Vanessa Mai (30) will release her new album "Hotel Tropicana" on May 31 and will return as Cloud Free. "When we were more concerned with the idea of bringing Clouds Free back to life, we realized that 2023 is the tenth anniversary and that just fits perfectly," explains the singer about the comeback of the music project. Her heart will "always beat for Schlager because those are my roots, I haven't forgotten that." Cloud Free is "an absolute heart project" for her. However, she doesn't want to just commit to the hit, "because I've never wanted that. Now with both brands, what they actually are, it's very special. I enjoy it a lot and it's really unique."
In 2013, the initially multi-member band with front woman Vanessa Mai released their debut single "Jeans, T-Shirt und Freiheit", followed in 2014 by the debut album "Endlosliebe". Just one year later, Stefan Kinski and Marc Fischer announced their departure and Mai continued the project on her own. In 2016 she said goodbye to her beginnings and only appeared under her stage name from then on. In order to "be able to become free as Vanessa Mai, I had to concentrate on one thing at some point, and first get out of the hit", the singer looks back. "Although I never found Schlager stupid! For me, Schlager was always my music and I loved it. I wanted to seize new opportunities that were opened to me in the years with Vanessa Mai." For her, cloud-free is "an absolute safe space, because for me it is only associated with positive memories".
"Everything was like back then," Mai describes the return to the studio. "The studio smelled the same, the same things were still there, the same pictures were on the wall, the CDs were in the same place, the crumbs were best still in the same place and it was so nice to come back." What was "very cool" for her was the fact "that I could just flip my switch. As Vanessa Mai, I have developed very pop and urban in recent years and used my voice very differently. Cloud-free was like pressing a button to: all right, Schlager." What sound can the fans look forward to on the new Wolkenfrei album?
"It sounds like it used to, there's a good feeling because you feel like you've been transported back, but of course both Felix [Gauder, producer, editor's note] and I have evolved," explains Vanessa Mai . She likes to follow a lot on social media and knows that many people have longed for Cloud Free. "Which I can understand, because I feel the same way. That's why people get exactly what they want," adds the musician.
The title song "Hotel Tropicana" embodies Clouds Free. "It's wanderlust and it opens up a lot of images. When you think of Hotel Tropicana, I think of peace of mind, lightness and summer [...]." It's her "absolute favorite song" and she believes "it's the most progressive and modern song on the whole album. I like it a lot, it's awesome!" Other topics that were important to her on the album "are: Love, because I don't think it's reprehensible to talk about the topic at all, which everyone knows and understands, encouraging, I really like giving people courage with my songs and freedom."
At the end of February, Mai celebrated her TV comeback with Wolkenfrei with an appearance on the "Giovanni Zarrella Show". Will her fans see her live too? "You will experience cloud-free live, but not that often," says the singer. "That's why you should make sure that after the album release you'll be able to attend an exclusive release concert. That will happen and the special thing is that it will happen in my home country, or in the home of Wolkenfrei." The concert will take place in mid-April in Aspach at the Hotel Sonnenhof. "It's going to be crazy because it brings with it a lot of memories and because everyone will feel like they've been transported back," says Mai, looking forward to the forthcoming performance. "It's going to be extremely emotional for me to be back on stage as a cloud free for the first time. Both singing the old songs and seeing the old fans. There are many I haven't seen in a long time."
