The Band Explains: The Swoons - 'Conspiracy of Silence'
The Swoons talk to us about their powerful single and music video for ‘Conspiracy of Silence’’, a call-to-action encouraging humanity to stay truthful, honest, and vocal politically and candidly.
Where was the video for 'Conspiracy of Silence' filmed?
So we shot the video via the company 4Reel with Teo Karakolev as our videographer. The video footage of us on the sofa was filmed with a greenscreen behind in a warehouse space. Tim Fox then added his incredible animation to create what is our debut music video!
How does the video connect with the song?
Ultimately the video acts as a mirror for one to reflect their greatest truths. It centres around the concept of inaction amidst complete chaos - a “conspiracy of silence” if you will.
Do you have any behind the scenes stories you can share with us?
At one point during filming our bandmate Giacomo flipped multiple pages in the book he was reading and the videographer called out mid-shot “remember to just flip one page and not like 50” and we all erupted in laughter. Ironically this clip actually made the video! See you if you can catch it. Two more tid-bits, that couch is from our home studio and our branding artist Clarence Johnson made a custom book sleeve for the video. The title is “A Shift in the Faults”, a lyric from the song.
Could you tell us about the ideas/ themes/ imagery used?
As mentioned before the video is truly intended to act as a mirror for the viewer to relate their own ideas with so we won’t dive too deep into any specific imagery to preserve that quality, however the overall theme of this piece is blanketed by its title ‘Conspiracy of Silence’ - defined as “a secret agreement to keep silent about an occurrence, situation, or subject especially in order to promote or protect selfish interests” - Webster.
What do you hope people take away from watching the video?
We hope the song and video empowers listeners to both speak up, or continue to speak up, whether that’s politically or candidly through rough situations in ones’ life.
Interview by Karla Harris