Please enable Javascript to watch this videoOdd-pop trio JOEY FOURR understand the three things that matter most in life: music, dancing, and snacks. All of which feature in their very aesthetically pleasing new video for “My Dolphins,” premiering above.Self-directed by the band and produced by Chloe Thorne, the video sees Joey (who some of the keener math-rock enthusiasts among us may recognize as Joseph Prendergast, former singer of Tubelord) performing an actual real life moonwalk, squeezing pop tarts, and diving head first into the garbage. Basically, everything about it is tailor-made for feeling the entire spectrum of positive emotion at once, excluding the occasional pang of hair envy.The track is taken from their debut album TO THE FLOORR, to be released on April 1 through MÏLK Records (Shopping, Skinny Girl Diet, Woolf). With production so glassy you could see your breath on it, “My Dolphins” feels like swimming in an iridescent sea of chorus with a thudding bass line keeping you afloat.We caught up with Joey to quiz him about the making of video, his forthcoming album, and candy.Noisey: This video is really aesthetically pleasing. It almost borders on ASMR. Was that intentional?
Joey: Thank you. I had to google ASMR. I still don’t really know what it means?Uh, it’s when people get off on videos of people talking softly, touching things etc… Anyway, talk us through the vision.
Well, my plan was for the video to be well lit, crisp, recorded with a Digital SLR and have me diving into a bin, littered with sweets [candy], and Pop Tarts. So I suppose maybe it was unknowingly an ASMR vision. I can’t take credit for pre-planning that one.Did you choreograph your own dance routine in the video and if so who did you take your dancing inspiration from?
I choreographed the routine myself. Dancing is something I have no experience in but really enjoy doing and wanted to create something of my own for the video. I took inspiration from Michael Jackson, Ciara, Willie Ninja, Fred Astaire—all the greats.Can you legit moonwalk or is it an optical illusion?
Of course I can legit moonwalk it’s in the video! I zip across the screen real smooth like butter.Aside from Pop Tarts, what's your favorite American snack?
Twinkie.You've been making music as JOEY FOURR since 2012, but TO THE FLOORR is the first time you've put anything to wax with the project. It's also less lo-fi than your previous work. Did you intend on doing something with this record that you hadn't done before?
With the songs released before the album I didn’t aim to sound in a certain lo-fi way, I was just writing and recording rock songs in my room and using whatever I owned so it wouldn’t cost anything to record. The hypocrisy and artifice of rock culture is its imagery appearing really dirty and rough around the edges, yet behind the scenes the recordings are all about high end slick studio production values, which I didn’t have at my disposal. So removing the rock elements (fuzzy guitar, in your face snare, punchy kick drum etc.) allowed for all these other frequencies to jump up and be heard in the mix and it was like an epiphany! I was so much happier without the fuzz. The songs finally had some clarity.TO THE FLOORR was partly written at Good Job—a studio arts space in Bermondsey, south London. I hear it got bulldozed. What happened there?
BNP Paribas invested in the development of swanky new apartments for people with old money to be able to afford so we had to leave. ACAVA, the company running all these studios over London, provide spaces for artists and are easy going people to work with. They allowed Rosie Ridgway (Ravioli Me Away) to put on events and Hannah Stearn to host artist talks and even for us to convert an unused room into a soundproofed rehearsal space, which was hugely beneficial for all of the bands (Good Throb, Trash Kit, Ravioli Me Away, Not Sorry, As Ondas, Yola Fatoush, Shopping, Lady Neptune, Circuit Breaker, Dog Legs) to practice and write new songs for nothing."My Dolphins" comes out on Valentines Day. What's the best Valentine's Day you've ever had?
I’m sorry.TO THE FLOORR will be released on 4.1 via MÏLK Records and is available to pre-order here.Follow Emma Garland on Twitter.
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Joey: Thank you. I had to google ASMR. I still don’t really know what it means?Uh, it’s when people get off on videos of people talking softly, touching things etc… Anyway, talk us through the vision.
Well, my plan was for the video to be well lit, crisp, recorded with a Digital SLR and have me diving into a bin, littered with sweets [candy], and Pop Tarts. So I suppose maybe it was unknowingly an ASMR vision. I can’t take credit for pre-planning that one.Did you choreograph your own dance routine in the video and if so who did you take your dancing inspiration from?
I choreographed the routine myself. Dancing is something I have no experience in but really enjoy doing and wanted to create something of my own for the video. I took inspiration from Michael Jackson, Ciara, Willie Ninja, Fred Astaire—all the greats.Can you legit moonwalk or is it an optical illusion?
Of course I can legit moonwalk it’s in the video! I zip across the screen real smooth like butter.
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Twinkie.You've been making music as JOEY FOURR since 2012, but TO THE FLOORR is the first time you've put anything to wax with the project. It's also less lo-fi than your previous work. Did you intend on doing something with this record that you hadn't done before?
With the songs released before the album I didn’t aim to sound in a certain lo-fi way, I was just writing and recording rock songs in my room and using whatever I owned so it wouldn’t cost anything to record. The hypocrisy and artifice of rock culture is its imagery appearing really dirty and rough around the edges, yet behind the scenes the recordings are all about high end slick studio production values, which I didn’t have at my disposal. So removing the rock elements (fuzzy guitar, in your face snare, punchy kick drum etc.) allowed for all these other frequencies to jump up and be heard in the mix and it was like an epiphany! I was so much happier without the fuzz. The songs finally had some clarity.TO THE FLOORR was partly written at Good Job—a studio arts space in Bermondsey, south London. I hear it got bulldozed. What happened there?
BNP Paribas invested in the development of swanky new apartments for people with old money to be able to afford so we had to leave. ACAVA, the company running all these studios over London, provide spaces for artists and are easy going people to work with. They allowed Rosie Ridgway (Ravioli Me Away) to put on events and Hannah Stearn to host artist talks and even for us to convert an unused room into a soundproofed rehearsal space, which was hugely beneficial for all of the bands (Good Throb, Trash Kit, Ravioli Me Away, Not Sorry, As Ondas, Yola Fatoush, Shopping, Lady Neptune, Circuit Breaker, Dog Legs) to practice and write new songs for nothing.
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