Why Did Is Tropical Make A NSFW Masturbation Fantasia Music Video?

Earlier this week I was sitting at my desk, casually counting my insecurities like Tumblr teens count calories, when I was informed that in five minutes time, I would be interviewing Is Tropical. I wasn’t prepared and felt like the iridescent world of journalism that I’d begun to get used to, was about to implode unto my Dictaphone for me to horrifically relive again and again when transcribing. Thankfully, though, the band were really nice.

Last month, I sat red-faced in the office, gleefully, yet secretively, watching 30 foot tall titillating babes in their video for “Dancing Anymore”. It’s probably the best music video that I’ve seen and I wanted to ask about the origins of the masturbation fantasia land that they’d created. The band had also just got back from filming a documentary with Noisey in Mongolia, where they’d shared a bed with a newborn cow, so there was lots and lots to talk about. Let’s get into this…

Noisey: Hey guys! The video for “Dancing Anymore” is probably the best thing I’ve ever seen. How did the idea come about?

Dom: Our relationship with MegaForce, who directed the video, has been really good since we did our first video with them. You know if you have a girlfriend who has a really good job but she won’t do certain things in the bedroom? We’re the girl they call up to do the nasty shit with. So, they’d just finish a Bailey’s campaign or a Madonna video and it’s all really tight and strict and then they kind of want to blow off some steam with us. The concept of the video is a little progression from the “The Greeks”. “The Greeks” was the imagination of seven or eight year olds who watched too much TV and this one is like an adolescent who watches too much porn and his fantasies get out of control.

The video is essentially the fantasy of every teen guy in visual format.

What, to have sex with a CGI woman?

No! But just the crazy thoughts that frequent horny teenage minds while they sit at home having some ‘alone time.’

We definitely knew that they’d do something that pushed the idea. I think that the first one lasted longer on YouTube than the second one.

Yeah, it disappeared straight after I wrote about it!

We kind of expected that, but, you can’t disappoint, can you? It would have been really bad to come back with a video of just a smoke machine and us.

Yeah, or a band playing live or something. Have you had any backlash from the video?

When the video for ‘The Greeks” came out we were getting emails from fundamentalist Christian websites who said that we were ‘doing the Devils work’. But, with this one…. I think that certain parts of the world seem to have reservations about nudity. But I think that some of the violence in other music videos out there is way worse than that. By the time anybody is ten years old, they’ve seen boobs. There’s nothing much else in there that is too explicit.

There were a couple of comments, which, for us, were quite nice. They were like “I don’t like the video. But I like the song”

The song IS gorgeous. The video is completely different to how you’d imagine it to look too.

Yeah, that’s it. The main thing with music videos is to be able to work with somebody else who is really talented in their own right. If the two are too close together it’s almost as though you’re spoon-feeding someone what the song is about. It’s nice to have a counterpoint between the audio and the visual.

I have to ask, what’s the deal with the black guy who’s being fucked at the end?

There’s been some speculation about his identity.

He looks like Fiddy.

Isn’t that just because everyone is on the tip of rappers coming back as holograms? The uncanny valley is definitely getting shorter in the hip-hop world than in the indie world. So, maybe that’s the reason they put him in as a rapper.

Can you tell me a bit about your album?

We recorded the album with Luke Smith who used to play in a band called Clor, who were one of our favourite bands. We had a meeting with him to produce our first album, but for some reason it never happened. It’s been quite serendipitous because we came to him at a time when we maybe had a bit more live experience and thought of ourselves more as a band, and Luke, as a producer, is totally down with that. He was our Phil Spector for a couple of months. It’s going to come out May 20th and there’s a solo for the first time on record.

YES!

It’s a big moment!

Haha, So, you’ve just got back from Mongolia after shooting a documentary with us. The guys won’t let me see it because it’s all being kept under wraps. But, why Mongolia?

Just because we can. There’s no excuse for bands not to go to places like that. We’ve done the UK. We’ve done Europe. The expectation was there. I don’t think the Mongolian kids actually thought we were coming out until a couple of days before when we put a picture of the visa on the internet and after that we were on the radio and stuff. For a band that is trying to grow everywhere, it’s a really good thing to do.

Yeah, to just put yourself out there in countries that don’t really have many bands visiting.

Yeah, and maybe in places where the straight up model of what it means to be a band isn’t really that valid. Because, you can only exist on your own merit in places like that. We decided to put on a really good live show and we had the opportunity for the first time in ages to spend time somewhere.

I heard that you spent an evening sleeping in a tent with a newborn baby cow.

Yeah, it was born while we were DJing. We came back and it was covered in after-birth and we were drunk and cuddled it.

Didn’t it shit everywhere?

Well, it hasn’t eaten anything. It doesn’t come out and ask for dinner, do you know what I mean? It’s had that matrix of anamniotic stew for however many months it was gestating, so I think it was just into breathing and learning how to stand up. He probably thought about dinner after we left, so, luckily, there was no shit. It was making some disturbing noises, though.

What else went on in Mongolia?

We visited an orphanage, met the mayor of one town, a couple of TV and press conferences, just lots of unreal shit one after another. We were surviving on just three or four hours of sleep each night. We were in that holiday mode where you’re always ready to do something. Our guide called Gamba really started taking to us and he got fired from his job because he wanted to drive us around and show us stuff.

Wait, Is Tropical got someone fired from their job?

Yeah, but I think he’s got another one now. I’ve been keeping in touch with him and I think it’s all sorted. Because, he had a young son and everything and I was sort of like “dude, you’ve messed up your life!” But, he had a great time. He was wearing a leather jacket and he was always looking at the studs that we had on our leather jackets, so, on the day we left we gave him a bag of studs and promised him a place to sleep if he ever came to London.

So, he lost his job. But gained a bag of studs?

Haha, yeah! He’s properly integrated into the loser punk world now.

I haven’t researched enough into this. Can you save my skin and tell me any other good stories?

The opening track on the album is called “Lovers Cave”. We really like hearing local stories of shrines or superstitions in little towns and we always try to put those stories into our songs. It’s not just talking about what I got at the shops or in Camden market or something. So, there’s this town near the South of France and Simon was with his girlfriend and they went for a walk and found a cave overlooking the ocean and they had sex in it. They came back to the villa we were staying in and told the guy that they’d just been to this amazing cave. It turns out that cave is called the “Lovers Cave” because apparently, a couple back in the day were doing the same thing and got swept out to sea and died. There’s two stone people shaped things in the cave and it’s a folk legend. It’s cool putting things like that into your music.

It’s always cool to just go to other places and see things that you wouldn’t see normally.

Yeah, it’s always the little quirks that get you and they’re always the things that you remember. Like, in Mongolia, one of the things they have are these weird shrines everywhere. They’re like big sticks sticking out of the ground with loads of coloured fabric tied to them and basically, if you’re traveling along the motorway and the mood grabs you, you pull over and walk around the thing three times and do a little offering for good luck on your journey. It’s the little idiosyncrasies that might get lost and it feels good to take them on and take them to your little world of borrowed legends.

As well as borrowing legends, are you going to be making any festival appearances?

We’re going to do Reading and Leeds which I’m super amped about. Gary hasn’t ever been to a festival that he hasn’t played at. And I moved to England from America when I was twelve and I missed the big mythical Reading and Leeds experience where it’s a big blowout and carnage.

You’ve never been? I used to go every year.

That’s it right? It’s a pilgrimage for a certain age group.

Yeah, a Mecca for teenagers who have just picked up their GCSE results.

Like Spring Break, right?

I guess, but not as hot and in England. Eminem’s headlining Reading, I reckon he’s going to be rubbish.

Really? Didn’t he have a regretty sort of phase?

Yeah. His friend Proof died and he put on a lot of weight, lost it, and came back with two mediocre albums.

I’m going to make him a really nice gift basket and take it to Reading and Leeds.

What would you get him?

Some relaxing face wipes and a bit of eucalyptus incense. Just some stuff to ground him down a little bit. But, maybe some knuckledusters also, to remind him that he’s still hard.

I think we'll leave it there.

'I'm Leaving' is released via KITSUNÉ / Cooperative Music on May 20. In support, the band will be playing Hoxton Gallery on May 23. Noisey's Mongolian documentary with Is Tropical will be out soon.

Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RyanBassil