Gold Coast alternative rockers Chavez Cartel's newest addition is the hypnotically dark ride 'Dead Weekend', a song that could soundtrack a post-apocalyptic series.
An eerie spoken-word intros the piece before a simmering, bruised guitar riff meanders into the fray heightening the sultry, throaty vocals of frontman Ben that create a Pagan-like presence.Then the drumming picks up the pace generating an intensity that builds until a mid-song folk-rock throwdown erupts galloping along to a bluesy, alt-rock rhythm that demands a head-banging fusion of neck thrusts and jerks.
Recoded and engineered by ARIA Award-winning producer Govinda Doyle (Angus & Julia Stone, Tones & I), it's rock & roll swagger heard through a lens moulding Nirvana, Alice In Chains and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
Inspiration for 'Dead Weekend' was sourced from a couple of slow-burning tracks: 'Colossus' by IDLES and 'In Every Dream Home A Heartache' by Roxy Music.
"'Dead Weekend' is all about deep self-reflection. It's about everything we have been through to get us to where we are now – the current version of ourselves," the band says.
Ahead of the song's release tomorrow (3 March), scenestr is stoked to premiere the 'Dead Weekend' music video today. Enjoy.
"No matter how low we allow ourselves to go in life, it's always ultimately up to us to pick ourselves back up, and it's also up to us on how high we are able to climb," adds the band.
"'Dead Weekend' is all about that; and if you're to look at that notion fully, it's also up to us how to decide how low we allow ourselves to fall in the first place.
"'Dead Weekend' is brutal in its take on self-accountability, but it admits that it's all part of the act. The title of the song is sort of like a grim way of looking at growing the f... up and sorting out your life from the pit of the stomach.
"When we are younger, we tend to live for the weekend but 'Dead Weekend' is about the stage of life a little later on when we're looking to live for a lot, lot more."
For the music video, Chavez Cartel teamed with Nathan Frost (whose film work includes 'Aquaman' and and 'Thor Ragnarok') who helmed the clip as director of photography and producer.
"The concept of the video is very much inspired by the concept of the song," explains the band. "We wanted it to be dark, minimalistic and hypnotic, and for it to all be in one place.
"The idea of keeping the camera up close to Ben's face throughout means the viewers have nowhere really to look except where we want them to: directly into the eyes and soul of the storyteller, which is essentially what the song is about – looking into the mind and soul through different eyes and moods.
"There's a lot of words in the song that suggest really delicate, perhaps desperate, inner dialogue; words like 'pray' and 'praying', 'fear', 'believing', 'toxic', 'control', we really wanted the viewer to be right up close to these intensities.
"There's lyrics running through the video that could be mistaken for subtitles. This is deliberate. We wanted the viewer to feel like they were being spoken to directly. Almost like a therapy session and the viewer is the therapist interpreting the words in their own way.
"It's important they hear the right words which is why we added lyrics into the video – but it's equally as important they make their own minds up on what we're actually saying.
"It's a mysterious-sounding song to be fair, and this was our attempt at adding that to the visual."
Chavez Cartel 2023 Tour Dates
Thu 16 Mar - Oxford Art Factory (Sydney)* supporting The ReytonsSat 29 Apr - Jimna Rocks (QLD)
Sat 3 Jun - Moondoll Festival (Brisbane)
