Red Pill – “Stars” (Video)
Michigan’s own Red Pill just dropped a really dope animated video for “Stars,” from his previous Instinctive Drowning project. The song was produced by Ill Poetic. Read both Red Pill and Eric Power’s thoughts on the project below. Listen here.
“I wrote most of the lyrics for Stars while I was on tour. I was on the road with people I looked up to and I felt like I wasn’t up to par with them. Even playing smaller clubs, you get treated like a star when you’re on the road. So, I was balancing my self-consciousness with a small taste of fame, all the while being homesick. I knew that when I got back, it was back to normal life, paying bills, and day jobs. The director came up with this epic tale of a guy who battles monsters, drinks, misses home, but still wins in the end. I love the work he did with the construction paper. It’s a really cool fantasy driven video that fits the spacey vibe of the song.” – Red Pill
“When I was first sent the track for Red Pill’s “Stars”, I immediately felt a connection. The subject matter dealt with, basically, an indie artist struggling to get by in an increasingly commercialized world. He seems to struggle with audience expectations of him, who “want my smile, but I can’t fake it”. As a freelance director/animator, I often find myself living paycheck to paycheck while trying to build a library of work that somehow still feels like it is coming from my heart rather than being simply a product to a sell. It’s a struggle sometimes.
I was fortunate to be given tons of creative control on Red Pill’s track. I often find that deeper respect for individual expression when I work on music videos, as the life of a filmmaker and a musician is quite similar. When I dug into the song a bit deeper, I wanted the struggle of this drifting vagabond lifestyle to be pushed to the forefront. I also wanted the world to be very colorful and strange. In a lot of ways, I ended up making a samurai film set in a fantasy world. The “lone ronin” warrior wanders the countryside as a sword for hire, taking on basically any job in order to sustain himself. Despite the fantastic situations he finds himself in, he never seems to be able to keep his head above water for long. The life he leads requires constant attention and you get the sense that his luck may one day run out. There is an underlying fear to living the artists life. It is often romanticized, but fairy tales usually contain a dark side. The animation was made in stop motion, using paper as the medium.” – Eric Power
