdoings.
The title-track “Cloud Colony” stands out for its raw heaviness and hypnotic groove. How did this song come together, and what does its title represent to you?
This song took the longest to put together, because there’s a lot of structure to it compared to the other ones. I’ve always really liked driving rhythm, something that sounds like it’s just on an endless loop of groove. Lyrically, this song tells the story of the elites, the upper echelon of society building a colony in the sky after nuclear catastrophe, and generations later, they send the poor down to earth to test the atmosphere and see if it’s become habitable. I always like to come up with my own sci-fi stories. I don’t know how to direct or create movies, nor do I have the time or money to do anything like that, so I look at a lot of these songs like my chance to conjure up a sci fi story in my head and put it to music.
The record’s balance between fuzz-driven heaviness and atmospheric depth feels very intentional. How do you approach maintaining that equilibrium in the songwriting?
That’s just my approach with a lot of my music, and it’s based in striving to encapsulate all the types of genres I listen to. With a lot of albums, artists take inspiration from what they’ve heard over the course of their life, which is pretty obvious. But maybe on Monday I might want to make a song that sounds like something from MC5, but two weeks later I might want to tone it down when I’m working on a different section of Recording, and I might not feel as aggressive that day. So the fact that this is a recording project, and none of this will be played live. Most likely, I can throw in as many aspects as I want. But finding balance between throwing in so many aspects is key to make the song cohesive. If I could throw in a whole orchestra on top of a Doom band, a garage rock band, a spaghetti western style band, a folk singer, and a death metal band, I would. But I think that would sound kind of stupid in the end, so I just try to do the best with what I have, and incorporate soothing sounds with aggressive sounds in a way that is tasteful for the listener.
“Escaping Absence” dives into darker, almost ritualistic territories. Can you tell us more about the lyrical or emotional inspiration behind it?
This track was a track that I had in my previous solo project “Bloodshot Buffalo” on the album “Becoming Absence”. A lot of people have hit me up over the past couple years saying that they wanted a re-recording of this song, so I figured I would oblige. Again, this is another sci-fi song, and one of the themes that I always like to explore is being lost in deep space. I think that that concept can speak to a lot of emotions that people feel in everyday life. Feeling isolated, feeling alienated, feeling like you’re on your own, or that someday you will be on your own, and the impending doom of that feeling. I think exploring the vast endless feeling that space has, and attributing that to the emotions that you feel on your home planet is a really introspective thought process to explore.
The use of effects and synth textures across the album gives it a truly cosmic dimension. Were there specific sounds, gear, or production techniques that played a key role in shaping that spacey character?
In the background behind the album throughout the entire album, I use my favorite pedal, the “Canyon” from EHX. It has a shimmer effect, and when you cut your dry signal all the way out, so that all you hear is the effect, you can play chords, and they come across as these beautiful soundscapes of synth. Adding that layer in the background, and putting a dual pan on it so that it swarms between the riffs, is the icing on top of the sound that I’m trying to go for. Over the past couple years, it’s been really hard for me to not want to do that technique behind my songs to give it my own personal flavor. And you can incorporate it on any kind of heavy rock, and it leaves no room on the album for total silence, except for the beginning and end.
“Caravan” channels classic Space Rock influences — Hawkwind comes to mind — yet it still feels modern and personal. How do you reinterpret those vintage references through your own lens?
That’s a really good ear, yes, Hawkwind was and has been one of my big influences, specifically the album “Space Ritual”. With this song, though, I was going for a mix of Hawkwind and Deep Purple, I’ve always liked the old 70s songs about hopping in a van and going for a ride, or hopping on a motorcycle and going on an adventure. There’s something really free and classic About a good song that you keep going back to where the song topic is about having fun, going on an adventure, and being carefree. The song was my shot at making my own version of that, because the song was literally about getting a caravan of vans, and flying away into space. Fu Manchu has always been a really big influence on my music as well, the imagery and culture that they pay homage to; vans, motorcycles, the endless road, has always been something I like to capitalize on in my music as well.
“Europa” has a slower, heavier atmosphere, almost meditative. Was this track conceived as a counterbalance to the album’s more energetic moments?
You’re absolutely right, that’s exactly what it was meant to be. I’ve listened to a lot of RBBP in the past few years, my band Deer Lord played a show with them a couple years ago in San Francisco, we met the guys, and they’re really cool guys. Anyway, they have a certain kind of approach that can really tie together almost a post rock sound with a heavy doom vibe, which makes the feeling of a song really introspective, heavy at times, calm at other times, and I wanted to take a shot at that myself. I really like when instruments paint the picture of the lyrics, and much like I said before, this is another song about being lost in space. More specifically, it’s a sci-fi story about an astronaut that got stuck on the moon Europa, and he has no way back home, and he keeps saying hallucinations outside the window of his loved ones, reminding him that he can’t come back home and that he will inevitably be left there. I wanted the instruments of the song to match the same vibe that comes along with the feelings that that astronaut probably has.
“Riders of Ton 618” is a fascinating title. What inspired it — is there a conceptual or symbolic meaning behind the name?
Sometimes YouTube videos pop up in my feed about astronomy (go figure), and I’m especially interested in black holes, I think anyone that understands the concept behind them would be fascinated with them. And the biggest black hole in the whole universe that we know of is TON 618. I would urge anyone to look into it, it’s pretty fucking scary. So I wanted to write a sci-fi story about it, obviously you’re seeing that there’s a theme here. It’s a song about interstellar druids on motorcycles that live in TON 618, and as they ride through the universe, they conjure up new black holes, new galaxies, and basically they are the creators of light and darkness. I know it sounds nerdy and stupid, but that’s kind of what I write songs about. And speaking of which, that’s why I write sci-fi songs. Any band can write a love song, anyone can write a song about a break up, getting in fights, sadness, happiness, anything in between. But I think the main thing that we speak to everybody is a good story. And if you can tie feelings from the human experience into that story, fictional story, I mean, I think that it’s in the territory of not only being relatable to some, but also entertaining. Like probably nobody watches Star Wars because of a love story, but while you are being entertained by a Star Wars movie, there’s themes of love, loss, death, life etc. And I think that that’s why the genre of space sci-fi is so loved, because it’s so goddamn entertaining and imaginative, but it still speaks to the human experience, while it has a backdrop of the vastness of space.
Your reinterpretation of MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams” as “Into the Sun” is both bold and unexpected. What led you to reimagine such an iconic piece through a Cosmic Heavy Rock perspective?
I just love that song, it’s got so many gritty recordings of it, each one of them is different, and I wanted to do my own version of it without it being a “cover“. I wanted to write my own lyrics for it and give it my own sound, While paying homage to the classic structure of this song. The reason I didn’t do a straight up cover is because I didn’t want the backlash of people criticizing it as “not like/not as good as/not in same key as/not using the same distortion as/not at the same tempo as the original”. People get really weird about covers sometimes, so I figured I would come straight out the gate with Saying “it’s not a cover, it’s just me reimagining it with my own flavor”.
The instrumental closer “Ceres” feels like a statement — complex, expansive, and deeply atmospheric. How important is the instrumental dimension in expressing Redwood’s identity?
I’ve always liked doing instrumentals, I’ve thought about doing full albums that are just instrumental. I actually did one for Bloodshot Buffalo called “Compass Sessions” a few years back, where every song was a direction on a compass (North/East/South/West) and each song was supposed to capture what it felt like driving that direction from my house in Northern California. I think just like a song with lyrics, a song without lyrics needs to kind of paint a picture in your head of something. This song on this new album was me taking a shot at classic 1970s psychedelic rock, endless solos, switchbacks in the direction of this song, kind of challenging myself to do something a little bit different. I also think that a good album should have an instrumental track on it that lets the music just speak for itself, and lets the listener paint a picture in their head without having to bind it to whatever the lyrics are saying.
The album has a very organic sound despite its cosmic scope. How much of the recording process was done live, and how much relied on studio layering or experimentation?
Redwood is a Recording project, I don’t really intend for any of these songs to ever be played live. I think to get this project, or these songs across the way that I really want to in a live setting, the band would have to be pretty big, drums, bass, two guitarists, maybe someone playing synth, backup vocals, and a frontman vocalist. With my busy schedule these days, and so much going on in life, I don’t think that I would be willing to put together a full band like that, and take the time and the lead on formulating everything that comes along with it. It’s a lot of work, and I’m already in Deer Lord and have been doing that process with them since 2019, and I’m happy doing it in one band, but doing it in multiple bands would be a pretty crazy grind that I’m not up for at this point in my life. There is a chance that some of these songs could be simplified a bit for a three-piece band (Deer Lord), and strip down the elements to make it more aggressive and straightforward, but as far as making Redwood into its own dedicated, live act, I don’t realistically see that happening in the near future. I like to reserve it for the fulfillment of just recording songs and putting everything I have into the songs, and letting people listen to the result. It’s pretty unreal how much fulfillment I get out of seeing people just enjoying my music, it’s always been the one thing that I really truly feel good at when I have a lot of self doubt with a lot of other things in life.
As an independent band, releasing “Cloud Colony” on your own must have been both challenging and empowering. What are your thoughts on self-releasing music in today’s Heavy Rock scene?
It’s really hard, because you know you’re not gonna make a lot of money off of it, if any money, but I don’t do it for the money at all. If you got into this genre to make money, people are going to notice it, and they will probably think that you’re fucking stupid. I have worked with YouTube channels, uploading my music, collaborations on Instagram, the Doom Charts, as well as Good Boy PR, and I can’t say how helpful they have all been in helping me reach any kind of small goals that I have with this project. Especially Good Boy PR, i’ve been going through a pretty rough patch in life the past couple months, and I’m not gonna get into the specifics of it, but GBPR has been really, really helpful in offering that extra bit of help with getting this album out there to people that I don’t know, reviewers I don’t know, channels I don’t know, and it really makes a difference. Sometimes you work for months and months and months on an album, and you might be hesitant to put it out because you don’t know what kind of approach you want to take with putting the album out, and you don’t really know how to get it into people‘s ears in the first place. GBPR does it really really good job with helping a band navigate the waters, setting up opportunities, and going the extra mile. I would urge any band to work with GBPR, it just makes the experience of releasing an album these days a little, less painful, and a little less daunting. I can’t thank him, or channels like yours enough for showing interest in what I do.
From a lyrical or philosophical perspective, do you see “Cloud Colony” as exploring escapism, cosmic spirituality, or perhaps reflections on the human condition?
Yes, you hit the nail on the head yet again. The vastness of space has always been a theme that I enjoy exploring, humanity worshiping the stars and wondering where they came from has always been a theme that I like exploring as well, and I think the deeper down the rabbit hole you go with those themes, the more inspired you can get for writing this type of music.
Finally — looking ahead, where do you see Redwood’s sound heading next? Are there new territories you’d like to explore, sonically or thematically?
Well, I’ve already started working on the next album, I have drums and bass recorded already, and I’m not entirely sure what direction it’s going in. I’ve been listening to a lot of Pigs x7, Whores, All Them Witches, as well as a lot of death metal lately. There’s a lot of different pathways that I could explore with inspiration I take from the sub genres that those bands are in. I’m really not sure what this next album is going to sound like, but I know that one thing for sure, I put microphones on the toms this time around, so you’re gonna actually be able to hear them in this next album, unlike this last album. I don’t think I got the best sound possible for the drums in this album, and I want to challenge myself to do better on the next album. I think another important thing to understand about this project, is that it’s truly a recording project. I am self-taught on all the instruments that I know, and I’m self taught on recording and mixing as well. People that got to experience me learning the instruments got to see me in bands when I was a teenager, and now I feel confident in my ability to play the types of music that I play. With Redwood, people get to experience me learning how to record and properly mix an album that will sound cohesive in the listeners ears. From the reviews that I’ve gotten and the evolution that I’ve taken over the course of Redwoods discography, I think I’m doing a pretty good job, and I’m getting more confident with each release. But it’s definitely an evolution nonetheless, and I’m really happy to see that people are along for the ride. It means a lot to me, and I can’t thank people enough for wanting to hear more.
“Cloud Colony” confirms Redwood as one of the most compelling forces in the new wave of Cosmic Heavy Rock. Through dense layers of fuzz, immersive soundscapes, and a clear artistic vision, the band has crafted an album that transcends gravity — both musically and emotionally. Whether you’re drawn by the weight of their riffs or the vastness of their atmospheres, this is a journey worth taking among the stars.
Purchase “Cloud Colony” on Bandcamp: https://redwooddoom.bandcamp.com/album/cloud-colony
Read the “Cloud Colony” Review on PRJ here: [Review] Redwood – Cloud Colony