Cloud Eleven is a band led by L.A.-based pop music aficionado Rick Gallego. Rick grew up listening to music legends such as The Beach Boys and The Beatles, and began his own musical journey in the late '70s as a bass player in various cover bands, including a couple of college jazz ensembles. Quickly evolving into writing his own songs and switching to guitar, he formed his own award-winning bay area bands in the '80s (The Singles, Rickardo’s Bandoleros). This led him to the Los Angeles area in the late '80s to pursue his goal of being an R&B songwriter for other artists. When that opportunity quickly faded, he decided to return to his love of melodic pop music, bought a cheap eight-track recorder and began recording a bunch of demos, singing and playing all the instruments himself. Those demos turned into the 1996 album Demolicious, which was released under the band name Jiffipop. The album garnered rave reviews and got the ball rolling for the next phase of his career….Cloud Eleven. Legendary LA-based label Del-Fi Records (Ritchie Valens, Bobby Fuller Four, Eden Ahbez) got a hold of Rick’s next batch of songs, which was originally intended to be the follow-up Jiffipop album. Released in 1999, the self-titled Cloud Eleven album (the name was changed to avoid a lawsuit from the popcorn company), also received stellar reviews.
Since then, Cloud Eleven has released 9 additional albums that are often hailed as pop classics...Orange and Green and Yellow and Near (2002), Terrestrial Ballet (2004), Sweet Happy Life (2006), Record Collection (2015), Garden Of Obscure Delights: A Retrospective (2016), Footnote (2019), Pandora's Box (2021), The Singles collection (Rick's '80s band) (2022), and the newest album, Cloud Eleven Goes Latin (2024).
Cloud Eleven’s music has been used in various television shows on ABC, NBC and Fox in the USA, and in various foreign markets as well.