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Standout Track: “I Don’t Need Your Love,” the titular single from four-piece Clones of Clones’ forthcoming EP—their first release in over a year—is a dynamic, mood-shifting journey that oscillates between slinky electro-pop and loud, swaggering, hard-rock choruses. “I don’t need the games you play/The things you say,” snarls lead singer Ben Payes underneath sludgy, Josh Homme–esque guitar. But the defiant emotional clarity fizzles out moments later as the song shrugs its way back into a soft, chillwave groove.
Musical Motivation: Payes drew lyrical inspiration for “I Don’t Need Your Love” from a messy relationship that he couldn’t quite free himself from a few years ago. “I’m a really dark person when it comes to songwriting,” he says. “I use that relationship as inspiration because it puts me in the right mood.” He pieced things together after coming up with the main, repetitive guitar lick: “I’m a chord progression and melody writer, and that’s what always comes out first.”
Simulacra and Simulation: The band—which includes Todd Evans on guitar and synth, Brian Abbott on drums, and Nick Scialli on bass—settled on the name Clones of Clones as a way of expressing frustration with the artistic cycle of copying and reproducing pre-existing ideas at the expense of risk-taking novelty. “Nothing is completely original,” says Payes, who, along with Abbott, is based in Silver Spring. (Scialli and Evans live in Arlington.) “I’m not sure things have been original for awhile. I envision a clone to be a less perfect version of its former self.”
Watch the video for “I Don’t Need Your Love” after the jump.
