Mrs. Magician, a San Diego-based surf rock group, match their aggressive edge with occasional psychedelia (see: the track "Heaven") and some prankster panache. And with song titles such as "I'm Gonna Hang Out With The Lesbians Next Door & Drop Acid," they prove to be a fine antidote to other current bands who take themselves far too seriously.The band is premiering their grotesque and surreally-animated "There Is No God" music video today on Noisey. I had a brief Q&A session with frontman Jacob Turnbloom, in which we talked about death, God, and sunshine, before chatting briefly with music video directors Dusty and Derrick.(Watch for the blink-and-you'll-miss-it "I'm High On Dope" thought bubble in the first 20 seconds.)Noisey: Is the track title, "There Is No God," meant as a provocation, or are you just having a little fun? The song starts out with "You're all gonna die," which made me start laughing in the same way that Jay Reatard could make me laugh.
Jacob: I'm always trying to have fun with the subject matter, but I'm not exactly sure what I intended the listener to feel. I do remember laughing here and there when I was writing the song. It's more about trying to make the juxtaposition of sunshine and atheism amusing to myself than to really provoke anyone. But, it's true: there is no God and you are going to die… so there.Without taking things too literally, you sing the lyric "I'm going to live forever." Is there a sort of fictional persona implicit in the song? Or is it sort of parody of rock posturing?
That's actually making fun of a line in Exodus where God says something like, "Nobody must look me in the face and live." I'm literally making a joke of how naive and gullible people can be. In the Bible, a few people saw "God" and lived, so what a big fat liar God was. That song lyric is written from "God's" perspective and vaguely illustrates how he is poking fun and taunting his followers for believing.You have to tolerate a little bit of cynicism with rock 'n' roll music to enjoy it. The whole idea of a pop song making people believe or not believe in something just because a frontman sings is just as fascinating to me as a Priest forgiving your sins, or giving you the good news, the gospel facts. So by writing this song, I was partly making fun of myself, as well.What's interesting is that the song has this nostalgic, 60s California psychedelic rock 'n' roll sound and punk attitude. At the same time, it's sugary, just as one lyric in the song implies, which makes the lyrical content subversive.
A song can sometimes hit harder when it's not being shouted at you. Like, it's more punk for me to sweetly sing a line such as "There is no God" than to scream it at someone. It's off-putting and could potentially miss the ears of an individual that may need to hear a message like that the most. Imagine watching a movie like That Thing You Do, and The Oneders become a smash sensation with songs like "Fuck the Border" or "God Hates Us All"—that would be the most entertaining fucking movie ever.What was it like working with Dusty Peterman and Derrick Acosta for the music video?
This is our second video with Dusty and he has been doing artwork for us for a couple of years now. He is by far one of the most ambitious and creative individuals I've met in my adult life. I feel like any idea I bring up, he entertains.For this video in particular, I suggested he re-watch Bill Plympton's famous short cartoon "Your Face" and create some sort of homage to that. What's rad is he instantly knew what cartoon I was referring to. Being a teen in the 90s like me, he grew up with MTV's Liquid Television. The both of them create music video magic in this stale and boring Internet age.Noisey: How did you get involved in making the Mrs. Magician music video for "There Is No God?"
Derrick & Dusty: Previously, we had made an animated video for Mrs. Magician that the band really enjoyed. Cory (the drummer) commissioned the two of us for a second video.How long have you been animating as a team?
For the past year, Derrick and I have been animating music videos, graphics, and other promotions. However, we've never done animation especially like this—hand-drawn and frame by frame.Did you sort of improvise conceptually with the animated short? The reason I ask is because it has a surreal, grotesque, and constantly in-flux quality to it. Or did it take considerable planning?
It did take a bit of planning—understanding the song, listening to it repeatedly and visualizing the video in our minds to try and imagine how we could see the song, how long we could animate a scene before the song changed, understanding the pacing of the visuals for those 2.5 minutes.Mrs. Magician's Strange Heaven is out now on Swami Records.
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Jacob: I'm always trying to have fun with the subject matter, but I'm not exactly sure what I intended the listener to feel. I do remember laughing here and there when I was writing the song. It's more about trying to make the juxtaposition of sunshine and atheism amusing to myself than to really provoke anyone. But, it's true: there is no God and you are going to die… so there.Without taking things too literally, you sing the lyric "I'm going to live forever." Is there a sort of fictional persona implicit in the song? Or is it sort of parody of rock posturing?
That's actually making fun of a line in Exodus where God says something like, "Nobody must look me in the face and live." I'm literally making a joke of how naive and gullible people can be. In the Bible, a few people saw "God" and lived, so what a big fat liar God was. That song lyric is written from "God's" perspective and vaguely illustrates how he is poking fun and taunting his followers for believing.You have to tolerate a little bit of cynicism with rock 'n' roll music to enjoy it. The whole idea of a pop song making people believe or not believe in something just because a frontman sings is just as fascinating to me as a Priest forgiving your sins, or giving you the good news, the gospel facts. So by writing this song, I was partly making fun of myself, as well.
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A song can sometimes hit harder when it's not being shouted at you. Like, it's more punk for me to sweetly sing a line such as "There is no God" than to scream it at someone. It's off-putting and could potentially miss the ears of an individual that may need to hear a message like that the most. Imagine watching a movie like That Thing You Do, and The Oneders become a smash sensation with songs like "Fuck the Border" or "God Hates Us All"—that would be the most entertaining fucking movie ever.What was it like working with Dusty Peterman and Derrick Acosta for the music video?
This is our second video with Dusty and he has been doing artwork for us for a couple of years now. He is by far one of the most ambitious and creative individuals I've met in my adult life. I feel like any idea I bring up, he entertains.For this video in particular, I suggested he re-watch Bill Plympton's famous short cartoon "Your Face" and create some sort of homage to that. What's rad is he instantly knew what cartoon I was referring to. Being a teen in the 90s like me, he grew up with MTV's Liquid Television. The both of them create music video magic in this stale and boring Internet age.Noisey: How did you get involved in making the Mrs. Magician music video for "There Is No God?"
Derrick & Dusty: Previously, we had made an animated video for Mrs. Magician that the band really enjoyed. Cory (the drummer) commissioned the two of us for a second video.How long have you been animating as a team?
For the past year, Derrick and I have been animating music videos, graphics, and other promotions. However, we've never done animation especially like this—hand-drawn and frame by frame.Did you sort of improvise conceptually with the animated short? The reason I ask is because it has a surreal, grotesque, and constantly in-flux quality to it. Or did it take considerable planning?
It did take a bit of planning—understanding the song, listening to it repeatedly and visualizing the video in our minds to try and imagine how we could see the song, how long we could animate a scene before the song changed, understanding the pacing of the visuals for those 2.5 minutes.Mrs. Magician's Strange Heaven is out now on Swami Records.