We sat down with the trio to discuss the venture, which includes several new songs and accompanying music videos.
New Times: What’s new with the band?
Danny Burns: We’ve been working on an eight-track album, but we want to release it coupled with a music video for each song. So, essentially, we want to do eight singles with eight music videos. Most of our time and effort will be going toward finishing them. Eight videos are easier said than done. We actually began the shoot for the music video of our latest song that we wrote called “Troubled Self.”
Will this be material we’ve heard before?
Burns: It’s about 75 percent stuff that we’ve been playing live for the last year or so at our shows. There are a few songs that we actually wrote not more than a few months ago as the last touches for the album. Some of these songs were written as a two-piece and evolved into a three-piece; some of them we wrote all together as a trio.
It’s been some time since you introduced a bassist into the band. With this upcoming release, how have those old tracks developed?
Burns: Some of these songs were actually recorded before we met our bassist, László. We started as a two-piece, Andres and I on drums and guitar strictly. Then we had the blessing of László, the Hungarian angel that came upon us about two years ago. It was instant chemistry. He practiced with us the first time after that, and it was already set in stone. We went back into the recording studio and dropped the bass for those tracks, and now we’re going to have the finished product with the bass included.
László Piringer: Before, the guys had a very good sound, and that’s the reason I joined. The style is the same; nothing has changed. We just have more energy and more dynamic songs. I definitely love them. I remember the first time I heard them, I wanted to jump in and write a bass line for them because the songs were asking for it.
What can you tell us about the video for “Troubled Self?"
Andres Bedoya: It’s about a very troubled love. It’s kind of masochistic in a way. Some sort of, like, internal "I hate myself for loving this person, but I can’t help it" idea. It’s very destructive. The video takes place in various locations around the city where [a girl] kind of shows disloyalty to [a guy], and he kind of knows but he doesn’t want to accept it ... This is probably our first approach to make a professional video. We have a director, Carlos Montes de Oca. We went on a storyboard, we drew ideas, we had the shots already lined up with the time and everything we’re going to shoot, and we have the locations booked. So it was a lot more of an effort to really take that next step to be able to do this continuously.
You guys played III Points this year, but a few years ago at III Points Andres had his infamous set with Mac DeMarco. How did that happen?
Bedoya: I was such a huge Mac DeMarco fan from the get-go. I made these guys actually learn “Freaking Out the Neighborhood.” We played it at Butcher Shop in the hopes that Mac DeMarco was going to walk by that afternoon. We were playing in the hot, blazing sun. So when I saw him, I was like, "Dude, hi. I have to know you. I have to tell you that your music is dope, and I don’t even care how serious you really want to take it. It’s something I listen to, and I just want to keep listening to it.” When I saw him at sound check without a drummer, I asked if he needed a drummer. He was like, "I’ll think about you while I’m onstage." It was so nerve-wracking too
