Video premiere: James Supercave, ‘Fools’

Kevin Bronson on January 8th, 2019

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James Supercave (Photo by Brittany O'Brien)

In “Fools,” the second single from James Supercave’s forthcoming EP “Alarm Will Sound,” something nefarious is going on. “Fools / sleeping in the backseat” Andrés Villalobos and Joaquin Pastor keen in the chorus, a sly commentary on those in society who will enjoy the ride but never do any of the driving.

The shadowy video from director Patrick Mattes, filmed over two L.A. nights, takes a similarly subtle approach — friends in a car, on a joyride, partying on. “We wanted to create something that lived in a world with a constant presence of consumption,” Mattes says. “The band and I felt that consumption, of any sort, in our day and age feels very much like a dichotomy between good and evil. With that in mind we tried to portray an array of consumption dichotomy as well as visual dichotomy throughout the video. The largest, most in-your-face example of that would be our visual portrayal of pleasure vs. danger.”

Says Villalobos, the principal writer on the song: “Poor fools sleeping in the backseat was the leading theme in the song and it was only natural that we run with that in the video. A speeding car is a perfect analogy for consumerism and is both the set and main character. The video is a juxtaposition of the enthralling, visceral experience with the dark side of being complacent in a consumerist society.”

The six-song “Alarm Will Sound,” the follow-up to the L.A. psych-pop band’s 2016 full-length “Better Strange,” will be out Jan. 25.

||| Watch: The video for ‘Fools”