Vancouver indie rock greats Frog Eyes are back with their first new music in nearly three years. Named for the lovable sad sack donkey in Winnie the Pooh stories, “E-E-Y-O-R-E (That’s Me!)” is an anthemic, angular and very catchy slab of Frog Eyes-style indie rock, and Carey says there’s more where that come from soon.
“E-E-Y-O-R-E’ has that riff that happens in the middle and end of the song, and it’s rare, and I like it,” says frontman Carey Mercer. “When we play it live, our keyboard player Shyla will often look at my guitar with enthusiasm and encouragement. The song itself is a bit about loneliness, fear, isolation, the irony that we all are simultaneously bombarded with these isolating emotions, but unable to bust out of these individual spheres. Eeyore: our collective familiar, our beloved daemon.”
The video for the song, which premieres in this post, was directed by Derek Janzen and takes the song’s themes and applies them to Scandinavian black metal tropes. “When Derek laid out the concept of the video, I thought of my favourite music video ever, ‘Sabrina’ by Einstürzende Neubauten,” Carey says. “In the end, in the execution, very different, but conceptually not that far off. It’s economical in form, distinctive and effective, all describers that we strive for.”
Says director Derek Janzen, “When Carey sent E-E-Y-O-R-E over to see if I had any video ideas, the song title alone got my mind moving. And after listening through a few times, and thinking about the lore of Eeyore, this archetype of sadness that he encapsulates, it made me wonder what other characters put out a similar image of loneliness. For whatever reason, black metal guys seemed to make sense to me as a visual representation of those emotions. And even though this look behind the curtain of a quite extreme form of artistic expression is portrayed rather humorously, my feeling is that all types of art-making tend to be pretty vulnerable to pursue in their own ways. This look behind the curtain of a quite extreme form of artistic expression is portrayed with sentimentality, softness and caring, as it is my feeling that all types of art-making tend to be pretty vulnerable to pursue in their own ways.”
Watch the video below.