Movie Club | Interview | New single off their upcoming EP ‘Fangtooth’
Born of the bloodline connection between guitar and drums, Movie Club is an instrumental psych rock band from the vibrant streets of Venice Beach. The duo melts the focused rock drumming of Jessamyn Violet with the searing riffs of guitarist Vince Cuneo.
For the single ‘Trap Door’ off of their upcoming EP ‘Fangtooth’ the group continues the quest to make stunning cinematic visuals for their music by heading out to the legendary Salton Sea, CA.
“Bombay Beach feels like where Burning Man festival goes for the other 50 weeks of the year,” drummer Jessamyn Violet says. “There are so many captivating builds, trippy statues and signs. It’s like nowhere else on the planet.” The music video for ‘Trap Door’ calls upon the 1950s classic The Red Balloon but with a twist: it’s entirely in reverse, with different colored balloons that match the wildly different locations. From the murky shores of Bombay Beach to bizarre art structures that speckle the small desert town, Movie Club even braves the notoriously toxic waters for the opening shot on the “infinity swing set.” The journey continues into night, ending at the post-apocalyptic ‘Bombay Beach Estates’ dancing in what feels like a shell of a carnival. Cinematography team Dustin Downing and Brian Feinzimer chase the balloons with drones and get shots like nothing seen before. “We definitely went far outside of our comfort zone making this video,” says guitarist Vince Cuneo. “I don’t know how to describe crawling into the Salton Sea, but there was a moment where I thought that I physically wasn’t going to be able to go through with it.” Movie Club’s fifth studio record ‘Fangtooth’ was recorded at Fonogenic Studios by Jeff Thompson and mixed by Mark Rains (Paranoyds, Death Valley Girls). ‘Trap Door’ features Tim Lefebvre (David Bowie) on bass and David Ralicke (Dengue Fever) on flute. The album was mastered by Brian Lucey (Black Keys) and will be released August 10th.
“Movie Club was born of a deep love of movies”
How did you get together to form the project? Would you like to talk a bit about your background?
Movie Club was born of a deep love of movies and film scores, and a mutual desire to play and record as much as possible. We had been dating about a year before we decided to form a project in order to play a huge first show at a studio party our friend was throwing. Jessamyn originally started out as a pianist, but moved to drums ten years ago. Vince started out as a drummer, but moved to guitar ten years ago. That may have a lot to do with how we found our sound. Or it’s just a funny coincidence. Either way, the fact that Khruangbin was doing well when we started our band gave us the extra confidence we needed in being all-instrumental. We also agreed that we hadn’t heard of any other band that was doing what we’re doing, and to be able to say that in these over-saturated times is exciting.
Could you tell us about any story in particular that inspired you to create ‘Trap Door’?
All of our songs start out as jams on riffs or beats – but in this case, Vince came up with the opening riff one moody afternoon by the beach and Jessamyn planted a fast shuffle beat in the honor of Phil Selway under it. Just like how the song starts in the recording, that was pretty much the way the song was born.
“You start in one place and end up somewhere completely different”
‘Trap Door’ is the single off Movie Club’s upcoming EP, ‘Fangtooth’, due out this August. Do tell us more about this upcoming EP.
‘Fangtooth’ is under 15 minutes, but has such range it’s kind of like a time and emotional travel vessel. You start in one place and end up somewhere completely different. None of the songs are similar, and yet they all make sense together, somehow. The whole dark rainbow of moods from the past crazy year is in there. We had some crushing guest players on all five of the tracks: Our favorite bass legend Tim Lefebvre, as well as the incredible horn master David Ralicke, who brought a baritone sax, tenor sax, trumpet and flute into the studio, dazzling us with his improv skills and his insane custom effects rig that made some of the tracks have a super-trippy depth we never saw coming.
Who are some of your main musical influences?
It’s a pretty good mesh of some classics – Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Nirvana, with modern psych/garage like Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, early Tame Impala…
“Jamming is like mining for gold”
How do you usually approach music making?
We’re not a “jam band” – we cut to the chase and we want to stay that way – but that being said, most of our songs start with jams. Jamming is like mining for gold – you let loose, go into this unconscious space where you’re exploring, searching around, sifting for the glints of greatness and hoping you can polish them into something of value. We jam a lot, record countless ideas and demos – but you always sort of know what’s going to make the cut before you really make the cut. As with all things in life, you have to go where the energy is.
Last year you released your debut with the release of ‘Black Flamingo’. Can you share some further details about how your album was recorded?
The beginning of the pandemic was a once-in-several-lifetimes kind of time. With everything suddenly closed, cancelled and quiet, it was like the gift of a free artists’ residency at home. We had a burst of creativity and inspiration and wrote all these songs, and suddenly we had a whole album of material.
It was really insane to have that kind of time and not be caught up in the whole hustle of “normal life” so we felt incredibly lucky to find our engineer and mixer Jeff Thompson in the same situation. He had just built out his own studio in Van Nuys and was looking for something to sink his teeth into. Another huge upside to the circumstances was that touring musician friends were home and able to add their voices to the tracks.
Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?
CAN – ‘Live in Stuttgart 1975’ (just released)
This isn’t new, but Richard Swift is a legend and ‘The Hex’ is an incredible last album.
Thank you. Last word is yours.
Thank you Klemen! We learn about new releases all the time from you. You’re doing lots of cool stuff for the psych rock community. Hope to make it out your way on tour someday soon.
Klemen Breznikar
Movie Club Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp / YouTube / Spotify / Apple Music
Headline photo: Movie Club | Photo by Dustin Downing
