If Explosion in the Sky’s instrumental rock soundscapes could be summed up in just a word, “cinematic” would be a fitting choice. However, it’s no coincidence.
“Sometimes I feel like we know more about film than we do about music,” Explosions in the Sky guitarist Munaf Rayani tells Billboard.com. “We’re not very hip to who is doing what these days musically, but we know the score when it comes to the film world.”
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So given this propensity for film and the malleable nature of their all-instrumental jams, the Texas band chose, as Rayani affectionately remarks, “someone who is us” as the director behind the “Be Comfortable Creature” video, which Billboard.com exclusively premieres. Watch the video, which was directed by the band’s longtime friend and fan Paul Logan, below.
“Film is very important to us because we write this music that has visuals in our own mind that aren’t the end-all, be-all visuals, but we’re writing with pictures in mind,” Rayani says. “For our friends to interpret it through their own lens is usually very close to what we’re seeing.”
What Logan pictured was a long journey, in which the video’s Elmo-esque alien protagonist wanders the streets in search of his beloved, only to find his human side — literally — in the process. “He’s one of those outer space creatures — almost like ‘E.T.’ — that you relate to and feel for because of the human qualities that he’s inhibiting throughout the video,” Rayani explains. “Not as comedic as ‘Elf,’ but definitely as heartfelt as a Muppet.”
The director describes hearing “Be Comfortable Creature,” off the band’s April 2011 album “Take Care, Take Care, Take Care,” for the first time, quickly envisioning a video treatment. “I immediately saw this creature lost on earth,” Logan says. “As the song unfolded so did the story — I just watched it. It made me remember the fears of growing up, of feeling like an outcast in a small town, of being lonely, of wanting to be a kid again, and of being in love. A couple of months later, a few friends and myself went out and over a month we filmed it.”
Explosions in the Sky continue their North American tour through mid October before hitting Europe through January.