Video Premiere: Guppy – “If I Wanted To”

Posted: by The Editor

There’s a fun and charming off-kilter feel to Guppy’s music. The group is likely to lull you into a comfortable groove or get your head rocking to their fast-paced garage rock tunes, and then all of a sudden pull you out of the feel with the type of idiosyncratic lyrical turn the band seems to revel in. Last week, the group announced their signing to the killer indie label Lauren Records, released a single, and announced their full-length debut Big Man Says Slappydoo—a wild and varied record produced by Sarah Tudzin of Illuminati Hotties that seems to find its roots in crunchy garage rock, but takes those sounds in a ton of different directions, allowing the different instrumental shades and harmonies to highlight J Lebow’s strong vocals and lyrics.

Lebow describes last week’s single, “If I Wanted To” as “a song about not caring about something so much you have to write a song about it. That’s what indifference is, right? The song came out of me in one sitting, and felt almost manic as it poured out. It encompasses feelings of longing and yearning, as well as the walls I put up when I feel poked and prodded to perform my feelings for others. The song itself is a reminder to me to perform my feelings for myself in a mirror, with a lighting crew, several costume changes, and full face of clown makeup.”

Today, we’re psyched to premiere the video for “If I Wanted To.” Lebow explains the concept for the unique video, saying “the song is about embracing the drama of your own feelings and living through it fully through repetition almost to the point of absurdity. The video reflects this as we have movement from clown and dancer Chad Damiani that is both silly and beautiful. The director of the video Alan and I put together the concept of Chad’s performance building off one simple mantra: being dramatic is fun, necessary even, when you’re someone who forgets to take yourself seriously.”

Although “If I Wanted To” came with the album announcement, the group already had two singles out that appear on Big Man Says Slappydoo, album-opener “Aliens” and the penultimate track “I’m Your Daddy Now.” Placed alongside “If I Wanted To,” the three tracks should give listeners a good preview of the record, which Lebow explains as “an extension of that message of the silliness and the drama of being alive. What if you were to drive out to the desert in the middle of the night begging aliens to abduct you? What if the Aliens came down and told you that your problems and your pain were the silliest little thing they ever heard? That’s essentially what this album is about. Feel your pain, feel your problems, create a whole world around them, but know that somewhere the aliens are watching, and you better be giving them some good entertainment. If you’re wondering what the album title means you may be left wondering. We came up with it during a particular sleep-deprived band practice seemingly pulled from the collective unconscious for absolutely no rhyme or reason. I can tell you though what I told my dad, Rabbi Steve Lebow, when he asked me what it meant – the Big Man is God, and Slappydoo means ‘love yourself.’ Sure!”

Check out the video below and head over to Lauren Records to preorder a copy of the record on vinyl.


Aaron Eisenreich | @slobboyreject


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