You may have seen him at a Starflyer 59 show, standing on the corner of the stage, methodically hammering away at the bass guitar behind the wailing lead of Jason Martin. Or perhaps you caught the Tooth and Nail video with him running around in those fab 80’s white knee socks, behind the crooning punk strains of Ronnie Martin’s "Monosyth" vocals. Surely, you couldn’t have missed him laying down the musical framework on the latest Pony Express 7", and you must’ve heard of him as the man behind Velvet Blue Music record company.

Forget Waldo – let’s play "Where’s Jeff Cloud?" From all outward appearances (what little there are), he’s Christian music’s consummate behind-the-scenes guy. But as it turns out, the man you know from the background has played a center-stage role in the collective successes of the brothers Martin and many a rising indie band, making a name for himself as a diverse musician and an up-and-coming leader in the Christian music scene.

When EXIT caught up with him in March, Cloud had just come off a Starflyer 59 set at Austin’s South by Southwest Music Festival and spoke of a number of projects in the works for spring, summer, and beyond.

"Starflyer-wise, our new EP just came out, called Fell in Love At 22, and we plan to start the new record in June. And I’ve just been touring and that kind of stuff. Joy Electric-wise, our new single came out (it comes out on the 23rd), followed the next month on the 23rd by a full-length album (CHRISTIANsongs)"

And that’s an album that many music lovers, Joy Electric die-hards and otherwise, are anticipating with great excitement. So much excitement that Billboard Magazine deemed the synth-pop duo Billboard’s Artist of the Day for March 11th.

"It was cool," Cloud admits of the glowing write-up. "I think they maybe got a little ridiculous in the number of potential sales and stuff like that, but I think it was really cool to be in there. I liked it."

As for the story behind the gratuitously-named forthcoming CD (it just doesn’t get much more obvious than CHRISTIANsongs), Cloud describes the motivation behind that designation as "just a back-lashing (against) all these other bands. Just the whole ‘we’re Christians in a band, but we’re not a Christian band’ thing, but they play five youth groups a week, and their records are only in Christian bookstores. So that’s just kind of us being punky."

So does Cloud view that snub-nose mentality as a sort of ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ approach to musical popularity? "Yeah, totally," he says. "For us, Starflyer and Joy Electric, it’s kinda goofy to us. If fifty kids show up (to our shows), it doesn’t matter. The point of being in a band is to play in front of kids, so if it’s fifty Christian kids, or fifty Mormon kids, or fifty homeless kids, it really doesn’t matter."

That said, when asked if those shows and the touring that he does with Joy Electric and Starflyer could be considered ministry-oriented, Cloud’s reply is "I think we’re ministry-oriented in the aspect of we feel our ministry is to just be normal entertainment for Christian kids. The majority of kids we play for are Christians…So we just give them something to do on Saturday night. If they like the songs, then cool; that’s our ministry. If someone ever wants to talk to us about it, I think we’re real blatant about it. I think even some of the new lyrics are pretty blatant about it, which is a little bit different for us."

Also, unlike the whole band mentality CHRISTIANsongs goes against, Cloud readily acknowledges the Christian component of his fan base. "I’d say, without trying to be cool and

Click here to read the interview with Jason Martin of Starflyer 59

like all the other bands, I’d say the majority (of fans) probably are Christian. For sure, there are people who aren’t Christians, actually with both bands, because we play a lot of club shows at home and stuff. Some people, if they are Christians, you’d have to assume they’re a little off to the left! But yeah, I’d say the majority of people are. And if people aren’t, then that’s cool. Maybe it’s a little doorway for them to check out something new."

And with Joy Electric, a band that’s been trudging along a relatively undeveloped and woefully overlooked musical path for the past several years, it seems especially fitting that theirs is the doorway to something new. "It’s taken us six years to get to this minor point where we are now," Cloud recalls. "It’s kind of a hard road to take. You go through a lot of, ‘Where’s the drum kit? Who plays guitar?’ You go through a lot of all that kind of heavy metal sound guy nonsense, so sometimes it’s hard."

Proof yet again that the path of innovation and originality has never been an easy one (especially if it’s paved with heavy metal sound guys). But there is a drive behind it. "When someone comes up after the show and says, ‘I had this real low point in my life. I listened to your record, and I thought it was cool. It helped me, encouraged me’ or whatever…that’s the main reason why we do it. It’s just cool to have kids say that about something you do."