Video: Balu Brigada - Weekend (UTR Premiere)

Earlier this month, Auckland-based indie pop outfit Balu Brigada unveiled their catchy-as-heck debut single 'Weekend' along with a left-field DIY lyric video. Now with a bit of a budget to work with thanks to NZOA, the four-piece are rolling out the slick new video for the track, directed by Petra Ciblich. Check it out below and then read out interview with frontman Henry Beasley...

Hi Henry! To start off can you please introduce Balu Brigada and tell us how you came together?

Balu Brigada began in 2014 as a way for me to perform some of the material I had written that didn't really suit the other bands I was playing in at the time. We started off as a three-piece with me playing guitar, my brother Charles playing drums, and Guy playing bass. Then, when he got old enough to not look really young when we snuck him into bars, our younger brother Pierre joined the band on keys.

The band initially started off life as Baloo... why the name change?

Yikes. Well, we really liked the Baloo idea at the start, just because of the whole Jungle Book nostalgia thing. Then we realised that there were a bunch of other artists named "DJ BALOO" or "THE BALOOs" etc. Also, we were getting tagged in an incredible amount of obscure photos from around the world - generally as pets that had been called Baloo. At one point, I got a DM from a dude who lives in Abu Dhabi that read: "Hi...Baloo...I like it band name...Because my village name is also baloo". It was pretty enjoyable for a while, but it became pretty clear that the band name wasn't quite as original as we thought it had been.

Can you tell us a bit about what influenced the writing of ‘Weekend’?

I wrote weekend a few years ago about a friend of mine who had a bit of a surprise pregnancy scenario. I was only 15 at the time, but she kind of confided in me because she was in a really stressful situation where she had to move out of where she was living and figure out how she was going to make it all work. Being so young, I felt a bit useless/helpless at the time and I didn't really know what I could do to help, so 'Weekend' is kind of me reflecting on that, and fantasising about her living with me for a while, away from the all the issues that she was surrounded by.

When coming up for the video concept for the single, what were you looking to convey?

After getting NZ on Air funding for a video way back in June 2015, we originally filmed a music video that had a big, ambitious narrative in it. But amongst other issues, the plot of the video was distracting and took away from the narrative in the song itself. We decided to film a much simpler video that would still get across the hectic messiness of the song's narrative as well as the chaos of adolescence. Petra Ciblich pitched us the idea of a revolving door of band members, and we went from there!

What are plans for the band moving forward? Is there an album in the works?

We're playing a release show for the video on Friday at the Galatos basement with a couple of really great artists so we're looking forward to that. After that, we'll be releasing a couple more singles over summer, leading up to the release of our first EP early next year.

Balu Brigada are throwing their video release party this Friday in the Galatos Basement, Auckland, where they will be joined by Kittens of the Internet and Bryan Anderson, head over here for more details.