The Backseat Lovers stop-motion masterpiece for ‘Snowbank Blues’

Utah DIY heroes completed third beg-for-a-ticket tour of the UK and Ireland with heady performance at O2 Kentish Town Forum

– Six-month collaboration with Emmy-nominated stop-motion animator, Colin Lepper concludes with breathtaking video

The Backseat Lovers – Waiting To Spill
Out Now via Polydor
www.thebackseatlovers.com

Endlessly fascinating US-to-UK alt-rock success story, The Backseat Lovers expand their creative realm once more with a breathtaking, stop-motion video for their fan-favourite, intimate, slow-burn anthem, Snowbank Blues. Having only just left their swelling, in-the-know mass of European fans behind after a blast through seven, SOLD OUT venues including a celebratory night at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town, the Utah four-piece’s parting gift is a playful and emotive film able to raise both smiles and tears.

After premiering the video in front of an invited audience of fans back home at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, the band’s project with Colin Lepper, an Emmy-nominated director specialising in stop-motion animation has been released to global fans online. The video has been intricately crafted to bring it’s felt-and-buttons character to life, pitting the cute, lost, subterranean persona at the centre of the story against a hopelessly lost cause and capture the longing imbued in the track’s chorus: “Wish I could roll the windows down/ But the snow has swallowed up our little town.”

Lepper says of making of the video: “Creating this video for The Backseat Lovers was an absolute joy for me and a true labor of love. The trust and creative freedom I was granted every step of the way was so liberating, and having such a powerfully emotional song at its core really made this a dream project. I first fell in love with stop-motion when I was 14 by doing just this, making music videos in my bedroom to songs that inspired me, so to get to revisit that format years later with such a talented group was a very special experience. I hope the attention and care that went into every frame of this video results in something that people can connect with, and does this beautiful song some justice.”

Snowbank Blues is drawn from the band’s 2022, second album, Waiting To Spill, the follow-up to their phenomenally successful, self-recorded and released 2020 debut, When We Were Friends which catapulted the band into the consciousness of an international community of music-lovers. Dealing with that immediate success as young people, friends and artists, the video follows Waiting To Spill’s purposely challenging song-structures and experimental recording methods, drawing on influences such as Radiohead and Wilco, as The Backseat Lovers restlessly explore all possible avenues of expression.

The band’s lead-singer, Joshua Harmon, says: “Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been mystified by the beauty of stop motion and the instantly nostalgic feeling it can bring to a story. This song has always held a similar form or familiar nostalgia within myself, and to see Colin create a world around it with a level of emotion and vulnerability that connects you so deeply to the characters has been a joyful and moving experience. All four of us in the band are beyond grateful to have gotten to work with him on Snowbank Blues.”

In addition to leaving fans in the UK and Ireland breathless through March, stopping at landmark venues, crammed to capacity, such as the O2 Ritz Manchester, Glasgow’s Queen Margaret Union and Dublin’s Vicar Street, The Backseat Lovers year-to-date has included festival appearances in Australia and New Zealand plus sold-out theatre shows across Germany, the Netherlands and France. Back home in the US, the band recently made their national network television debut on CBS Mornings, performing Slowing Down, Know Your Name and Growing/Dying and followed-up with a notable, late-night TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Initially forming in high school and around the music scenes of Salt Lake City and Provo in 2018, Harmon is joined in the band by co-songwriter, Jonas Swanson (guitars) plus KJ Ward (Bass) and Juice Welch (Drums). Their journey as The Backseat Lovers began with the pure love of songcraft, live performance and DIY-ethics, completing their first EP, Elevator Days, just days prior to graduation from High School. What soon became a runaway train has rolled on to include 400+ million total worldwide streams, including the Top 20 Alternative hit Kilby Girl which spent five weeks on the US Spotify top songs chart.