Electric Youth: Behind Wild Cub’s ‘Thunder Clatter’ Video Shoot
Nashville rockers Wild Cub recently invited Rolling Stone to tag along as they shot their new video for "Thunder Clatter" with director Drew Bourdet in their hometown. "It’s a challenge to make a video that can serve as both a tasteful introduction to the band and a distillation of a lot of the themes on youth," frontman Keegan DeWitt tells RS. "Drew really struck a delicate balance, showing some of the intimate and smaller moments that we hint at throughout the record, but never hitting you over the head. He lays out a long slate of moments, all with a palpable undercurrent and intangible vibration." Here's more commentary from DeWitt on the shoot:
"The director found a high school in the suburbs of Nashville which we all invaded at 7 a.m. to try and steal as much footage as possible as kids ran around and tried to steal looks as to what was happening. For our second setup, we took over the cafeteria. This photo is us trying to grab a picture while a large group of lunch ladies looked at us and whispered in each other's ears."
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Morning Bell
"Dabney lays on his back, trying to catch a stray bit of sunlight casting through the high windows at the very first location of the day. . .a high school basketball gym," DeWitt says, speaking of drummer Dabney Morris. "Not always easy to bring the focus you'd like to at a 7 a.m. call time."
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No Rest for the Weary
"Harry tries to wake himself in between shots," DeWitt says of bassist Harry West. Coffee was critical. So much of traveling around, doing radio and shooting things like this is having to jump out of bed early and somehow still manage to muster the energy you might have at a show."
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Quiet Riot
"Eric [Wilson] sneaks in some time on his keyboard as the crew sets up for a new shot in the cafeteria," DeWitt explains. "You know things are moving slowly when you are playing a soundless keyboard that is not plugged anything just to pass the time."
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Bass Solo
"Harry messes around to pass the time," DeWitt says. "These video shoots end up being 90 percent sitting around with a couple quick moments of shooting. Boredom sets in quickly."
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Sharp Shooter
"The director, Drew Bardot, grabs an intimate Polaroid on set," DeWitt explains. "We had worked with Drew in the past and felt at home having him at the helm of everything. He speaks our language visually and did a great job balancing all the different elements on his plate. It's not easy to shoot an entire video in one-to-two days with such a small crew and so many people involved."
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Prying Eyes
"Director of Photography Dustin Lane gets in close for some detailed shots in the cafeteria. At the top of the frame you can see a small window. Between every take, it would flood with curious teenagers. Before we'd roll, the director had have a hall monitor clear every one out and hold them back," DeWitt says.
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Moving Crew
"Harry, Keegan and Jeremy try and wrap their brains around loading all of the equipment into the van for the first transfer to one of many different locations," DeWitt says. "If you think shooting videos is all sitting around eating fruit trays with your feet up, you're wrong."
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Packing Puzzle
"Dabney has the exotic and critical skill of van-Tetris-mind," DeWitt says. "He can load just about anything into the back of a sprinter van with the utmost precision."
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Helpful Harry
"Harry jokes around and practices what he truly does best: not help load the van," DeWitt says.
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Friday Night Lights
"For our second location, Drew had found a school track that we took over for a cold afternoon," DeWitt says. "We had production assistants wrangling a very confused football team to keep them out of our shots and we quickly tried to make our way through as many takes as possible. Here, DP Dustin gets some up close footage of Dabney's drum chops."
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Freaks and Geeks
"Like we said, so much of being in a band is waiting around," DeWitt explains. "Eric and Jeremy watch as the crew quickly tries to switch setups before the football team takes over the field."
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Rolling Thunder
"Harry takes the makeshift camera dolly for a little test drive," DeWitt says.
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Long Shot
"For our fourth and final location, we made our way to a parking garage tucked away in downtown Nashville. Here, Dabney snaps a photo as the crew sets up lights, gets a smoke machine going and the band tries to stay warm with some coffees nearby," DeWitt says.
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Closing Time
"As always, these shoots are a bit on the run. Here we sneak a couple full-band performance takes before the cops try and bust us for making too much noise. Here, I sing the final chorus on the final take of the day," DeWitt tells us.