We at OTM are happy to announce the Canadian premiere of Bravestation‘s latest video for their song “Signs of the Civilized”. The track is the first single released off Bravestation’s upcoming debut album Giants & Dreamers that will be released July 10th. The video was funded by the band’s supporters via Indiegogo and depicts rituals taking place in the guise of a bourgeois party and parallels some of the song’s underlying themes including the spiritual quest for eternal youth. It visually portrays that mix of “tribal” and “modern” that fans already love about the boys’ music. The video was co-directed by Adrian Vieni (of Wood & Wires success) and styled by our very own team here at OTM. Check out the video, along with a Q&A with guitarist and co-director, Derek Wilson, below.

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Where did the idea for the video originally come from?
The concept was inspired by the vibe of the song and some of the different themes including the spiritual quest for eternal youth and tribal ritual. Originally, the idea was to have a party full of people dressed up in different professions/costumes (doctors, lawyers, police officers etc.), but over time it evolved into an ominous bourgeois cocktail/ritual party.

How did you decide that you wanted to go the crowd-funding route to (for lack of a better word) fund the video?
We had a really difficult time as a band deciding on what song to use for the first video we shot (“Western Thrills”) and felt like we owed it to ourselves and the album to shoot another video for “Signs of the Civilized” since we perceive it to be one of the most unique and strongest songs we’ve written. However, since we’re an independent band we just didn’t have the funds to allocate towards making another video and decided that it was the perfect opportunity to experiment with the fan-funding platform that we’d seen other artists have success with. Our original intention was to only shoot the video if we received 100% funding, otherwise we weren’t going to go through with it.

Was there anything that surprised you about the amount of support that you received? 
The entire campaign was an emotional roller coaster. There were very serious email discussions about pulling the plug on the project after the first few days when we’d only received a couple contributions. As you can imagine, we were both relieved and ecstatic when we reached our goal. We’re so grateful for the generosity of our supporters, it was truly an unbelievable and awesome experience.

How did you guys team up with the Wood & Wires crew for this project?
We had worked with Adrian on a music video for another song off our upcoming album Giants & Dreamers called “Western Thrills” prior to “Signs of the Civilized” (after we became acquainted with each other through mutual respect for each other’s artwork). There was a really great creative dynamic between us and we were all extremely happy with how the video turned out.  We’re just really comfortable now when it comes to the process of conceptualizing, shooting and editing videos together. We’re able to be very direct and honest with each other in a collaborative fashion.

You guys seem to have a lot to do with everything visual associated with Bravestation. First with Devin designing the album art and now Derek co-directing the video. How important is it to you guys to have a band member take part in that area of the band as well?
It’s really important to us in that our visual aesthetic is an extension of our music and we want to make sure they are cohesive. We also love being creative, so our music provides us with the perfect opportunity to branch out into other mediums that we might not get to explore otherwise. Heppner (keyboards/electronics) also does all our engineering/recording – so we’re lucky in the sense that we’re able to shape and present Bravestation from within.

What was your favourite part about making the video?
Watching the team come together on set and physically putting the concept into motion was unbelievably rewarding. Seeing the vision come to life and transform from imagination to pseudo-reality was an absolute thrill.

So those dangerous-looking blue and pink drinks…what were you guys actually drinking?
A combination of Gatorade, Powerade and Vitamin Water, to keep our crew hydrated, of course! They were about as dangerous as the dosage of vodka or gin you put in them.

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As a special treat, we also have a series of behind the scenes photos to share with our readers. Thanks to Andrew Williamson of Studio 407 (where the video was filmed) for these shots.

Congratulations to the entire team for creating such an amazing final product! Be sure to RSVP to Bravestation’s debut album release party on July 7. Buy your ticket now and receive an advance copy of the album included in the ticket price and an exclusive invite to the after party.