Video Premiere: Berne - 'Oceans'
Alt-pop band Berne released their debut track ‘Oceans’ last month, a song driven by dramatic vocals and earthy drums. We delighted to be give you an exclusive look at the visuals for the release.
Your track ‘Oceans’ is out now, can you tell us what the track was about?
‘Oceans’ expresses the struggle to understand why people are threatened by diversity and criticizes societies for only protecting and providing for their own. It is a response to the diplomatic stand-off amongst European leaders over the fate of 32 migrants who were left aboard The Sea Watch 3 for eighteen days in December 2018 - January 2019 in Mediterranean waters.
I was closely following this news story over Christmas last year, and with every day that passed, I could not bring myself to believe that this was allowed to happen, that human beings were without basic human needs for so long while politicians were enjoying their Christmas feasts.
Where was the video for the track filmed? Can you tell us any behind the scenes stories?
We filmed the music video in the live room of a recording studio at The Rattle in East London, an exclusive artists’ collective which acts as an incubator for artists to develop their art and their businesses. It was very special to film in the same room where the first ideas of the song came to be, where we developed our live set and where we eventually hosted our release party for Oceans on Friday 20th September.
We are so pleased to have worked with Rainland Studios on this video. They immediately got on board with what we wanted to do and with the message that we wanted to send out and we think they did a beautiful job! Big thanks to our lovely friend Gail who joined us on set to help us get through such a long day!
The video features British Sign Language performer Tyron Woolfe, how did that partnership come about? And what made you decide to feature him in the video?
Because Oceans is about the beauty of diversity, we wanted to make sure that Oceans is accessible to more people. We think that music is more than a collection of sounds and the message in a song can go a long way. We were introduced to British Sign Language performer Tyron Woolfe and discussed our ideas with him. He appreciated the lyrics but made us aware that as most lines are quite abstract, it will be difficult to sign the entire song so we selected the parts that would work best and captioned the song on YouTube. We were blown away by the energy and passion in Tyron’s performance on the day and we think he did a fantastic job!
Now that track and video is out there, what next? What are your plans for the next few months?
We are extremely pleased with how well all the bits we planned months ago are going. Over the next few weeks, we will continue to push Oceans through some surprises and collaborations that we have prepared! In the next few months, we will be finalising the release of our second single, as well as recording and producing the next two songs. People can find out what we’re up to by following us on social media here: https://ffm.to/berne and listen to Oceans here: https://ffm.to/berneoceans.
Berne will be playing The Spice of Live in London on Saturday 5th October -
Ticket link: https://www.wegottickets.com/event/479552