Empire Of The Sun’s 2008 track “We Are The People” had a big resurgence on TikTok in the past year, and musician Lord Littlemore thinks he knows why: “It is pure of heart.” This is one of the many facts that can be gleaned from their new video for Vevo Footnotes, taking fans behind the scenes of the music video for the beloved track.
Both Littlemore and his co-musician Emperor Steele tell Vevo that the song was partially inspired by their desire to bring more imagination to music than what they were seeing at the time. “At the time it felt like the landscape of music had lost a lot of its mystically. We are dreamers and trippers and we wanted to lean into that,” Littlemore explains. Adds Steele, “We spend a lot of time searching, gathering, asking for the songs that are meant to be sung, I think that comes through to the listener.”
The spirit of freedom and imagination extends to the duo’s wardrobe in the video. “We design all our own wardrobe, gather materials and fabrics, feathers and props and weave it altogether,” Steele says. “That’s the beautiful part when elements from what you’ve searched for or discover are combined, it creates your identity.”
Of course, it’s the striking landscape in the “We Are The People” music video that injects the clip with a healthy dose of magic as well. The duo headed to northern Mexico to shoot the video first, starting in the Icamole Desert. “We then traveled to the Lost Gardens of Las Pozas in Xilitla,” Steele recalls. “Incredible, magical, enormous butterflies, waterfalls, surrealist sky-high sculptures: this untouched paradise was made for us and this song.” The natural beauty of Mexico has long inspired artists, such as Chilean film director Alejandro Jodorowsky, who the group cites as an inspiration. “We loved The Holy Mountain but equally we loved the films of Stanley Kubrick, Peter Greenaway, Gregg Araki, and Matthew Barney.” As the shoot ended, Littlemore and Steele interacted with some locals, parts of which made it into the final product. “They were holding the Day of the Dead and it was a beautiful syncopated celebration between us all,” Steele remembers.
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