Distracted

BY: ALLIE RUSSELL

Back in April, I sat down with 5PM to Nowhere to talk about their approach to indie rock, the collaborative nature of their band, and the release of the first single from their upcoming project, City of Light, Act II, titled One More Chance. For our second interview, I had the chance to sit down one-on-one with the band’s frontman, Jacob, to dive into their newest single, Clouds Break. With just the two of us, the conversation unfolded differently than before. What emerged wasn’t just insight into a single track, but a deeper understanding of how Jacob sees the world, and how that perspective shapes every note of 5PM to Nowhere. 

We began with the new single. “Clouds Break started with the melody,” Jacob explained. “It was originally written on piano, and at some point along the line, I decided it would sound cool on a guitar, so we switched to that.”

The track, which serves as part of a broader concept album, marks a pivotal moment in the story 5PM to Nowhere is telling. “I wanted there to be one song that had something to do with the first time the main character sees the light,” Jacob said. “It’s the first real cinematic moment of the story. Before this, it’s all dreaming and hoping and nothing concrete. I knew there had to be a moment where he really comes face to face with the reality that there was something more out there.”

It’s a bold track that’s spacious and deliberate in how it builds. That expansive feeling comes from a wide pool of sonic references. “Weird Fishes by Radiohead was definitely a big one,” Jacob said. “Then there’s Born Yesterday by Quadeca. I was listening to that song and had already written a lot of Clouds Break, and there are these little twinkly guitars at the beginning, that’s where that decision came from.” Structurally, the band also looked to Deerhunter’s Desire Lines. “It’s one of my favorite songs,” Jacob told me. “Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, and then a long, jammy outro. I knew I wanted to build something like that”. 

When I asked Jacob what he was most proud of in the track, his face lit up. “It’s that the song can mean different things to different people,” he told me. “Within the concept, it’s about seeing the sun for the first time, but I like that it can also just feel like a moment of clarity or emotional release. From personal experience, it’s more about self-discovery in that way, even though it’s juxtaposed into this story.” Another moment he highlighted was the beat switch in the outro. “We all brainstormed different endings, and that shift into a more straightforward four is one of my favorite moments we’ve ever recorded,” he said. “It really captures the catharsis of the whole thing.”

Though Clouds Break is the second release from Act II, Jacob explained that it actually takes place before the band’s earlier release, One More Chance, in the album’s storyline. “At the end of Act I, it’s about taking the risk, like, ‘I’m ready to take that step’,” he said. Clouds Break picks up from there, capturing the moment of stepping into the unknown and finding something new. While that sounds like a resolution, the story is far from over. “Act II starts with that discovery,” Jacob continued, “but then it’s about confronting change. Now I have to reconcile what I know with this other life that I was living. How can you reconcile those things? Is there even any chance for reconciliation? And that goes into One More Chance.”

Once we wrapped our conversation about the new single, I asked Jacob when he first realized music was something more than just a hobby. “I’ve been singing and playing piano since I was young,” he said. “But really, it was when I started writing music. Middle school was when I fell in love with it. I was going through a lot of grief, and I was at a pretty bad place in my life through grade school. My father passed when I was young, and that was a big weight on my shoulders for a while. Music and writing music gave me a way to communicate a lot of what I was feeling.” 

That ability to translate emotion into lyrics remains central to Jacob’s songwriting. I asked if he had a favorite line he’s written. “One of my favorites is on a song that’s going to be on the next project. It’s one of my most direct, straightforward breakup songs,” he said. “This was the one time I just truly sat down and allowed myself to write from my own perspective with no filtering. There are some lyrics on that one that cut to the core in a way that I haven’t been able to in the past.  It allows me to take back a lot of the agency I didn’t have in this situation, and I think that’s very important.”

As for what’s already out in the world, he pointed to a track called Rumination. “It’s framed as me versus you,” Jacob said, “but really it’s about an internal battle, fighting the parts of yourself that are holding you back. The first line is ‘come again to show the world the mess you made in spite of me.’ I don’t even know where it came from, but I love the visual of it.”

I brought up a trope that always floats around lead singers: being the “face” of a band. Did Jacob feel that pressure? “Well,” he thought, “5PM to Nowhere actually started as a solo project. I am the front man, but I’m also the band leader, so to speak. I got into it knowing that was going to be the case. Every member adds something unique to our sound, so if anything, the onus for me is more to allow the other band members to have more space and more impact on how everything turns out. Developing that rapport has been one of the most interesting and fruitful things about the band in the past couple of years.”

To wrap things up, I threw Jacob a lighter question: What’s something he’s been obsessed with lately?

“I love that question,” he said, then flipped it back on me. I told him a quote I had heard recently: “You get to wake up as you tomorrow.”

That hit something for Jacob. “I read something recently that’s kind of similar,” he said. “A sword can be sharp even if you’re not swinging it. People might say, ‘Oh, you went through hard times, you’re strong.’ But those hard times didn’t make you strong, they just revealed the strength you already had.” He paused momentarily, then added, “We’re not defined by our lowest moments. We’re defined by how we deal with ourselves.”

Before we said goodbye, he dropped one last recommendation: “There’s a band called Panchiko,” he said. “They put out a new album in April. The song ‘Lifestyle Trainers’, I’ve been listening to that one on repeat.”

As our conversation wound down, it felt less like an ending and more like a pause before the next chapter. Talking with Jacob felt a lot like listening to Clouds Break itself: thoughtful, layered, and unexpectedly personal. Whether he’s unraveling a concept album or politely humoring my off-topic questions, there’s a complete honesty in how he approaches it. That’s what makes 5PM to Nowhere so compelling – behind the production and storytelling of it all, there’s a band that’s not afraid to sit with the hard questions and let the answers reveal themselves slowly.