Nanaimo musician Glen Foster’s next single can be seen as well as heard.
On Aug. 3 Foster unveils the video for Brains Brawn and Beauty, the latest single from his most recent album, Not Far Away. The song was written in 1985 and was inspired by the experiences of acquaintances struggling to get by.
“At that point in time interest rates were super high – like over 20 per cent – so I knew people that were losing their homes due to just rising rates and they just couldn’t pay the mortgages and they would walk away,” Foster said. “And so that started the song and the gist of the lyrics about people struggling to survive.”
The video features footage shot in the band’s practise room, as well as still images and green screen effects. In one segment, filmed in the style of a silent movie, Foster’s drummer Dwight Gray and bassist Pat Shonwise play old-timey villains tying damsel in distress Jeanette McGonigle to railroad tracks before the hero, blues guitarist Whitey Somers, comes to her rescue.
“I wrote the lyric about the beautiful girl tied to the railroad track and the train comes barrelling down the line, smoke billowing from its stack … bad guys getting away with the money, here comes our hero to save the day, and once I had that lyric it just created the imagery that I longed to put that into a video,” Foster said.
Foster has been making his own music videos for the past 10 years and calls it his “secondary love” to making the music itself. He said the video for Brains Brawn and Beauty had a particularly steep learning curve due to all the elements involved and he’s proud of the result.
“It’s been very rewarding for me to be able to produce something like this,” Foster said.
arts@nanaimobulletin.com
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