Following their debut UK single ‘Don’t Stop’, which set dance-floors on fire across the country and enthused crowds in venues small and large during the band’s last trip to UK shores, Pennsylvania’s innerpartysystem is launching their second all-consuming track from forthcoming self-titled album.
The track ‘Die Tonight, Live Forever’ is another stunning amalgamation of Rock and Dance elements which packs a punch nobody can avoid.
The band has the following to say about the video accompanying the track: “The song ’Die Tonight, Live Forever’ came about at a strange time for us early on in the band's timeline, where we had all just moved in together, had just signed our indie deal in the US with Stolen Transmission and were spending all our time programming, writing and recording.Â
The only shows that we were really playing were either underground punk/ hardcore hall shows, parties/ clubnights in NY, Boston and Brooklyn, or like these random underground raves thrown in abandoned factory spaces around Philadelphia.Â
Real rave/ dance culture where we live is really underground right now, but every couple of months these kids would get together and throw these intense dance parties, we really hadn't seen anything like it since we were teenagers watching what leftover fizz of the rave boom trickled down into Reading and Lancaster.
The contrast of the small quiet serene suburbs, with these pounding parties and people just wanting to get fucked out of their minds made us think about getting to that place where, it's not like you're suicidal, but you just stop giving a fuck. It's like you've all gathered in this one place to just focus on this world that you create for a night, no matter how much of an illusion it is; nothing else matters but that time and place, and the people you've surrounded yourself with. It's beautiful in its own way.
“This was a difficult video to make for a couple of reasons. After ‘Don't Stop’, the label wanted a video fast, in a period of time where we were 2 days away from leaving to tour for the next 2 months solid. We had made ‘Don't Stop’ for almost no money, using really basic equipment, and shooting the performance in our basement and the bulk of the video in our local "Berks County Public Access" studio.
Penta (our friend, manager, and video director) spent an entire month making that video look the way it did. The label was just like "Yeah… just do that again, but different, oh and can you do it while you're on the road… OH and we need the video in 2 weeks, thanks guys ". It was impossible.
Penta shot the footage of us not knowing what the video would be, then came up with this concept that was like this indie film mix of old school clubkid fashion sense, similar to what we were seeing at these raves, but really throwing back to the 90's New York clubkid scene, mixed with this desperate sense of small town binge drinking… on a budget… in Berks County, Pennsylvania.
“Really that was it for us. Penta tracked down these 3 actresses and a make-up artist, and two weeks later we started seeing footage. I wish I could have been there for the entire shoot, it was probably a fucking riot to watch these three girls romping through these tiny towns at night.Â
All the locations are real. The house in the beginning is really our house, where we recorded the bulk of the album, that raw mattress is Kris' room. The bar is Legend's, honestly the only bar Reading’s really got left. We've done shows in there - for awhile it was the only place left open that would let us play.Â
The bar stayed open the entire time we were shooting. All the booze was real and on the house. They were stoked we were shooting there. All the shots in the streets were shot in Womelsdorf (yes, it's a real town). The cops there let them pretty much just walk down the main streets late at night. There were a couple of mishaps. They paid a local guy to rent the old beat up car for the video, it was just sitting in a field with a "for sale" sign. It turned out there was a warrant for arrest out on the car's tags.
Penta got pulled over the first night of shooting with a camera strapped on the front of the car by a cop with his gun drawn. Apparently he talked his way out of getting arrested because he didn't 'fit the description.' The girl in the leather bustier also said she kept getting sick. They bought this crazy, serious gear bondage top, it was so tight she kept throwing up throughout the shoot. The girls had a bunch of other stories, it sounded like overall it was a pretty hectic run and gun shoot.  “We've always loved videos that walk that edge where people don't quite feel ok with it. ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, ‘Rabbit In Your Headlights’, ‘Closer’, ‘99 Problems’… fuck, anything Chris Cunningham's ever done for that matter. These are the kind of videos that we ultimately aspire to make.
The unfortunate reality is that for a new band, unless you make your own videos on camcorders, labels just won't let you push that envelope anymore. Big budget videos with artistic statements, for new artists, simply don't happen unless you make them yourself. You have to be the quirky band on treadmills making youtube work for you. It's sad really, it feels like great videos are still out there, they're definitely innovating using digital technology, but the days of the big budget creative video are dwindling.Â
Personally, I don't feel like this video comes close to those videos but it does have this certain indie film vibe to it that I really love. We really hope that by doing these videos on shoestrings, we can grow into making the kind of videos that we grew up idolizing.â€
See the band in the flesh at one of these dates;
OCTOBER
4th Oxford Zodiac
5th Liverpool Barfly
6th Birmingham Bar Academy
7th London Barfly
9th Manchester Roadhousev
10th Middlesbrough Sumofest @Cornerhouse
11th Leeds Garage @ The Cockpit
12th Glasgow Barfly
15th Cardiff Barfly
Following their debut UK single ‘Don’t Stop’, which set dance-floors on fire across the country and enthused crowds in venues small and large during the band’s last trip to UK shores, Pennsylvania’s innerpartysystem is launching their second all-consuming track from forthcoming self-titled album.
The track ‘Die Tonight, Live Forever’ is another stunning amalgamation of Rock and Dance elements which packs a punch nobody can avoid.
The band has the following to say about the video accompanying the track: “The song ’Die Tonight, Live Forever’ came about at a strange time for us early on in the band's timeline, where we had all just moved in together, had just signed our indie deal in the US with Stolen Transmission and were spending all our time programming, writing and recording.Â
The only shows that we were really playing were either underground punk/ hardcore hall shows, parties/ clubnights in NY, Boston and Brooklyn, or like these random underground raves thrown in abandoned factory spaces around Philadelphia.Â
Real rave/ dance culture where we live is really underground right now, but every couple of months these kids would get together and throw these intense dance parties, we really hadn't seen anything like it since we were teenagers watching what leftover fizz of the rave boom trickled down into Reading and Lancaster.
The contrast of the small quiet serene suburbs, with these pounding parties and people just wanting to get fucked out of their minds made us think about getting to that place where, it's not like you're suicidal, but you just stop giving a fuck. It's like you've all gathered in this one place to just focus on this world that you create for a night, no matter how much of an illusion it is; nothing else matters but that time and place, and the people you've surrounded yourself with. It's beautiful in its own way.
“This was a difficult video to make for a couple of reasons. After ‘Don't Stop’, the label wanted a video fast, in a period of time where we were 2 days away from leaving to tour for the next 2 months solid. We had made ‘Don't Stop’ for almost no money, using really basic equipment, and shooting the performance in our basement and the bulk of the video in our local "Berks County Public Access" studio.
Penta (our friend, manager, and video director) spent an entire month making that video look the way it did. The label was just like "Yeah… just do that again, but different, oh and can you do it while you're on the road… OH and we need the video in 2 weeks, thanks guys ". It was impossible.
Penta shot the footage of us not knowing what the video would be, then came up with this concept that was like this indie film mix of old school clubkid fashion sense, similar to what we were seeing at these raves, but really throwing back to the 90's New York clubkid scene, mixed with this desperate sense of small town binge drinking… on a budget… in Berks County, Pennsylvania.
“Really that was it for us. Penta tracked down these 3 actresses and a make-up artist, and two weeks later we started seeing footage. I wish I could have been there for the entire shoot, it was probably a fucking riot to watch these three girls romping through these tiny towns at night.Â
All the locations are real. The house in the beginning is really our house, where we recorded the bulk of the album, that raw mattress is Kris' room. The bar is Legend's, honestly the only bar Reading’s really got left. We've done shows in there - for awhile it was the only place left open that would let us play.Â
The bar stayed open the entire time we were shooting. All the booze was real and on the house. They were stoked we were shooting there. All the shots in the streets were shot in Womelsdorf (yes, it's a real town). The cops there let them pretty much just walk down the main streets late at night. There were a couple of mishaps. They paid a local guy to rent the old beat up car for the video, it was just sitting in a field with a "for sale" sign. It turned out there was a warrant for arrest out on the car's tags.
Penta got pulled over the first night of shooting with a camera strapped on the front of the car by a cop with his gun drawn. Apparently he talked his way out of getting arrested because he didn't 'fit the description.' The girl in the leather bustier also said she kept getting sick. They bought this crazy, serious gear bondage top, it was so tight she kept throwing up throughout the shoot. The girls had a bunch of other stories, it sounded like overall it was a pretty hectic run and gun shoot.  “We've always loved videos that walk that edge where people don't quite feel ok with it. ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, ‘Rabbit In Your Headlights’, ‘Closer’, ‘99 Problems’… fuck, anything Chris Cunningham's ever done for that matter. These are the kind of videos that we ultimately aspire to make.
The unfortunate reality is that for a new band, unless you make your own videos on camcorders, labels just won't let you push that envelope anymore. Big budget videos with artistic statements, for new artists, simply don't happen unless you make them yourself. You have to be the quirky band on treadmills making youtube work for you. It's sad really, it feels like great videos are still out there, they're definitely innovating using digital technology, but the days of the big budget creative video are dwindling.Â
Personally, I don't feel like this video comes close to those videos but it does have this certain indie film vibe to it that I really love. We really hope that by doing these videos on shoestrings, we can grow into making the kind of videos that we grew up idolizing.â€
See the band in the flesh at one of these dates;