After winning Breakthrough Band of the Year at this year’s Juno Awards and having their most recent music video for “Sick of Feeling Useless” go viral on Reddit, it’s clear that it’s only uphill from here for the Canadian-based alt-pop duo, Neon Dreams. You’ll be hooked on this band the moment you press play on any of their songs. I had a chance to chat with vocalist Frank Kadillac and drummer Adrian Morris about the creation of the video and how they felt when it was growing in popularity.
Watching the BTS for “Sick of Feeling Useless” on TikTok was so cool! How long did it take to make the video? Were there any moments during the creation process that frustrated you?
Adrian Morris: Thank you! That video was a ton of fun to make but also a big learning process for us cause we don’t really have any video experience. So we had to learn how to edit and shoot the whole thing. We didn’t really get frustrated at any point it was just very tedious and took a long time. 8-10 hours a day and about 10 days.
How did you feel reading all the praise the music video was receiving? Were there any comments that stood out to you?
AM : On Reddit there’s a thread called r/videography which is a space for video creators to share there content and help each other with there work. I shared the video on the site and it ended up getting a lot of praise and people seemed surprised that we had no experience. So that was validating that we did a good job. I was pretty nervous of what people would think.
It’s incredible that, even with the limitations that come with quarantine, you’re able to release such a creative music video. Did it help that, since everything is paused, you have the ability to focus on one project at a time or is there another element to it?
AM: I think that limitation can invoke creativity pretty well. We used the tools we had and just did what felt would work well. Having the extra time to put into it I think is what allowed that video to happen. Normally we’d be too busy with touring and such to have that amount of time for a project like that.
The artistic and inventive visuals behind all of your music videos are so vibrant and engaging. How do you come up with the ideas for them?
Frank Kadillac: Thank you for having such a great taste in videos haha. Around the same time of when I first started a band I was just getting into film. I haven’t got back into film until we made “High School Dropout”. I felt this band wasn’t being properly represented through film and we decided to turn down a big director and started to direct our videos with our good friend and it just worked out that my gut feeling was right.
But back to the question… some days I feel crazy… I can just completely blank out while staring at a wall and something clicks play in my head and a full movie starts playing. Then other times I just get ideas from watching shows or old music videos I grew up with. There’s this creative cloud I think we all have access to I’m thankful I get a few free downloads every now and then.
I’ve loved listening to your cover of “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King and watching your behind-the-scenes videos on TikTok. How have you liked being on that platform so far?
FK: I love that song it’s been with me since I was a kid I heard it at a family party then ended up watching the movie. I could listen to that song on repeat for 24 hours.
I remember when Facebook was the spot for social media and then Instagram came along. It feels like that moment again. Change is always weird but necessary to evolve…
Neon Dreams
