Mixing moody vocals, creepy synths and street-drinking offers a recipe for success from RVA’s Doctor Collins in a new video produced by local artist Crud City.
The video, “Static Kid,” features lead singer Ed Miller purchasing some Mad Dog and walking the streets of Richmond lamenting a relationship he had (or wants).
The video was shot by the band’s drummer, Miles McIntyre, and Chase Beasley, AKA Crud City, a few weeks ago. Beasley and McIntyre have known each other for about a decade; they both grew up in Newport News and have run in the same circles here in RVA for some time. Beasley has been making art for the band on and off since they formed back in 2015, even producing some videos of their earlier work, but this is the first official release from the two entities.
“There were some metaphors that created themselves after we looked at it,” Beasley said, admitting the main idea of the video was linking the visuals to the band’s new album, Cowboys and Synthesizers, out on Crystal Pistol Records later this week. “[Miller] being on the other side of a fence… the song talks about how he doesn’t want things to go back to how they used to be…”
Then there’s the footage from old cowboy movies, clips Beasley found on youtube and remixed to create a nice montage reinforcing the band’s cowboy image.
Beasley started filming years ago with skate videos – but there he was matching music up with tricks. On this project, he found some new challenges in making visual work match up specifically to music.
“It’s like if someone lands (a trick) you want it to hit on a downbeat, but with a music video, you have those beats already, so you have to match the beats with the song,” he said. “It’s just the other way around.”
Either way, keep an eye out for Beasley/Crud City as he hopes to expand his video work with other local bands in the future.
And you can check out Doctor Collins live at Strange Matter this Wednesday night for the release party for Cowboys and Synthesizers.
Find out more info about that show here!
Words by Brad Kutner
