- Claud recently spoke to Insider about their sophomore album, "Supermodels," released in July.
- In 2020, Claud made a splash as the first artist signed to Phoebe Bridgers' Saddest Factory Records.
Mere years ago, Claud was a college-radio DJ spinning Phoebe Bridgers songs.
"I saw her Music Hall of Williamsburg show, way back in 2017 or 2018," Claud recently told Insider via Zoom. "I was a fan, a huge fan."
Flash forward to a not-so-ordinary day in early 2020, when a friend of Bridgers sent her the link to — you guessed it — a Claud demo. Before she had even finished listening, Bridgers texted her manager and proposed a team-up. She was drawn to Claud's unique voice and melodic style, describing the young singer-songwriter as "the god of their art."
"We had no mutual friends, I had never met her in my life, it was just totally random. And so we got lunch, and I was shaking to my core," Claud recalled. "But then we talked about that lunch a year later, and she said she was shaking. She was so nervous because this was her first meeting talking about a record label that she was going to start."
Later that year, Bridgers officially launched her independent label, Saddest Factory Records, with Claud on board as her first signee.
Claud's studio debut "Gold" arrived shortly after, followed by the tender-hearted single "Soft Spot," produced by Olivia Rodrigo's go-to collaborator Dan Nigro.
Of course, what we might see as "overnight success" is never truly instantaneous, but the product of much practice and passion behind the scenes. As a high schooler in Chicago, Claud cut their teeth playing music in coffee shops and bowling alleys, where the sound of clattering pins would drown out their voice.
When Claud enrolled at Syracuse University, they started a band — Toast — and booked a slew of local gigs. That snowballed into bigger shows opening for Claire Cottrill, their fellow student and friend, also known as Clairo.
Eventually, Claud's following spread into a safety net, strong enough to take that storied musician's leap: leave school and pursue music full-time.
"There was such a good music scene there at the time I was there. It was serendipitous," they said of Syracuse. "It definitely feels like it's been a slow burn for me, in a way that feels healthy."
Claud's sophomore album 'Supermodels' is a testament to growth and transformation
Claud created their debut album "Super Monster" before they turned 20 years old. It was released in 2021, and praised by critics as "intensely genuine" and "a manifestation of the potential they hold as an artist."
Two years later came "Supermodels," which arrived in July. Claud's sophomore album was written largely between the ages of 22 and 23, during a swirl of sticky summer days, fresh brushes with fame, and chronic bouts of self-doubt.
"I think they're hard to compare," Claud said of the albums. "That's a huge age difference. It's not a huge year gap, but it is huge in age, in terms of maturity. Things you go through. And it's a lot of extra years in therapy to have under your belt."
Still, it's hard to ignore the semantic connection between the titles. The similarities invite comparison: both phrases evoke an entity that's larger than life, inspiring fear or awe.
But the latter's confident connotation belies the true heart of the album. While the phrase "Super Monster" was inspired by Claud's own life and personality, all of the chaos and color of being a sensitive teen, "Supermodels" actually refers to what Claud is not — or at least, everything Claud is scared they can't be.
"You caught me looking at photographs of supermodels / Trying not to cry when I look back at myself," they sing in the closing track.
In many ways, Claud's sophomore album is a true sequel: an ode to growth, as well as a young adult's illusion of growth. Twenty-three-year-olds are certainly more mature than teenagers, but never as mature as they present themselves to be.
Claud is the rare person who understands this dichotomy. They capture the age's fickle sheen with bait-and-switches littered throughout the tracklist. "The Moving On" is a song about the inability to move on. A screwdriver is a sharp tool, a potential weapon, but Claud's "Screwdriver" is a vodka-and-orange-juice-fueled existential crisis. Even the most plain-spoken lyrics — "We argued about Regina Spektor / I said I loved her but you think she could be better" — are tinged with uncertainty, a begging to be understood.
"It wasn't about Regina Spektor, it was about the relationship," Claud explained. "We're arguing about something that's just stalling before we have the actual argument."
Indeed, "Supermodels" is music in limbo — between childhood and adulthood, between insecurity and conviction, between the honeymoon phase and the breakup. It's overthinking against a backdrop of absurd beauty.
Claud wrote the second pre-chorus of "It's Not About You" as a literal reflection of this feeling: "Purple, the sky is pink and purple / But I can't fall asleep quite yet / Circles, my questions round like circles / And I miss our innocence."
"When I wrote that down, I was sitting in my bed at 6:30 in the morning when the sun was coming up and I couldn't sleep, and I was going through a lot of change and I had just moved, and there was a lot going on, and I was doing a lot of pondering. And also a lot of journaling," they explained.
"That's where my questions were just going in circles," Claud continued. "Did I make the right decision? Am I going to be happy here? Is leaving this place and this person, was that something that I should have done? And I just miss when I didn't have these questions to ponder, and when I didn't feel guilty for my actions affecting somebody else."
The result is an album that's more open-ended than its predecessor, but also, paradoxically, more self-assured. There is power in admitting what you don't know.
"Supermodels" has also arrived at an auspicious time: the summer of Clairo's "Bags" taking over TikTok, of boygenius landing on Barack Obama's yearly playlist, of MUNA singing gay anthems for stadiums full of Swifties.
The queer community has always made a point to uplift our own, but recently, there's been a visible surge of love and support for queer artists, even beyond our hazy borders. Claud feels it too.
"If I compare what being an artist in the music industry was, even three or four years ago, to now, there's definitely a huge shift," they said. "I think because of the success for other queer artists, people are able to legitimize my success a little bit more. Legitimize me as an artist a little bit more. There's always a long way to go, but I definitely feel a shift."
Claud's unexpected costar in the 'Supermodels' cinematic universe? Paul Rudd.
Part of admitting what you don't know, or the progress yet to be made, is confronting what you want, or who you hope to become. Claud does this brilliantly with "Paul Rudd," named after the ageless "Clueless" star.
In the shimmering bop, Claud adopts the role of a rom-com heartthrob, wrapped in the protection of a pre-destined love story.
"The song 'Paul Rudd' is not about my life at all. It's actually just me trying to imagine myself playing a Paul Rudd character, and being a Paul Rudd-type guy," Claud explained. "I'll get the girl, and I have this crazy love story that's going to work out in the end, because it has to work out, because it's a Ross-and-Rachel thing."
"I love the idea of, 'It's just going to work out because it's us and we're us,' and that doesn't really happen in real life. It does, but it's rare," they added.
In a twist of real-life fate, Claud randomly met Rudd in passing at Taylor Swift's Eras Tour — and as if the spirit of a rom-com hero possessed them, Claud seized their moment. They told Rudd about the song he inspired and received Rudd's email in return. The actor wanted to hear the album.
When Claud sent him "Supermodels," Rudd responded with praise, so Claud took another shot. They asked if Rudd had a moment in his busy schedule to film a cameo for a music video.
Instead of popping by the set, Rudd arrived 15 minutes early to the shoot and stayed for five hours.
"Paul Rudd was exactly what you'd imagine him to be," Claud gushed. "He was so nice, he was so charming, everybody on the shoot had a crush on him."
The resulting video for "A Good Thing," Claud's latest single, costars Rudd as a flustered mailman who delivers a sweater from Claud's girlfriend. And if you're wondering, the answer is yes, duh: Rudd improvised the line about his sick ferret.
"There was no script," Claud confirmed. "I just want to improvise with Paul Rudd, is that so bad?"
So it's safe to assume the age-old advice, "Don't meet your heroes," doesn't apply here.
"Not to this situation, no," Claud said. "This one was like, hell yeah."
But Rudd's pristine reputation aside, Claud's "optimistic take" is that, as society improves, more heroes will deserve to be met — that we're headed towards an era when decent, kind, hard-working people will prosper.
"Less and less shitty people are going to be successful as we've learned to speak up for ourselves," they said. "There's a lot of horrible people in Hollywood or whatever, but I think less and less so, hopefully."
In conclusion, Claud added: "There's no tolerance or room for people who suck."