San Diego grungy psych band Wild Wild Wets recently released their new LP Love Always, and we're now premiering the stop-motion animation video (by Sierra Waller) for its song "The Cut." Here's what band members Mike Turi and Taejon Romanik tell us about it:
Mike: The track is about making the cut. A nod to "The Cutter" by Echo and the Bunnymen, where they personify "The Cutter" to reference the music industry and the old guard. Echo says, "Spare us, the Cutter!", but we have them exclaim, "We await for you to join the Cut", a cultish cry from the gate creepers. The line "Change is calling" has acted as a bit of a mantra for us with the making of this album and surfing through the weird waves of this world.
Taejon: "The Cut" is one of the fastest and heaviest songs we've ever put down. Just born of a moment in time. The raw energy of the song always feels like an homage to an older, heavier San Diego music scene (before Mike and I lived on this coast) where bands like Hot Snakes, Some Girls, and The Long and Short of It would fill the dingy dance floors of the Casbah and other clubs with sweaty young believers.
Mike: Tonally, I channelled some different heroes for the vocals, whilst referencing some of our own titles in the lyrics and some familiar old tricks with the use of my vocal pedal automation, a technique that has become signature of the WWWets' sound. The struggle with one's passion to put a part of themselves out there and the response as seen from their own sights is the theme.
To cut away or to give oneself over to join the cult is the question.
The video is a hero's tale we worked on with animator, Sierra Waller, where friends and foes are hard to decipher and the end is uncertain. The story itself mirrors an artists' own journey through the scene and those old gate-kepers and nay-sayers who prey upon it.
Everything was done by Sierra's hand. Cutting, drawing, and stop motion animating. Final edits were made collectively with the album's executive producer Jean Carlo Mendez and band mates myself and Taejon Romanik.