[Premiere] Son! - Dog
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"Dog", the new track by Son! formerly known as Lord of the Fly is a unique and refreshing visual talking about loss and growing apart over time. Written through the lens/metaphor of a loyal dog Son! croons in an endearing manner that showcases his vibrant style. The song also features vocals from singer Emily Massey. The video is directed by Niko Hagen.
Son! is currently working on his debut EP that is titled "Emotional Robots" which is scheduled to be released in mid-February. The project "explores the idea of self-expression and relationships in our hyper-mediated modern world, both through the stories on the record as well as the production process" according to the man himself. Read our Q&A with Son! below and peep "Dog" above.
Why the song about dogs?
I was actually writing a song about an old friend that I’ve grown apart from but still care about. About halfway through writing the song, I got stuck. I took a step back realized that a lot of the language I was using lent itself to this dog metaphor, where the song is written from the perspective of a loyal dog that will always come when called. Once I latched on to that idea the song pretty much wrote itself.
Was that your dog? What’s their name?
That was actually Niko Hagen, the videographer’s dog, named Ziggy. He’s a really old dog, which made it challenging to work with him, but also fun because we had to take a lot of care with what we had him doing. I think it also made the video special for Niko to shoot as well because it documented a part of his world. Shoutout Niko for the one time he does great work.
How did the video idea come together?
Once I had the idea of using the dog metaphor in the song, I just starting getting all these images of a dog frolicking around in the sun. I wanted the video to feel like a memory or a home video more than a music video per se. Niko came through and we just shot it at his mom’s crib, very low-key to not spoil the emotion.
How does your name change from Lord of the Fly to Son! better embody who you are as an artist?
I hit a really low patch for a couple of years where I was just ducked off by myself working on getting better at music, teaching myself piano, and how to produce and mix and stuff. When I came back to the world around me I felt like I needed a new name to reflect the direction my sound was going. I had already been done with Lord of the Fly for a while and I would just draw different words looking for a name. One day I just wrote down Son! and I felt that I could really picture that on an album cover or in a magazine. I like Son! because it reminds me to be humble and honor my ancestors; it’s also a factorial which is like, nerdy and funny to me, it means the sum of it’s parts.
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