Filmed in an abandoned warehouse upstate, the DIY video from the NYC band accompanies their new record’s title track—”a celebration of the shit show that is life”
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As spring of 2020 was an era more defined by weeping than whooping—and “Woohoo!” is generally a jubilant cry—you wouldn’t assume by title alone that the Night Spins song of that title came together during that particularly somber season.
Or would you?
Night Spins’ EP Woohoo!—a three-track EP that “celebrates joy, triumph, sorrow, and fears alike”—dropped this April, and the title track speaks, or sings, to the time in which it was written. One in which we were suddenly thrust into ~unprecedented~ circumstances in which normalcy was no more. When we were saddled with big, brand-new fears while simultaneously stripped of our typical sources of comfort. Satisfaction suddenly wasn’t available to order-in. Happiness now had to be homemade, either on your own or with help from the (very few) people around you.
Naturally, the members of Night Spins, like so many artists in our community, turned to music to process during this period—to find, or make, meaning in the midst of the madness—and “Woohoo!” is the result: a joyful song that isn’t an exercise in willful ignorance but a stubborn refusal to succumb to sorrow. Recognition that when the world is burning and there’s nothing you can do about it, you might as well still make the most of it. A testament to the fact that it’s okay to appreciate, and celebrate, that which is good and that you always deserve to have a little fun. (An idea that applies to our perpetually confusing and chaotic, yet oh-so-beautiful, world both before and after the pandemic, by the way.)
Of the song, the band said:
“The opening track ‘Woohoo’ opens with four voices whooping in unison. At the time, we weren’t really aware that the concept of ‘togetherness’ was to be dashed by the global commitment towards isolation, but that contrast was in the midst and becoming apparent. The song was formed in the first weeks of the pandemic when we retreated to a barn in upstate New York. Its theme rallies behind false pretense, ‘pretending it’s a holiday all through the storm, singing Woohoo!’, which for us was justifiably the best way to appreciate our circumstances given that the world was devolving around us. It is a celebration of the shit show that is life.”
Night Spins wrote, recorded and mixed the entire album themselves, so it’s no surprise that for the “Woohoo!” video, they did it DIY style as well, taking advantage of a spacious and scenic (in the rock ‘n’ roll sense) setting upstate to do what they do best: make art, while clearly having a very good time together.
“We found an abandoned warehouse in Beacon, NY and thought it was the perfect place to represent ‘Woohoo’,” the bands said of the video’s origins. “It’s covered in graffiti and overgrown and reclaimed by nature. We found a hole cut into a fence that surrounded the property, wiggled ourselves through and spent the day getting footage.”
Beyond being a rad piece of work and clear labor of love in and of itself, in a larger context for the band, the video serves as a return, and redemption, of sorts. Filmed last month, three years after the band first fled the city by necessity, they’ve returned upstate by choice. Once again, it’s just the four of them, doing their thing by themselves, removed from the rest of the world. But this time, the fun isn’t set against the same backdrop of uncertainty and the woohoo-ing isn’t serving as a coping mechanism. We’ve all come a long way to get back—and, with luck, the same friends are still right by our side. That alone is something well worth whooping about.
Catch Night Spins next in a far-from-isolated setting at the Ziggy Stardust Anniversary Show at Sleepwalk on June 30th! Grab your tix here.
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Follow Night Spins at @nightspins, buy music on Bandcamp and add the songs to your Spotify playlists!
Feature image provided by the band.