SOM, the collective featuring current and former members of Junius, Caspian and more, have dropped a Samia Zaidi directed music video for their song “Center“. The band’s vocalist/guitarist Will Benoit commented of this latest visual offering to emerge from the band:
“‘Center‘ was one of the first songs we worked on as a band remotely during lockdown. The vocals were originally written for another project that ultimately got shelved, but I really liked what I had come up with and couldn’t just leave them on a hard drive to die. The chorus has this anthemic, almost pop hook, but if you read the lyrics and look under the hood, the song is much darker. I love songs that present themselves one way on first listen, but can take you somewhere completely different the more you pay attention.
- Advertisement -I felt like there was room on ‘The Shape Of Everything‘ to explore a slightly different tone like this one, but outside the vocals, I honestly had no vision for where it could be taken musically. So we tried an experiment: can the band write music around an existing vocal? Particularly in a time when we couldn’t all be in the same room anyway, it seemed like a good time to try out a different approach.
I sent the isolated vocal tracks to everyone on top of a simple drumbeat. [Guitarist] Joel [M. Reynolds] and [bassist] Justin [Forrest] went back and forth developing the instrumental melodies and dynamics until we settled on this big dirging riff that really only changes to make the verses drive harder. [Guitarist] Mike [Repasch-Nieves] added lush, drippy guitars over the top and brought the whole thing to life.
It took a lot of Zoom calls and sending files back and forth, which probably made this the most challenging song to finish on the album — both lyrically and musically — but it’s heavy, it’s pretty, and it accomplishes a lot of what I hope to accomplish with SOM all inside of a four-minute song.”
Zaidi added:
“‘Center‘ was an extremely special song to respond to cinematically. The heavy and hopeful way it oscillates between these big sweeping melodies, deep digging rhythms, and these incredibly vulnerable vocals and lyrics, it wastes no time grabbing you by the heart and taking you on an epic journey.
It’s so human and relatable — we’ve all had these do-or-die moments when you find yourself pleading with loved ones or God or circumstance. It needed to be paired with something equally big, high stakes, and intimate. I knew immediately that this song was meant to pair with a love story, however the depth of the song required more complexity.
The cinematic approach was heavily inspired by the dynamism of the song itself. The narrative was based on a true story told with the blessing of the couple it was inspired by, plus a classic Bollywood film I loved growing up, and just a touch of Bonnie and Clyde. I wanted to share this story because it was grounded in a real-life example of how it’s not only possible to find the fields beyond our differences, but valuable to do so.
Given our modern reality where our variance is intentionally used to divide us instead of celebrated, I thought we could use a little hope. The human condition is universal. Love is universal.”
The band’s new album “The Shape Of Everything” will be out January 21st on Pelagic Records.
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