Smallpools Premieres New Video for "Run With the Bulls" on Billboard
Key Percussion fave, Smallpools, has bared all (I'm talking about you, Sean) in new, neurotic music video. Typical of Smallpools, the lyrics are as ambiguous as ever, but Sean explains in an interview with Billboard.
“The song exhibits paranoia. The voices come from different sides as if they’re voices in your head. A rock in your shoe that you can’t stop to fix because of the feeling of a stampede approaching. You’re worried you won’t make it, that the seats are all taken, but in reality, there are so many available. You remind yourself you run with the bulls."
The video starts of pretty normal with clips of the band playing in a big, white room, but very quickly escalates into strange scenes with butlers carrying a screeching telephone on a silver serving tray and a manic teddy bear in a suit. There are also pleasant scenes to maintain balance, including Sean dancing with a woman in a contemporary style and a sizable (both in quantity and size) check as confetti rains down on his head.
"The video attempts to portray these anxieties and mood swings, where a moment of overwhelming confidence is then quickly questioned and shadowed by doubt, and back again, all the while being distracted by random thoughts, desires and imaginations," Scanlon told Billboard. "Our minds are not easy to control.”
The music itself is very Smallpools-esque with lyrics that seem almost silly without explanation. Overall, the song is catchy with a beat that makes you dance faster and faster and faster. Sean alternates between singing the chorus and speaking his internal thoughts and insecurities.
The wild and sporadic scenes are indicative of the paranoia Sean described before. The murderous bear gets closer and closer throughout the video, even getting close enough to light Sean's cigarette and hold a knife to his neck. The video ends with Sean standing in this big empty room with nothing around him and a small cut on his neck where the bear held the knife. So, maybe it's NOT all in your head...
See the video for yourself here.
