Behind the Video: The Black Lips on Their "Katrina" Clip

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The Black Lips are four Atlanta rock & roll renegades who've been playing their wildly entertaining brand of dirty blues punk since 2000. On September 11, the band -- known for truly outrageous stage shows that involve drinking pee, nudity, making out with each other and profuse bleeding -- will release their new album Good Bad, Not Evil? on Vice Records. The LP is stocked with gleefully disturbed tunes like its first single, "Katrina," which somehow manages to merge Kinks-style heartbreak pop with one of the most appalling natural (and political) disasters in American history. Rock Daily asked singer/bassist Jared Swilley about this unusual song, as well as the cheery day-glo video they made for it:

On writing a love song about a hurricane: "In a lot of ways a girl can be much like a hurricane. In this case, though, we didn't want to be political, even though we have ties to New Orleans, so we tied the two ideas together."

On why the song has only four lines of lyrics: "In this day and age of ADD, we try to appeal to those with a short attention span who wanna go ride bikes later."

On the video's larger concept: "I would describe the concept as strikingly similar to that of a Christmas tree's lights. Sometimes they're green, sometimes they're yellow, and even sometimes, they're purple. The fast shot changes pay homage to our lightning-fast wit."

On what the Black Lips will do to celebrate the release of their new album: "Continue on with our never-ending tour and maybe buy a six pack of Busch."

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Song Stories

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The Joy Formidable | 2011

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”

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