How’d the video come about?
Angel 一 We were going out to L.A. a couple months ago. Our friend Sarah Ritter, who’s made some videos for Blake and some other friends, she’s amazing - one of the best artists in L.A. right now. She assembled this crazy team of a DP, and props, and got a set. We were between “Fox Bop” and “Harp & Pony.” It just felt right for “Harp & Pony.” The ideas of the imagery; the props; the sort of magicalness.
Lulu 一 It was definitely the first time we just pulled up to it and they had a concept already, but it still felt like our music video and they were open to whatever we wanted to do. It was one of the most fun days ever. We just got to hold this epic sword in the mountains.
Angel 一 And bounce around the hills on this ranch in Malibu in these human-sized hamster balls. It was just pure joy. It matched the vibe of the song: fast, and cute, and contained - but fantasizing; wanting to conjure things. It makes me want to make more high-budget videos.
Lulu 一 For a while, it was just us filming each other. It was so DIY - just on our iPhone filming. The first couple videos neither of us are in the same shot at the same time because we were just passing the phone because we couldn’t film each other at the same time.
Angel 一 I’m excited to work on projects where we plan stuff. I’ve learned a lot through Blake and other people in New York of sitting down, and making plans to meet, and talk about shooting something or making something. And having a plan. And I think “Harp & Pony” is a really cool first offering of what we can do when we plan - when we try a little extra hard. And there’s a bunch of stuff that we’re working on right now that’s a ton of work. And also collaborating with people visually is something that we’re kind of new to.
Lulu 一 Also, going back to what we were just talking about with characters: we had a session actually the other day with this amazing artist. We were probably in here for ten hours, and made all these different ideas, and it was such a good combination of voices. We had so many different character voices throughout that night. At the end of the day, we were just listening back, and I was just like, “I don’t even know who’s who.”
Angel 一 Yeah. It sounds like there’s 10 people in the session or something.
Lulu 一 Yeah. It’s like when you see a voice actor at a comic con that’s doing those voices on stage and switching between them. I feel like it’s totally like that sometimes - where it’s different characters in the song just talking. Sometimes they’re true to something that we’re actually connecting with, or it’s just a fictional voice that we’re messing with.
Angel 一 Yeah. We’ve been obsessed with this video of a guy singing “Memories” by Maroon 5 in all the characters of Family Guy. And I didn’t really think about the connection between that and our art, but maybe it has to do something like that.
Lulu 一 If there’s any takeaway from this interview it’s to listen to that. Listen at double speed too.
Do you have a theater background, or anything like that, in terms of characters? Or can you think of a time when that might have started to become important to you, or why you might resonate with that?
Angel 一 I don't have any theater background. We both went to the same high school, and it was very sports centered at the school. There wasn't really much in the arts, music, theater, or visual arts. And I was just so scared to be like a theater kid - like, labeled as that. So, I didn't really engage in proper theater actually ever, a single time.
Lulu 一 I was in the pit band for theater all throughout high school. I was the drummer backstage. So, I met the theater kids, but I wasn’t a theater kid.
Angel 一 I feel like we like explored theater in different ways growing up. And at the age where I would have started engaging with theater, I became really embarrassed easily. I didn't want to take risks. We talk about this a lot. We missed out on a lot of key high school experiences because our school was kind of horrible. It makes everything so fresh now, and I like exploring new things. It's like exploring things for the first time, and adds to a goofiness and silliness.
Lulu 一 With the characters and the theatrical-ness of it, I think it's because like we grew up together, and just consumed so much content - of movies, cartoons, and music. Every kind of music; every different scene, and subscene, of exploring music together. We have that to reference at any given moment. And we can go into all these things together because we can read each other so well.
Angel 一 Yeah. I think a lot of it is early YouTube content creators that feel niche, maybe - like this guy “MysteryGuitarMan,” who would splice up playing different notes together visually, and it’d be a symphony of guitars. People like that were who we connected to growing up. I never really did the theater thing though. I kind of want to do acting though, at some point. Living in New York there’s so many friends of friends that are making films and stuff.