Come Over When You're Sober Pt. 2, the posthumously released Lil Peep album that stands tall as one of the year's strongest releases, was preceded by the drop of a partially animated video for highlight "Runaway" directed by the late emo reinventor's mother Liza Womack. Now, Womack has given fans a behind-the-scenes look at how the Steven Mertens-assisted video came together.
While directing was "the farthest thing" from her mind, Womack said, she felt compelled to helm the track's visual accompaniment after some encouragement from Jay Schumer at Columbia Records. "It was really [producer] Smokeasac's big song," she told Genius in a new episode of Framework. "He and Gus loved watching certain animated shows and he had said that he had wanted to do a video that was an animation. I said 'Alright then' and I guess that's called directing it."
The animated portions of the video were infused with many of Peep's own original drawings, including some inspired by Static Shock. "So these drawings, some of them I knew pretty well," Womack said. "The character with the red hair and the flaming hands, it was actually a very interesting discovery because it was a series of these."
For the video's narrative, all involved agreed that a London-set ending was the best representation of Peep's lyrics. "The story of the video is just, simply, Gus wanted to leave L.A. but he didn't want to move back to Long Beach, even though he loved his mother and his dog and his brother," Womack said. "It's also in the castle that he had dreamed up and planned to be able to buy, build, and create for his friends and collaborators."
Below, revisit the "Runaway" video.
Smokeasac, who alongside Womack helped guide COWYS Pt. 2 to completion while honoring Peep's original vision, spoke with Complex back in November about the 11-track album. Catch that here.
