In an age where music videos need to be bolder than ever to be noticed, New York folk/pop duo Overcoats are mastering the craft at standing out from the crowd.
Their recent clip for single The Fool featured members Hana Elion and JJ Mitched shaving their heads, figuratively marking the beginning of a new phase of life, both for the band and the members personally. The video moved their fans so much that many followed suit.
“We had a release party at a barbershop, and it started this movement with 20 people shaving their heads at that party,” says Hana when we caught up with the duo, shortly after the release of their latest LP The Fight.
“We wanted to do something bold and redefining for the first step of this next chapter – and shaving each other’s head in a way was definitely an act to ‘wipe the slate clean’, so to speak.
“We’ve been talking about having someone from the crowd to get up and have their head shaved by us during that song on our upcoming headline tour.”
Check out the video clip for ‘The Fool’ below
The song was inspired by the band’s usage of tarot cards during recording – something that JJ reveals played a major part in the recording process of the LP.
“We got really into tarot during the making of this album – there were so many unknowns, and we really wanted this to be an evolution on our first record,” said JJ.
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“We didn’t know who to work with if we wanted co-writers or whatever – and tarot really helped us figure out what it was that we wanted to do.
Despite the association that many have with Tarot cards, the band is adamant that rather than predict the course of the record, the use of them was simply a guide.
“Those cards- they just guide you towards what you haven’t realised that you wanted,” says JJ.
“The fool card was pulled one morning in the studio, and we really loved the meaning behind that -it’s about uncertainty, not knowing which way to turn, and it encourages you to really just jump in and take a leap of faith.
“As the album progressed it was really fun to map the other songs onto a mini tarot deck, which is now part of the vinyl package that you can purchase – each song has its own card, with the lyrics on the back.”
What you need to know before you start reading tarot cards
The record itself is a wonderful mix of folk-inspired pop music and grittier, heavier rock – something that is largely uncharted territory for the duo.
“Lots of these songs go through about five different versions, and you have to narrow them down to which version works the best,” says Hana.
Check out ‘Fire & Fury’ by Overcoats:
“Most of our songs start on acoustic, and we produce them from there, but every once in a while it can be from a production sense – so we always try to keep an element of that in the song itself.”
“We definitely kept the influences from our first album, mixing folk and electronic,” adds JJ.
“But this time around we were really inspired by rock music, like David Bowie, Talking Heads, Iggy Pop…that definitely found its way into the sonics here.
“We really gravitated towards much more intense guitar pedals than we would have originally – listening to Nirvana, Courtney Love…that made us want to really make some grittier backdrops.”
Check out ‘The Fool’ by Overcoats:
Before thing’s concluded, we talked briefly about the meaning behind the title of the record – a defying statement in an era of increasing uncertainty.
“It came very naturally and organically,” says Hana about the title of the album.
“We wrote this mostly after Trump got elected and the political climate in the US was a disaster – and we also were experiencing grief and loss from some things that we had been through.
“We just need to keep fighting every day not to lose our minds – that’s what we hope to get across in our music, and that our fans can take some strength from that message.”
