South Coast-based alternative band Pure Assassins recently released their new single “Questions”, which is taken from their album of the same name. The band came up with the idea to have a silent movie theme to accompany the track. Frontman Chris Rush explains: “Like with the track Questions itself when coming up with a video concept we wanted to play with the idea of there not always being answers to life’s Questions. We wanted the video to have a comedy angle to it, so the whole thing didn’t become too serious and was fun to make. We talked about using a paper cootie catcher/chatterbox/fortune teller toy but settled on the Magic 8 Ball as the main focus of the story. We all love 30’s silent movies; Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd etc and felt it was a theme we could pull off with the tools we had available.
We met Ben Stoney recently on a photo shoot and he made the filming and editing of the video seem so easy. Former member of Pure Assassins and longtime collaborator Chris Mears came up with the concept of the Magic 8 Ball being an Evil Dead-style anthropomorphic character and Chris Rush being a Buster Keaton-style character, initially thinking he’s found the answer to life’s questions but then quickly finding he can’t get rid of the ball that keeps offering up useless answers. Ben and Chris Rush storyboarded Chris Mears initial idea out into what became the final video, adding title cards and old film effects to give the video that 1930s vibe. It was an interesting day running around Bournemouth in that outfit and make-up! Hopefully it’ll make people laugh” ?!
The results were an extremely authentic take of a silent movie (which can be seen below), with Chris giving the audience a really stunning performance as the only character. While dressed in a straw boater hat, spats, wing-collared shirt, black suit and a suitable amount of facial make up; He chases around various locations in Bournemouth using his magic eight ball to make decisions with some hilarious results. The attention to detail and the sheer amount of effort put in to create this is astonishing. While we admire the cinemaphotography, let’s not forget the track that is backing it.
“Questions” starts of with some slow-paced military-style drum beats, before Chris’s vocal comes in and immediately sounds like that of Matt Bellamy of Muse. I had to check that I’d not put the wrong track on by mistake as the similarity is uncanny. Chris’s great vocal range is the main focus of the song set to some meandering rhythms, the crowning glory of the song is its effect-fed fuzzed-up guitar solo. The track doesn’t grab you straight away, but with more listens it lets you take in some of the creative flair that was used to create the song. Chris the multi-instrumentalist and producer behind Pure Assassins cut his teeth as one of the forerunners in the exploding drum and bass scene and although he enjoyed success as part of another act Calyx, chose Rock music to become his weapon of choice.
Pure Assasins are
Chris Rush: Vocals, Guitars, Keys and Percussion
Tom Hooper: Drums
Pablo Uccellatore: Bass
Link
https://www.facebook.com/pureassassins
https://linktr.ee/Pureassassins
https://pureassassins.bandcamp.com
Words by David Chinery (Chinners)
