PREMIERE: Jordan Borg X The Kerps: Groove Train
Jordan Borg’s popped up around Pure Nowhere a few times now. We got to know him a couple of months ago when we had a chance to sit down and talk about The Dream Machine, the art/music tour he’d taken up the coast of Australia. Later, he hopped on as a feature artist for our upcoming Melbourne event, End of Summer Show — so we were stoked when he reached out by his newest video, a music clip made as part of an ongoing partnership with Melb band The Kerps.
The (mostly) animated video’s a feast for the eyes - vivid and constantly shifting, with green screens and striking characters and video-game inspired scenes. The Kerp’s song itself is fantastic, too - a soft, groovy beginning gives way to a dicso and funk inspired track, and really just makes you wanna dance all night. Or take a swim through a video-game scene. You pick.
We wanted to dive into the friendship and process behind the finished clip, so we had Jordan catch up with The Kerps band-member Lachie. A few beers in, they hit record, and we learnt all kinds of things — turns out they each thought the other was a bit of a fuckwit at first? Plus — actually, maybe just read on, yeah?
on how we started working together
Jordan: Yeah, so I remember I reached out to ya a little while ago — what do ya reckon about how that was?
Lachie: I’d been making music by myself unnoticed for about two years, and then you hit me up. I’d been following Acidic Oxygen (Jordan’s old brand) so I kinda knew you were an artist, but didn’t know where you were from or what you were about. But you asked me if you could make a clip for ‘Everyone’s Sad’, one of my favourite songs off an old album I did. You made me that and bit for bit it was so accurate — you took a real deeper meaning from the song and the lyrics. It was really good.
J: Yeah. I don’t actually know how I found your music, but that was when I was still back on the coast, bout to move to Melbourne, trying to suss out what the go was, who I wanted to hang out with and all that, and then I found your music and was like fucken hell. I always wanted to do music videos but never knew how to ask people (cause how the fuck do you ask people you know ahaha), but you seemed pretty easy to reach out to.
L: Yeah - and then you were like actually, this guy’s a fuckwit ahaha.
J: Hahaha yeah nah that was later on. So I’ve moved to Melb, and thought I’d suss out one of your gigs in Eltham with one of my mates.
L: We were all real scared coz we thought you were a superstar. I said hi. All my mates were giving you the greesies.
J: Yeah, we felt like you guys thought we were fucken weird so we left and didn’t even watch your set ahahaha. We were like stuff this, we’re gunna go get a beer at the Grace Darling, so we did. But nah, after that I thought it would still be good to include you guys in the shows I was doin here in Melb. That’s when we fully hit it off, at Cactus Room, and got along so well we forgot about the side eyes in Eltham.
on how Groove Train came about
Jordan: What’d you think when I wanted to do a vid for Groove Train for you guys? Was there a different song you were more keen for me to do?
Lachie: Nah. That song was a big song for me, cause it was definitely a step out of the genre I’d been playing for the past six albums, and it was around the time I really got into funk and disco. But it’s hard to make good Disco in my room on GarageBand, with my acoustic guitar and shit as electronic drums. I had to move into a different room for every instrument ahaha. I was really into the track when I was making it, but I didn’t really think it would be a track people would get around. But it’s our most played song, so I’m just happy that people still dig that genre. It’s a real step out of the mopey genre I normally play.
J: Not that that’s bad.
L: Nah it’s not bad. Playing gigs, you realise people just wanna have a fucken dance and have fun, rather than just listen to sad stuff
J: Yeah, cause then you’d just get the same crowd as Ziggy Alberts or someone like that ahah (not that he’s bad). But I thought it was really sick that you produced that out of your bedroom and I was like fucken hell, you did that? I thought, yep, it needs a vid for sure, and it was a tune that visually my characters would work really well with. I mean, I hope it has — people can figure that out for themselves I guess.
on the making of Groove Train
Jordan: Groove train came at a time where I was just having a lot of fun.
Lachie: Yeah, same.
J: And I wanted to reflect that. The idea that when everyone’s feeling good through music, it can kinda heal everything. Along with that, I wanted to make a video where, even tho it’s a bit fucken weird, people can have fun with it. But yeah, what’d you think of shooting ahah?
L: It was — ahhh — pretty awkward. It was fine when we were playing as a band — I was just keen to show you, cause you hadn’t heard us play it yet, and we felt pretty tight with it. Doing that was good. But some of the solo takes — when I had to sing with no music playing in front of a bunch of random people with you just looking me in the eyes and the band pissing themselves — that was the most I’ve sweated in a while ahah. But nah, it was fun, it was an experience and it was worth it for sure. How’d you go about it? Where’d you get your ideas from with the green screen and all that?
J: I thought of the green screen straight away, cause I was pretty keen on meshing my characters and worlds with you boys in amongst it all. My team sat down and started referencing King Gizzard and The Murloc’s videos, where they use the green screen with some animation. But we also wanted to mesh that style with old BeeGees and Abba video’s, the way they were shot during the disco era. We went through so many ideas but a lot of them weren’t hitting the references that well. I eventually just threw some concepts out and decided to make the video mostly animated with you boys playing amongst it all, kind of like big superstars in my world, getting my characters to idolise you ahah. It worked out really well, and the best part was I never really stopped being creative with it. My ideas were constantly changing. I remember I finished the video on Christmas Eve at like 3am before a flight to the sunny coast. I feel like I was being creative right up until then — which is what it’s all about I guess.
what’s next?
Jordan: So what do you reckon about where you’re going to go from here — anything else for the album?
Lachie: I reckon the albums kinda done. I think I’m keen for us to get our heads down and make music more together as a band, and make our live music more tight. I’m just about to release my solo album which is where I’ll keep all the slower, folkier stuff, so I’ll keep all the rock and heavier stuff for The Kerps. Whatever happens happens — might be a while till we release new music, but I’m just keen to play more regular gigs and stuff like that.
CREDITS
Director and Editor — Jordan Borg
Art and Animation — Jordan Borg
Producer — Paige Watson
DOP and Assistant Animator — Sam Connell
Assistant Editor — Marque La Brooy
Gaffer — Clare Chapman
Production Design — Alexia Bonomo