Purple City Fest
Welcome To Another World with World News 808909
World News 808909 are back with an electrifying new single, Lot Lizard. It’ll make the hairs stand up vibrant purple on the back of your neck.
Let's get straight to it because this music video has to be one of the most insane, mesmerising and nauseating that we’ve ever seen!
Lot Lizard is a concept by World News and Shawn Chiki, the video for which was created in Virtual Reality (VR). Shawn Chiki, a pioneer in his craft, is a technology wizard who has made beautiful music videos in the past for the likes of Zoon and Michael Peter Olsen.
In the video, World News travel to Lacey Lucy’s – the last stop in town, which is a truck stop, motel and bar. It’s in the middle of nowhere, and at a crossroads to everywhere. It’s a great place to rest, fill up the tank and smash a beer or two.
If you keep your eyes peeled, you’ll see a bunch of easter eggs… anyone for a game of darts? What’s going on with the number 7? Do we drive on the left or the right?
Speaking of the release, Bill of World News said –
“I met Shawn Chiki when I was looking for a ride home from Electric Eclectics, a great little music festival in Ontario. After that I started following Shawn on Instagram, and he was always creating these fantastical models and flying around the environments; it was all just so fluid and beautiful, and I just really felt a pull to his art.”
“The plan early was to fly to Arizona, rent a high-end vehicle (maybe a sports car) and go all out and film it in the desert… but we realised pretty quick that was going to be tricky, and also, how on earth would we film the hot tub scenes?!”
“So yeah, when I shared the song with Shawn, told him the concept and he didn’t flee immediately, I knew we were onto something! Sometimes things just fall into place – the CGI and VR experience is perfect, and Shawn doubled down on our initial concept to make it epic.”
Qu of World News interjects –
“This is the most intense music video we’ve made, both in terms of the time it took to create the worlds, and then again to film using the storyboard as a guide.”
“We ended up with hours and hours of screen recorded footage, which Bill had to painstakingly review and organise, and the video edit alone ended up being like 40 hours.”
“We had so many eyeballs on this thing that we had to grow new ones just to keep it together. I’m not sure what I’m even seeing anymore.”
A special thank you to Ryan Bembridge for his VR support world building.
Catch World News 808909 playing tonight for the mighty, Sled Island Festival opening bonanza. It’s being held at Commonwealth, downstairs in the Underground. Other bands performing include CHXMERAS, Daniel Son + Tea Fannie & The Collective.
Then, they’ll be heading to Edmonton in similar fashion to the music video, because they’re playing The Aviary on Wednesday for a show with the mighty Doom Gong, in what is a sort of Purple City Fest pre-party.
That’s right, the boys are in the air as we type, flying to the West Coast, but don’t get too upset because they’ll be back in Toronto at The Baby G on June 29th to support experimental music underground group, Wolf Eyes.
Don’t worry, World News 808909 is just getting started. ✌️🌎🗞️