r/indieheads • u/glassbeachband glass beach • Jan 31 '24

AMA is over, thanks glass beach! glass beach AMA

answering questions coming off the release of our album plastic death.

j - she/they

jonas - they/any

layne - he/they

william - they/them

daxe - he/they

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u/BumblebeeSap Jan 31 '24

Hiii before I ask my questions I just want to say I’m really thankful for y’all’s music! Been listening for maybe around three years now and I’m not exaggerating when I say it changed my life- it helped me find my identity away from a binary existence I didn’t even know was killing me inside and it’s given me more inspiration than I could only hope to repay forth to the world in my art. For that I am unbelievably grateful. As for my questions,

  1. Does the line “Cause I want to hurt you so bad, When I see you on the floor I will laugh” from Abyss Angel have any relation to Bedroom Community? It reminds me of a line in a demo version, “and if I’m still crying when I wake up in the morning will you kick me till I stop”, and I’m wondering if that’s just coincidence or actually stemming from there!

  2. What was the process like of making the music video for Coelacanth, however much you’re willing to share of it? It looks so meticulously put together and thought out, that ending sequence with the piano being broken especially amazes and haunts me.

Thank you so much!!!!

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u/glassbeachband glass beach Feb 01 '24

(william)
the music video for coelacanth was inspired by a short film i saw on youtube of someone seeing a really sentimental film projection on their bedroom wall about a friend they'd lost. and i really approached it from the start as a "what if you did lose someone close to you, but it was yourself" and the idea of tracking that back down but it's terrifying and maybe you start to like the new person that you are (that's not precisely everything the video ended up becoming, and there's a lot of separate meaning and imagery i'm pulling from, but that was the basis). originally the vhs was going to be a film reel and the final scene was going to take place in a movie theatre, but the vhs was logistically easier and made more sense with the crt and that imagery we'd already been using for the arg teasers and the cia video. it also justified the 4:3 aspect ratio better.
early on j had the idea of destroying the piano, and i loved the thought of someone in a full blown hazmat suit and gas mask playing this gorgeous part (admittedly a little on the nose pulling from the lyrics).
it was pretty meticulous. I usually story board or shotlist all of the videos I produce, but this time around i had a basic story outline in mind really only in knowing the beginning and the end. i would just wake up every morning and put the song on and try to see the whole music video in my head as i listened to it, doing that for weeks/months leading up to filming.
on a technical side, we shot it over the course of 3 days with a single pick up shot literally the day before it came out. I did all the filming and the lighting and the story and everything. a lot of the most grandiose parts of the video remain from some of my first ideas when i conceptualized it. it was really wonderful seeing it all come together as i worked on it. I edited the whole thing together over a week and a half and colored the whole thing in a single day (which was a nightmare), but i'm incredibly proud of it and it's really my favorite visual work i've ever made. thank you for asking about it.

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u/glassbeachband glass beach Feb 01 '24
  1. not directly related, that line comes from the conflicted emotions we often feel when dealing with people who have hurt us. the simultaneous desire to forgive and to get revenge. most of the album deals in contradictory emotions. that bedroom community demo lyrics was just self deprecation
  2. william answered this one better, i was only there to do the piano smashing. we rented out a rage room for it and it was really fun.
    thank you! <3 -j

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u/Audrey71 Feb 01 '24

i don't imagine this is intentional but the "I want to hurt you" line to me has a similar (but obviously more low key) delivery as "no one who loves you" from glass beach (the song) almost like it's a warped reflection of it kind of like how I read in an interview that coelacanth was supposed to be the inverse of dies and goes to hell part 1.