Interview With BingeNinja & New Music Video For Run Underwater Feat. The First Seed
Bingeninja and The First Seed have teamed up with Zmuda Films to bring us a new music video for “Run Underwater”. Bingeninja describes the song as “a call to arms for all creatives who may feel iffy about staying true to their vision due to a fear of being ostracized,” a message that is especially important after 18 months of pandemic in a city where being a creative was hard enough as it was. Although the lyrical content is dark, if you’ve been following Bingeninja and The First Seeds releases, you might be in for a fun surprise with this video. We had the opportunity to interview Bingeninja about the single, the music video, the return of live music, the biggest thing he’s learned over the course of the pandemic and more. Click below to watch Run Underwater and keep scrolling for our interview with Bingeninja.
Interview With BingeNinja
It’s almost the end of 2021 and we’re still here! How has the year been for you, both musically and personally?
Back to shooting videos, recording tunes and booking full band live shows. So that means happier, healthier and more inspired!
You and The First Seed have just dropped your latest single Run Underwater, which starts with the lines “Run underwater so progress is covered. You don’t have to bother or wait for another one”. Can you tell us about the lyrics and what inspired them?
Without going too deep into my thoughts on world politics, cancel culture or victim mentality, those words are a call to arms for all creatives who may feel iffy about staying true to their vision due to a fear of being ostracized. Stay strong and confident, and don’t dilute your expression to fit into someone else’s narrative.
Most of the video is really happy, filled with colour and lighthearted scenes. But then there’s a really cool juxtaposition of transitioning between the first ¾ of the video and the dark forest at the end. What were your guy’s thoughts behind the music video for Run Underwater?
“Run underwater” contains dark, controversial subject matter housed within a campy, pop package. I wanted to create an obvious dichotomy so that the music video could exist as it’s own art piece, separate from the subject matter of the song. Furthermore, the videos for our first three singles were quite serious and deliberate, so I wanted to give fans of the band a good chuckle as the fun we were having during the shoot is totally palpable to the viewer. Naturally, I wanted to throw that formula slightly off kilter at the end of the video to offset the campiness with some realism.
Who shot the video, and what is one of your favourite memories from creating it?
Steven Sandhu runs a film production company called Zmuda films. I directed the shoot having the shots in mind while Steve shot, edited and color corrected it. I would highly recommend contacting him if you are an artist looking to shoot a music video. He is highly professional, collaborative and his work speaks for itself. It’s a movie! We were in Niagara for the weekend hitting the casino’s, but we took an afternoon to drive out to Adam (The First Seeds)‘s area to get the lovely shots you see in the piece. It was a beautiful day, and we had a hilarious time frolicking around the fields and meadows being silly and playing with Adam’s dog Mac, who as it turns out is quite a camera hog.
You’ll be performing at T.O Lounge in December, how nice is the feeling of just being able to announce live shows again?
I’m throwing a public Xmas gathering in Parkdale on Dec.11th with all my friends performing, dj’ing and just being together in a very real way after so much time apart. Nothing could make me happier. We’re playing in Brampton Dec.18th and shows all over the gta materializing for 2022, so I would have to express my feelings as overjoyed.
You’ve had the chance to play live since restrictions have lifted, how was the experience?
We played a park show at the end of the summer which was wild. I’ve played a couple solo acoustic shows in my area, so it’s been great to get my feet wet again, and audiences have been reacting really well. Everybody’s ready to go back to transferring energy in a live setting, and I’m more than willing to be a catalyst for that.
What would you say is the biggest life lesson you learned over the course of the pandemic?
That you can’t take ANYTHING for granted. Be present in the moment, be gracious and try to stay as humble as possible.
The Toronto music scene took quite a hit during the pandemic, but now that things are slowly opening again, what do you think it will look like in 2022?
New underground punk venues, new hungry bands and promoters, the return of familiar faces, new friends and NEW MUSIC!!!
What can fans expect from BingeNinja in 2022?
Live shows, full band as well as BingeNinja & The First Seed. A noise/thrash EP Adam and I are releasing through D-Trash Records. New full band recordings on the horizon.
Do you have any last words for our readers?
Follow us @bingeninjaband Subscribe to us on YouTube. Don’t feel like you’re too cool to share or like one of our videos on your social media. It’d be a lot cooler if you did.
