The Artist Explains: Coates - 'Throw Me Down' (Video)
Who: Coates is the project of Oli Coates, a London based multi instrumentalist who has a little help from Toby Pilcher (drums, vocals and mix engineer) and Alex Hatcher (bass).
About The Track: Out today (March 18th) 'Throw Me Down' is taken from Coates' debut EP 'Coates Vol.1', which was released in late 2015. 'Throw Me Down' is three minutes of up-tempo, indie pop with melodic yet swaggering vocals, chugging drum rhythms, folky harmonica, jazzy horns and down to earth lyricism.
The Artist Explains:
"The video was produced and directed by two friends of mine. Singer/Songwriter Ben Mckelvey who is currently on an arena tour with Wet Wet Wet and Producer/Songwriter Jake Robbins of Egypt Lane Studios. It was filmed in an old abandoned garden centre in the town where I grew up, High Wycombe.
The song is quite up-tempo and is in a major key however the lyrics are quite melancholy – I wanted the video to match the upbeat nature of the song. I also didn't want my first video to look like I'm taking myself too seriously, which is something I rarely do - so it was just a bit of fun and offering a visual and performance aspect to the song.
Unfortunately, on the day of the shoot my bass player and drummer had to drop out for personal reasons. We were close to cancelling, but luckily, Ben, who was co-directing, is an incredibly talented multi-instrumentalist. We've played numerous gigs together around the country and he knows the majority of my songs inside out, so Ben came in on drums. I then gave my friend Jack Dean a call, who is another local musician - a rapper, poet and guitar player. He was able to come in and play on bass. For me this actually went from disaster to giving a real feeling of togetherness from local musicians.
The garden centre had various different rooms; we decided to go for the room with the earthiest colours to shoot in. Somehow the lights still worked in there, which meant we didn't need any additional lighting on the day! The stop motion idea was actually a last minute change, which came from Ben being a multi-instrumentalist and due to my usual band not being in the video. We though it would be nice to see everything switching around in the background, including the players whilst I stay constant at the front and focus on the lyrics.
I wouldn't say the video is trying to convey any message in particular. It helps focus in on the fact that this is a singer/songwriter thing as opposed to a band I suppose. But I'm not trying to deliver any underlying message; I like to hope that I do that with the lyrics and that the video is a nice addition." - Oli Coates