Rockers were bloodied, burned and chased across three states for new clip.
Washington has an impressive rock lineage, and Night Argent is looking to carry the torch as the state’s next great band.
Hailing from Pasco, WA, which is just a little over three hours south of Seattle, the fivesome’s latest off their self-titled debut EP is “Widowmaker,” and Myspace has the exclusive premiere of the video for the song.
Filmed in locations across three different states — Bonneville Salt Flats, UT, Coyote Buttes, AZ, and Hoh Rainforest, WA — the result is a visually stunning music video featuring the band being chased by a femme fatale through some incredible scenery. (Fun Fact: the model who played the widowmaker ended up getting the band’s logo tattooed on her hand after shooting wrapped.)
Myspace caught up with Night Argent’s keyboardist, Shane Santanna, to find out more about the video, and the song.
How does the video for "Widowmaker" represent the song?
"Widowmaker," on the surface, could very easily be taken as just a song about a seductive, and deadly, love, but the lyrics in "Widowmaker" are used as an allegory for addiction. As one of the most common shared human experiences, up there with love and death, we all experience it in a very wide range of forms and degrees. It knows no boundaries or barriers. It affects the lives of everyone it touches.
We've been playing the song in our live set for a while now, and it's always been the one that gets the best crowd response. It's unique in comparison to our other songs, and really high energy.
When we started brainstorming video concepts, we wanted to make sure the video matched not only the story-line of the song, but the energy of our live performance, as well. The result became a very loosely structured video. We knew the story we wanted to tell regarding a femme fatale, of sorts, chasing us, and capturing us one by one, but we had to adjust to what was available at each shooting location.
We would get an idea for a location, schedule time to go shoot, and just work it out in real time. Not only did that add time to our shooting schedule, but it also landed us with over 25 hours of total footage. Shooting spanned over several months, then the editing took almost as long, but the final product represents the story, and energy, behind the song, and we're excited to finally share it.
We hear some very literal blood, sweat, and tears went into the making of the video. What can you tell us about bleeding, and burning, for your art?
The video consisted of an insane amount of running, vaulting, and stunt work, and with some of the complex orchestration of these action sequences, we had to do countless takes of the same stunt series. The result was bruises, cuts, pulled muscles, accidental impacts during fight scenes, etc.
Once we were done with those scenes, we had the fire scenes. In order to get the look we wanted, we had to set up close to the fire, so not only did it burn us during the longer takes, but the embers were constantly hitting us anywhere that wasn't covered. We even melted the back of our drum throne clean off. Still, if you ask any of us, we'd say it was worth it.
You were also detained by rangers during filming. Why, and where, did that happen?
We were up in the forest area by Puget Sound, and had just wrapped on a two day shoot. We were sitting in our cars, getting ready to head home, when a couple rangers pulled up. Our drummer (Zac Burrell) was carrying a registered handgun, and informed them immediately as to avoid any issues. They responded by detaining all of us.
They had us sit still, in our cars, windows down, in the rain, for about an hour. In the end, they let us go on our way. Obviously it was less then ideal, as we were exhausted and eager to get home, but they were just doing their jobs. We all understand that any area of law enforcement is a difficult task, and do not harbor any negative feelings towards them. We appreciate the work they do, and are happy to know they're helping keep our state parks safe.
You can check out Night Argent live on the Vans Warped Tour, August 6-13.