Cloud Cult's Shannon Frid, Connie Minowa and Craig Minowa. Photo: Michael Anderson

2008 was a big year for the Minnesota-based band Cloud Cult. They released a new album, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes), earning spots on a few best album lists (including one by the Atlanta alt-weekly Creative Loafing) and Rolling Stone’s Breaking Artists page. They played SXSW, the CMJ Showcase at the Knitting Factory and, locally, the Walker Art Center’s Rock the Garden. The Denver Post dubbed the group “one of the best live bands out there,” they penned a partnership with insurance company Esurance, and a documentary about them is slated to come out in a few months.

As we peek around the corner of 2009, I caught up with Cloud Cult frontman Craig Minowa, an environmental scientist at the Organic Consumers Association by day, to see what the year has in store — musically, environmentally and personally.

For progressives, 2008 was a big year politically — at least in contrast to the previous eight. But 2009 isn’t an election year (except for some smaller races), so how will you be “political” in the new year and beyond?

The coming year is going to be a critical time to put pressure on the Obama administration’s agencies, namely the USDA and EPA, to reverse disastrous policies Bush put into place. For example, Bush gutted the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, and these need to be put back into place. Obama’s science advisers are also well educated on the climate change crisis, so, at the very least, by the end of 2009, the EPA needs to be looking at greenhouse gases as something that can be federally regulated. The Supreme Court has already ruled that this is the case, but the Bush administration is ignoring that and is doing nothing to curb the nation’s disastrous output of greenhouse gases.

What personal activism will you be doing in 2009?

The climate crisis is much bigger than most Americans are willing to accept. We need to make radical changes to curb greenhouse gas output, but we also need to make radical changes to prepare for the coming changes. I plan to also be involved in pushing mass transit. With the new administration, I think we’ll see some significant opportunities to build mass transit infrastructure. For example, there’s a plan in place to connect Minneapolis and Duluth with a high-speed commuter train. There would be a stop-over in Hinckley. It’s called the Northern Lights Express, and I plan to be more involved in making sure it happens. At the same time, Connie [Minowa, his wife] and I are continually trying to expand what we do at the farm. We’d like to get to the point where we are growing and preserving most of the food we eat.

A note on your site says you’re taking a break as a band. So what’s in store for 2009 -– for the band or for you?

We’re releasing a full-length DVD documentary in the spring. It’s kind of a behind-the-scenes look at the band and includes footage going back as far as 10 years. John Burgess and Scott West [who directed the video for the band's song, "Everybody Here is a Cloud"] have been working on it for a couple years now, so we’re excited about that. An album of live songs and previously unreleased songs will be released with the DVD. We’ll be touring the U.S. and some of Canada quite heavily March through May. We’ll probably do some festivals over the summer. I’m not sure what’s on the plate for the fall yet. In the meantime, I’m working on writing a new album. I want it to be the best one yet, so I’m taking my time on it and not putting any deadline pressure on, like I have with the last few albums. Right now, I’m also scoring the music for a National Geographic special on the grizzly bear.

What was it like having documentary filmmakers in your home for so long? Are you cut out for a reality-TV gig?

We’ve had a few too many cameras up at the farm. There were a few different shootings for the documentary up here, but having situations like MTV coming out to shoot us out here can be really uncomfortable, because we have a pretty modest place here. The Weather Channel also did a piece on us, for their Forecast Earth program, so they had a crew up here this summer, too. Reporters from different publications also come out here, and there are the occasional fans who track our home down and come spy for a bit. And then Showtime called to send a crew, but we really hit a point where we felt we needed to cut the traffic off and have a place in our lives where we could enjoy some privacy. It’s really nice that people are interested in our lives, so we can’t complain, but, at the same time, there’s a certain point where you start to feel like you’re never leaving the stage. The documentary itself was fun to be a part of. I feel bad for John Burgess, the fellow that did the bulk of the shooting. I’m really a pretty introverted person, so if I’m not on stage, I’m usually pretty quiet and mellow, so I don’t think I make a very entertaining reality-TV-type subject.

Your environmental cred is remarkable — and too long to quickly summarize: Cloud Cult has resisted the major label system, continuing to self-produce albums on your nonprofit Earthology label to remain environmentally responsible. You buy wind-energy credits to offset the CO2 emitted in touring, you’ve planted trees and begun recycling used CD jewel cases. You live on an organic farm, work as an environmental scientist at the Organic Consumers Association, use geothermal, wind and solar energy, etc., etc., etc. A geeky question: Are there green technologies, practices you’re hoping to learn more about or implement in your life or work — or that deserve more public attention in 2009?

We’re working hard on trying to line up a mass transit tour for 2009. Our band manager, Adrian Young, is working out the details to try and have us do the whole tour on Amtrak. Our biggest ecological flaw, as a band, is the fuel we burn up when we’re touring, so this would be a major step in greatly reducing that impact. Right now, we plant hundreds of trees each year to absorb the CO2 we put out from the touring, and we went the biodiesel route for a while, but we have a lot more work to do in figuring out how to mitigate those negative impacts.

Where have you found inspiration in the past year?

I’ve been reading a lot about understanding the difference between the true self and your brain. We’ve been taught to equate our selves with our brains. But thought patterns are actually just a screen that tricks us into feeling like we’re separate from everything. I’ve been working hard on trying to shut the brain off and just be more present in the moment. I’ve come to recognize the constant noise up there is not a healthy thing, and it’s taking a lot of work to quiet down. It’s been inspiring to see life through very different eyes. I can’t expect to write truly good music or to have the energy to keep working towards a green planet, if I can’t get a better ongoing connection to the whole.

At Cloud Cult concerts, you often wear a sleep mask. What’s the significance — and does it come off in 2009?

It helps me separate from “Craig.” My conscious brain has all these conceptions of who and what “Craig” is. But if I try to write music or perform on stage and am overly conscious of that concept of me as “Craig” then I won’t create anything worthwhile.

The disease of the pop music industry is ego. It’s everywhere, and it is contagious and very destructive. Music is a very sacred art form. I remember reading how the Buddhists talk about moments of enlightenment being the complete loss of the sense of self. Performing and writing music does that for me. A good night on stage entails having moments where I can completely forget that I have an identity as “Craig” and connecting to what feels like a bigger higher power. It’s sort of like dreaming, as in dreams you often don’t have a sense of where or who you are.

Anyway, one night before a show, I was taking a nap backstage with my sleep mask on, and I realized that just by putting the mask on, it created the psychological feeling that I was about to enter the dreamworld. So I started putting it on before shows, as a matter of ceremony and ritual to get my mind connected to the other side. It’s sort of like making sure I have my eyes on heaven at all times, because the day I lose the real meaning of the music, which all came from a very spiritual place, is the day I need to hang the guitar up and try a new profession.

Photo: Michael Anderson

Tomorrow: A Q&A with Doomtree emcee, singer and writer Dessa.