Fox Royale: Joplin indie band music video + behind the scenes article
Image by Mark N
Creating in quarantine
By Nathan Hurley
Fox Royale has been a band for almost 12 whole entire months.
image by Jeren Kent / @itsjerrenn
This was not the first musical endeavor we’d pursued, but our previous group had run its course and we needed a face-lift. So in August of last year, we dis-banded, re-banded, and then re-branded the whole band, becoming... Fox Royale. Our debut single came out March 6th of 2020 BC (before Corona).
Then when the world got really really sick back in March, all shows for 2020 were canceled. Suddenly all the live performance momentum we were building was unceremoniously halted. For those of you who are not involved in the music industry, we want to be crystal clear: this is not how you launch a new band. This global pushing of the pause button presented a major challenge for us.
At first we wanted to cry, so we did.
image by Tristan Elliot / @TCEphotographs
Then we wanted to give up until next year- but this we did not do. Smarter people than us pointed out that we should take this as an opportunity to learn how to do the things we normally didn’t have the time to do.
Enter Tik Tok. Finally we had an app for people who didn’t know how to use apps. This was our first attempt at a new normal during the COVID shutdown. We ran with this over the course of quarantine by making some of the dumbest clips we could think of, from eating a raw onion in 30 seconds to choreographed dances involving Nicholas Cage pillows and scary clowns. This was a really valuable time for us because it is hard as an indie band to cut loose sometimes. The tendency is to try to look “cool” online as best you can, but oftentimes that comes across as inauthentic and nobody wants that. Quarantine really helped us loosen up and take the social media rat-race less seriously.
Then we decided that, virus or no virus, one song in our discography was not enough. We wanted to keep moving and release a new song for our listeners. But how? HOW?
NEW MUSIC & QUARANTINE
BTS images by Tristan Elliot / @TCEphotographs
We already had a song written and had recorded a rough cut but we still were a few large steps from the final product. So the next big challenge was figuring out how to get our single, Out Of My Hands, to the finish line despite the pandemic-inspired limitations.
We had our producer and co-writer, Nick Anderson, finish the song and make the final edits while we got things moving on our end with the visual art. We enlisted our creative partners Kollin Williford, Jeren Kent and Mark Neuenschwander to help us create the media necessary for each new release (music video, lyric video, artwork and promo photos of the band). This took time, coordination, some travel and many masks.
First the photo shoot. This wasn’t too hard to work out- there were only five of us there, and we kept our distance from each other right up until Jeren (photographer) snapped the pic. We also did the photo shoot in a literal ghost town so social distancing was quite easy.
Next we needed to produce the lyric video. Entirely coordinated online via email and text messages, we learned you CAN collaborate without staring at one another in person.
Lastly, the trickiest part of the process by far was shooting the music video we were envisioning for this song while still following state restrictions and keeping within government guidelines.
Thankfully Kollin (our videographer) is a smart, cautious and thoughtful person. It was mandatory that anyone be tested beforehand if they felt that they were operating even slightly less than their standard, 100% top-level, P90X grade healthiness and wellness-ness. We demand this kind of commitment from our film crews even when we aren’t facing a pandemic.
As for when we were on set, we wore our masks and stood those lonely six feet apart from one another for most of the day. This meant that many of us had to leave the set if we weren’t essential to the scene being filmed. I, Nathan, spent a good two hours by myself just walking around outside the hotel. It really makes you question your own supreme importance and the necessity of your presence as the lead singer when the situation doesn't allow you to constantly share your opinion on how things are being handled. I did a lot of thinking that day and eventually came to feel an enormous sense of gratitude for the guys I work with in my band. The COVID epidemic has shaken everything we know and I feel like it’s never been easier to quit what you’re doing. Motivation is hard to come by right now for many people, but I think the new challenges that we’ve all faced, if processed in a healthy way, can lead a lot of us creatives into a better frame of mind for our future projects, startups and relationships. But I’m no doctor.
After a long and challenging day, the video was filmed and miraculously no one got sick. COVID has presented us with so many little challenges over the last few months, but I’m grateful to know that despite the plague and global panic, we were able to find and pave new paths to our creative goals. I hope we all figure out how to survive COVID 19, push through 2020 and blow 2021 out of the water.
Peace and love, you lying dog faced pony soldiers. ✌🏻
-Thanks for reading! If you like music and videos, check out our new song “Out Of My Hands”; video available now , right here, and wherever you listen to music.
-Nathan Hurley of Fox Royale