Arriving hot on the heels of their debut album, Nevermind, indie-pop three-piece Phoneboy are back with visuals for the title track. Directed by M.J. Ricciardi, the new video is as fun as the track itself, paying tribute to the band’s lifelong love of all things horror, with homages to Friday The 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho and The Shining.
Featuring New Jersey-hailing pop and R&B singer-songwriter Justin Magnaye, the new single is a hyper-infectious piece of indie pop centred around an earworm hook that tells the story of falling head over heels for someone, knowing fine well it’s never going to happen.
Speaking on how the video came together, singer/guitarist Wyn Barnum explained: “As a band, we’ve always loved the horror film genre. After writing the lyrics, we noticed that there were references to a ton of things that happen in classic horror scenes. Our first idea was to make our own story about a killer chasing us around the house, but quickly realized that that has been done so many times before by people who are way more talented than us. Since we’ve never heard of a band recreating horror movies, this idea evolved into paying homage to iconic scary scenes that scared us shitless as kids. We also wanted to give the feeling to the viewers that they were ‘inside the movie’, since none of us have been able to make it out to the theater in a really long time.
“We filmed most of the video at Ricky’s house with a super small crew and an iPhone 12. Smashing down the door to recreate The Shining was by far the most intense and fun shot to film. James and Ricky held the door in place with their bare hands and prayed one of their fingers didn’t get chopped off. When we rented out the movie theater for the opening scene, an employee walked in and caught us filming. Instead of turning us in, he turned the volume down so we could hear each other and finish up shooting. So clutch.”
