In the mood for a trip? Jared Bingham and his band People are obliged to take you on one, through the music video for their song “Get Away.” Filmed in collaboration with Vanity Rules, the cinematography is strikingly strange and surprisingly thematic. It feels more like an artistic short film than your typical music video for the track from People’s debut album, Like Music to Your Ears, which is slated for release on September 13.
“Filming the music video was a bizarre experience,” Bingham explains. “We opted out of filming it in a traditional way and instead thought a lot about moods and images—making the familiar unfamiliar.” And he worked hard to get it right. He took several accidental plunges in cold water while filming one of the closing scenes—paddling away in a canoe, late at night, while wearing a suit. “It was fun,” he says.
With his music, Bingham wants tell a story. “Get Away” actually has a prequel, a short video for another song from Like Music to Your Ears called “Soul and Heart.” Bingham describes the central character, which he himself plays, as being delusional, paranoid and lost, “but also having momentary glimpses of clarity. The character keeps alternating between violent impulses and enough momentary coherence to tell others to get away from him,” he explains, revealing how the lyrics and tone of his music inform a visual direction.
As his stylistic choices might suggest, Bingham has a penchant for grittiness, drawing inspiration from ‘90s-era bands like PJ Harvey and Nirvana. When he first started writing songs for the album in 2014, he tried to use that same level of rawness as a guiding light for his own work. He eventually began recording the album with producer Febian Perez (of Eclisse and Bike Thief) in late 2016, and added Jonathan Fuller and Joe Kunz to round out the band’s lineup for live performances.
“I named my band People because I like the idea of anonymizing what's going on behind the scenes,” Bingham says. “At the end of the day, I want my audience to focus on the art, not on me or my bandmates.”
And by the way—Jared Bingham is actually a stage name.
