Video premiere: Ariel Beesley, ‘Slower Than Usual’

Daiana Feuer on July 16th, 2018

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In 2016, San Fernando Valley-born singer/model Ariel Beesley was at a songwriting camp hosted by Aviici in Stockholm, Sweden. She met someone special but, as the story often goes, it wasn’t the right time to start something. What she did have was a moment. One night they were outside smoking and as she watched the cigarette burn, she wished she could make that moment last forever. And so the catchy pre-chorus to her debut single came to her, “smoke your cigarette slower than usual.” Beesley co-wrote the song with fellow camp-attendees Linnea Sodahl and Andreas Roos, and had it produced by Mark Needham (Imagine Dragons, The Killers).

The video was co-directed with her dad, director Matt Earl Beesley, and they tried to recreate the flavor of MTV videos she loved growing up. “When I write a song, I think about what the scene would be, the world in which the song would live,” explains Beesley. “I have always loved everything about the ’80s, especially the music videos. ‘Why is Debbie Harry performing in a room with no audience while the band jams behind her on telephone chords?’ I asked myself. Or ‘Why is Flock of Seagulls playing in a room of mirrors while two twins walk around?’ I loved it. For the ‘Slower Than Usual’ music video, I wanted to draw from those influences but make them modern.”

||| Watch: “Slower Than Usual”