"Young & Wild" by Mean Creek from loroto on Vimeo.
Editor's note: Anyone who reads this magazine and/or music blog knows we're huge fans of MEAN CREEK. The two-time Boston Artist of the Year in our BMP readers' polls have a new record coming out next month titled Youth Companion, and a release party set for October 11 at Brighton Music Hall. To get us warmed up, yesterday the band released a new Loroto-directed music video for the album's first single, "Young And Wild," and the response was huge. Instead of just re-writing what everyone had already written, On The Download reached out to one of the video's directors, Phoenix contributor P. Nick Curran, for an inside look at its creation and vision. Here it be:
The idea for Mean Creek's "Young And Wild" video came as soon as I heard the song for the first time. And it was far less innocent. I intended to remap the stupid and fun things I’d done as a teenager; sneaking out at night, pool hopping, drinking in the woods, running from cops, trying to meet up with a girl etc.
As the summer progressed, I realized that the idea was unlikely to happen in that form, so I met with Mean Creek and we amended the story to follow three friends as they snuck out of a house past a '90s-styled babysitter after her totally righteous '90s-boyfriend shows up with (four) beers. [Editor's Note II: check out the sweet Allston Pudding sweartshirt.]
We decided to shoot in and around my family’s home in Hull with my sister and cousins. So, although I was never an adolescent girl sneaking out to do seances, we were able to maintain the spirit of the original concept while incorporating things that Mean Creek wanted present; nods to My So Called Life, The Wonder Years, '90s sitcom babysitters and passing out drunk on beaches.
I wanted to frame the girls against a beach-side cityscape, much in the same way that the show Breaking Bad places it’s characters against the expanse of the desert. And although the two are hardly comparable, I got really psyched on the approach and decided to treat the scenery as equally integral to the action.
A week prior to the shoot I took my camera and a bike to Hull, scouted locations and shot B-Roll. I shot the principal footage in one night with the whole band, along with long-time collaborator Faye Orlove. Because we only had one night, most of what you see is the first or second take (note how the girls are always a step away from bursting out laughing). At one point, we had to shoot through dozens of drunk pre-teens on the boardwalk. One such gem approached us, reeking of gin from a Poland Spring bottle, proclaiming his love of weed. I have footage of him delivering an inspired rap on the subject, but it seems inappropriate to post. [Editor's Note III: I will demand this for posting pleasure by week's end.]
And that opening shot of the skyline?
My mother gave the girls and I a ride to Hull a week after principal shooting to do clean up shots, mostly the shots of them walking the backstreets and the boardwalk. The sun was setting and, ever the romantic, my mother wanted to go watch it over the Hull gut. I was probably acting all ornery and making snide remarks about how I was pressed for time, but she was persistent and when we got there, I was presented with that beautiful skyline and that shot of the plane breaching the high-rises over a pink sky.
So, thanks Mom.
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