Artist: Bruce Moon

Featured song: “Paradise”

Upcoming shows:

• AM Clouds at J&J Bar and Grill (single release show for “Headlong”), 125 NW Oregon Ave., Bend; 9 p.m. Dec. 13; $3.

• AM Clouds opening for The Mother Hips at Volcanic Theatre Pub, 70 SW Century Drive, Bend; 9 p.m. Jan. 30; $18; volcanictheatre.com.

Bruce Moon is singer, songwriter and guitarist for Bend-based alt-rock quartet AM Clouds. Originally from Missouri, Moon grew up moving around the Southeast and was inspired to pick up bass and later guitar after discovering punk rock as a teenager. Before arriving in Bend about four years ago, Moon lived in Portland for 15 years, where he played with the rock bands The Very Foundation and Sclera and the avant-garde jazz group Sugarfree Jazz, and in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he played with The Holy Smokes. AM Clouds is putting the finishing touches on its debut album, “Rainmaker,” which Moon said he hopes to release in January. This song, “Paradise,” will be on the album.

Q: What’s the story behind this song — how was it written, recorded, etc.?

A: I have a few different methods that I write (with). It’s changed over the years. I’ve gotten to a place where I write words first now, or at least some lyrical ideas before I actually try to put it to music. But I’m also constantly just recording musical ideas, and then when you’re lucky and the words come out in a musical way and the two things happen simultaneously. But a lot of the time it’s piecing words to music, and how do these two things fit together?

Q: What’s the story inside this song — what’s it about?

A: The inspiration for “Paradise” … actually originated from having some road rage driving around Bend. So this song was kind of — the main refrain in the chorus is, “Don’t get between me and paradise.” That was something that just popped into my head experiencing the way that people drive around here. That was the genesis of this song, and then after that it got a little bit more complicated, and I did something with this song that I haven’t done a lot of, which is write from different perspectives: writing from my own perspective, the imaginary perspective of someone else and also from the perspective of different people that I’ve known. So I don’t know that this song really is a logical song that makes sense, but I think about it as just a human nature, psychological sketch of how people can be and how we treat each other, that sort of thing.

— Brian McElhiney, The Bulletin