Photo by Anna Haas
Nashville heavy duo Friendship Commanders present a new video for “Vampire” from their upcoming album Mass, out September 29.
Guitarist/vocalist Buick Audra says about the track:
“There was a season at the end of my time in Boston where I was being turned into The Problem by someone who wanted to control me and couldn’t; it was a moment where I could have played small and gone along with what she wanted, as I had once done. But I didn’t. I played big. I kept what was mine instead of giving it away—which included parts of my identity. And while the result was a scorched earth reality that impacts my sense of self to this day, it also ended the whole thing. I learned a valuable lesson in that season: don’t fuel the narcissists. Keep your power for yourself. It’s what they hate. And if they’re going to drag your character out in front of everyone you know, you might as well burn it all down for the warmth.”
She adds regarding the video:
“Because ‘Vampire’ is a sludgy metal song with R&B-leaning vocals, we played with visuals that combined those two ideas. I’m a huge R&B fan, so it was fun to step into that mode for a bit, fun to have the gloss and sparkle in one of our projects. ‘Vampire’ tells the story of someone trying to take on parts of my identity, a toxic person who attempted to blur the line between herself and me. My lifelong love of that music was one of the many things she adopted as her own—and then competed with me for years—all while trying to control me, my body, and my creative output. The vampires added additional lightness, playing up the whole bloodsucker thing. Where there once was trauma and confusion, we made it danceable, with fangs and robes. We had a blast.”
The slow and heaviness of the deliberate riffs plays back and forth with the almost poppy vocals on this track, creating a surreal soundscape of pain and horror alongside something catchy and memorable.
The album is also being released alongside a book of the same name, available here.
