MERCH is the kind of psychedelic and nightmare-ish rock band that could have only come from the mind of Joe Medina. Growing up a lover of all things horror, parts of those movies were bound to seep into his subconscious only to come to light through his own artistic endeavors. Their brand new album is called Amour Bohemian and wass helmed as a collaborative effort between MERCH and 65 other artists, ranging from the 30 piece Prague Filmharmonic to The Growlers to help create a soundscape that feels like both a cohesive album and a gargantuan and cinematic film-score. Today, we’re excited to share the music video for the album’s debut single, “Don’t Wait Too Long.”
The music video also draws heavily on MERCH’s love for horror movies, with his favorites being Let The Right One In, Spring, Pet Semetary, An American Werewolf In London, and Tales From The Darkside: The Movie. These films helped inform the track and new record, as well as Medina’s trippy, campy, low-budget nighttime desert shoot for the “Don’t Wait Too Long” video. It’s a vision of mania and anxiety that plays well off of the psychedelic brand of cinema-rock that they’ve created. The music video for “Don’t Wait Too Long” can be found above.
When asked to speak on the video, MERCH said “The video shoot for ‘Don’t Wait Too Long’ took place over two nights–March 27th for the desert footage and March 31st, and in the backyard of the house I had at the time in Echo Park, for the bit with me dancing with road flares and on the concrete steps towards the end of the video.
Jason Shamai directed the video. He and I go back a few years to when he directed a promotional video for me back in SF for a monologue tour I was doing in support of my prior album ‘This Betrayal Will Be Our End’. It was basically a video of talking heads saying overly nice things about me–amplified by a shitload of free beer courtesy of Lagunitas. I recently found out Jason roomed with Christopher Owens of GIRLS, which is pretty neat.
The dessert section of the video was shot by Jason with a gentleman named David Ayala acting as assistant on the shoot. I think they know each other from improv classes. Jason wanted to get footage of the super-bloom in Anza Borrego at night, so we made the three-hour drive in the mid-afternoon.
Once we got to Anza Borrego, we roamed around by car and on foot until we found a spot we dug to set up the shoot. We ended up parking really far down a path with no sign of anyone except for a couple parked in a trailer near by. With all the madness of the shoot, I do wonder what the hell they thought was going on.
It is fitting that the video has a hazy druggy vibe because that Echo Park spot is on the lake and just half a block from Sunset Blvd–Debauchery Central. There was always either a pitcher of sangria made or margs on tap [margaritas] and several barefoot acid or mushroom walks with friends and a lover during my tenure there at that house.”
The music video for “Don’t Wait Too Long” can be found above.
Merch will release Amour Bohemian November 3rd on Sassafrass Records. Pre-orders are available here.
