We love doing music videos! Currently, we are working on one for our next single, "Nightjar" and we thought that we would take this as an occasion to share with y'all some behind the scenes stories.
1998 - Give it to the Sea
Shot in Finland (Lauttasaari) by film students Ykä & Mika. Here's an excerpt of a story we published in our newtsletter back then:
"The car turns out to be a magic car. It's very extremely small, yet there's room for us three, the video dudes, their equipment, and our guitars. (...) So finally we get to the seashore and (...) Mika points to a small island, about 250 meters out. He assures us that you can walk there easily, since the water is only "a couple of inches" deep. Ah well... The five of us proceed to wade through the icy cold - and many inches deep! - water. Guitars, boombox, cameras, everything! Upon our arrival on the island we seek out the most picturesque spot. Turns out two seagulls had sought out the same spot before us. They are protecting their nearby young and attack us fiercely (one of these nice birds can be seen in the video!). Luckily, they soon realise that we pose no threat and therefore leave us alone. For the next couple of hours we film on this island, getting ever wetter and colder, pretty much freezing in our great pirate outfits! When we finally wade back to the shore, the water has somehow gotten even deeper... Typically, it starts to rain. We pile into the magic car and go home - no time to fall ill just yet, we still got the club scenes to shoot the next day! THEN we all fall ill."
1998 & 2017 - Not Anymore
Shot in Terrassa, Catalunya, on April 27th 2017 by Sabú (on a mobile phone).
This video shoot was a birthday activity for Xavi's 40th. This 1998 recording of the Dead Boys' Not Anymore was always pone of our personal favourites and we thought it would be fun to have Xavi go back in time and portrait his 21-year old self. So we bought a black sweater with a skull on it, got the bandana out and were ready to go!
It was an uncharacteristically rainy and cold-ish day in Catalunya, as perfect as it would get to bring across some New York winter feeling. We headed to an industrial area close to where we lived and completed filming in just a couple of hours. We had a blast and even though we didn't know at the time that just three years later we would resurrect the band, doing this video sort of rekindled the rockers in us... We think that it creates a really interesting effect to have 40-year old Xavi lip-synch to his 20 years younger self!
2021 - Blue Fish
The first of the official music videos accompanying our 2022 release "Music for the Planet". This video combines studio footage with some awesome vintage film footage from a 1950 documentary (Nile River Valley and the People of the Lower River. Academy Films 1950). What's so special about the studio footage is that it's not at all acted - we just had cameras rolling as we were recording. So this is accurate documentation of the first time the band was back in the studio after a 22-year hiatus. Pretty fuckin' cool! And you can totally see the level of concentration and focus, the dedication and hard work that has always defined this band!
2022 - Rebels
Shot in Alton and Liverpool during the heatwave of 2022. Nature footage filmed by Sabú, Xavi, Rune and Izzy. Gig footage filmed by Ciara Moore-Jones & Josh Hunter.
The video tells the story of a group of friends who meet in the woods and set out to kick ass for the planet and who afterwards return into the arms of Mother Nature to recharge!
When we were walking through the woods near our home one hot day in May 2022, we chanced upon the coolest location and we straight away knew we wanted to use it for a video shoot! Being the good guys that we are nowadays, we even contacted the owner of the land and asked if we could shoot a music video there. But when we got no answer we figured that no answer is not a "NO" and not a "NO" is a "YES" and therefore we went ahead and just did it. It's all very nice to ask for permission but in the end it's rock'n'fuckin'roll, so... 😂😂
With the help of our friend (and awesome backing vocalist!) Rune, we drummed up a handful of people and headed out one very hot summer day. It was actually one of the heatwave days where you were supposed to stay indoors during the hottest hours. Which is when we were out shooting the video. All in the name of rock! Massive thanks again to Rune, Luke, Izzy and Leah! After a 30 minute treck through the forest, we set up our stuff and got to work.
The storyline is the following: A group of friends hangs out in nature, soaking up the sun and the atmosphere and getting a lot of positive energy from the song. The idea is that this combined positivity of friendship, the natural world and music fuels the energy for the fight that lies in front of us all where we have to stand up to injustice and save the planet from destruction. Cut to our album launch gig at the Outpost, Liverpool. This is where we fulfil our mission as a band, bringing the positive message to the people.
For the last part of the song Sabú & Xavi return to nature to refuel with the energy of our mother the Earth. This is the part where you can clearly tell that we both grew up among hippies! 🤣 Becoming one with the Earth, we roll around in the dust, embracing her and letting ourselves be covered by her.
The whole dust bath angle was a completely spontaneous inspiration - we were on an evening walk during the heatwave and came by a field with lots of dust. As it shimmered golden in the late afternoon sun, we just knew we had to do a take of us wallowing in it! Ah, the beauty of artistic inspiration! It would have been hilarious had an unsuspecting dog walker chanced upon us! "Oh, don't be alarmed - we're artists!"
This video shoot was unusual for us as a band - because it was actually warm! Very different from the Give it to the Sea experience!
2022 - Ink, Blood & Vaseline
Shot in the fall of 2022. Tattoo parlour footage filmed by Sabú, gig footage filmed by Ciara Moore-Jones & Josh Hunter.
For this video, we reached out to the vegan/animal rights community and asked them to share their tattoos with us, since the song celebrates how empowering it is to wear your dreams and convictions upon your skin! It was great to connect to all these different people all over the world - from Germany to Canada, from Australia to the UK! Check out the awesome animal rights work that the Glivars, a couple featured in the video, do here.
The tattoo shop scenes - where Xavi gets a lyric from the song tattooed! - were shot at Rogue Tattoo Windsor with our tattooist Ola. Check her work out here. It was a lot of fun to lip-synch the song while being tattooed!!
2023 - Nightjar
Here is a first glimpse into 1min of the working version of this video!
Just a couple of days ago we completed the filming for our next video - for this one, we wanted a bit of a mysterious hippie vibe, fitting the mysterious bird the song is about. We are thrilled that we managed to get our backing vocalist Rune in for this one - their vocals add so much mystique to the recording - we really wanted them in the video! We actually shot some of the more "acoustic" scenes in our living room, so this video will give you an insight into our newt-den!
What we love about making videos is that you get to add another layer to the song by adding visuals - we both always have strong visual sensations with our songs, be it colours or pictures. It's like our songs are movie scores and with a video you get a chance to make some of that movie happen!
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