- Hey I'm GRIMES, today I'm gonna be taking you through

my violence music video, this is PLAYBACK.

(Violence by GRIMES playing)

I mean I feel like the thing about this music video

is that everything we planned for it to be

completely failed in every capacity,

but then it kind of turned out really well,

sort of despite that.

We'd been shooting for six hours,

we hadn't gotten any of the shots we wanted

like, there were just issues with the lighting,

there's issues with the location.

It was a total fricking mess.

It ended up being this weird, sort of,

more performance video than like the concept that we had.

Sometimes you just capture like a performance

where you're like oh this was a great-

like I'm usually super stressed on music videos

so randomly I was like in a good mood for the last hour.

(Violence by GRIMES playing)

- So this was shot at this church called Vibeana.

Everything is all white, there's this program called

ZeeBrush, which is like for like 3D modeling

and like sculpting and that kind of thing

and like when you make stuff in ZeeBrush

everything's all kind of white or gray.

I've always been really into the, the aesthetics of

this program and so I was like oh yeah,

this church will look, like we'll just like pretend

we're in like a unrendered 3D modeling program.

That was kinda like supposed to be the concept

it obviously doesn't look that way,

so that was one of our things that's like

when we got on set and started filming

we were like okay this doesn't look anything like

(laughs) what we were planning for it to look like.

We only spent, maybe six hours filming,

that was part of what was so stressful

is they had like really limited hours.

It was definitely like a very intense day

and pretty much everything you see is from the last hour.

That's why there's sort of all these,

these glimpses of shots where you're like

oh she's wearing a different outfit

and there are throw-about dogs.

Yeah and we really wanted to just be in the uncanny valley

between the real church and the fake church

and like the girls dancing versus like,

3D models of the girls dancing.

I guess that's sort of a meditation

on the nature of violence because, you know,

by like removing our physicality you sort of start

to consider like, can violence be translated

into the digital realm?

(Violence by GRIMES playing)

I'm obsessed with like the history of warfare

it's actually one of my main interests probably.

So I like all weapons, but swords are easy to obtain,

like costume places.

I know a lot of people with a lot of swords

and I own a lot of swords.

I guess I just, I love the juxtaposition of like fashion,

the loaded imagery of a weapon.

But swords I feel like are abstracted

from like real violence, because it's like people are

mostly not killing people with swords.

(Violence by GRIMES playing)

Everything about this music video it's insane

that it turned out good,

because it was like everything was falling apart

until literally minutes before we were shooting.

But my stylist Turner, just like,

randomly showed up with this stuff.

So we were shooting the dance scene

and like I couldn't stop making

like really dumb facial expressions

and I was like I can't keep it together, like ahh

and then again Turner, my stylist, just pulled out

these masks and I was like ah thank God.

Basically I had like a mental breakdown

during the choreography scene and wearing a mask

was the only way to surpass the moment.

The choreographer's named Netsky

and I've known her for like eight years now?

She danced for me like way back in the day.

We were trying to hire choreographers

and then I was just like man

we should just call Netsky because she's very talented.

She does a lot of like free-styling and stuff.

The choreography was like very inspired by this girl

Cindy on TikTok, that's like all this weird kind of like

gun shit, but it's like cute hand choreography

which I really like.

I actually haven't danced in like ten years,

this was all real fast,

like I learned most of it in an hour,

we only did two rehearsals.

I don't know, we didn't actually, the dancing

was very natural and just easy

and just sort of happened like it was like

quite a seamless - when things are easy,

they're almost always good in art.

(Violence by GRIMES playing)

Someone on the set asked me earlier

what my biggest inspiration is and I guess in a weird way,

I feel like probably my biggest inspiration is

like Bollywood stuff, just cause my stepdad's Indian

and I kind of grew up you know surrounded by Bollywood stuff

and just I guess it's a big influence on me,

you know like the super overdubbed like tight vocals,

like the verb and like, in the film Dil Se

the song Satrangi Re, the video for it and song

is just like probably one of my biggest influences

in the world and it's literally one of

the greatest pieces of art I've ever seen.

It's, if you could count it as a music video

I think it's like one of the best music videos ever made.

(Violence by GRIMES playing)

Well I started directing music videos I guess,

out of necessity, the first music video I ever shot

it was just like a mess, like I was like

this is a fricking disaster and my friend was a DP

so I was like hey John, shout out John Londono

cause he allowed us to use his studio for free

and his cameras for free,

which basically is why I have a career

so always shout out John Londono.

I was like this is a mess, what are we gonna do?

And he's like it's a mess,

you can come shoot something in my studio like tomorrow

for a different song and we'll just like make something

and we'll make it good and we'll like sneak it out

before this other music video's coming out.

You know calling friends like I'll give you like

booze and cookies, I just made a bunch of food,

spent like twenty bucks on alcohol

and was just like if people just please show up

and we'll just make something on the spot and um-

But it was like really fun and it turned out really well

and it was sort of like mini viral.

I just noticed that things were better if I was um,

at the helm I suppose.

I've become much more professional since then

but that's sort of how I started directing.

It allows you to hold the paintbrush I guess.

(Violence by GRIMES playing)

I work very closely with my brother,

he's kind of my primary creative partner on visual stuff.

We're not actually twins but we have like the same

identical taste, pretty much,

so he's just a very reliable person with creative stuff.

Like I know if I'm like can you go handle that?

Like, I don't need to be approving things,

I know it'll just be good.

So, I've kind of just been giving him a bigger role

and a bigger role and he's pretty involved

in the music videos.

Honestly I think the thing I like the best about

this music video and the reason we shot this actually

is the song wasn't even supposed to be on my album.

I just made the song with this guy i_o,

which is something I don't normally do

and because I hadn't actually spent that much time on it.

So this is like one situation where I'm just like man,

I still love this song,

I'm playing this song in the car all the time,

like let's just like change the first single

and make it this song and everyone was like

(laughing) this is a terrible idea.

But I was like, I just, I need to make a music video

for something that I'm currently loving.

Like I feel like you can tell that I'm like digging

the song in the video as opposed to like,

the song giving me PTSD from having spent

way too much time on it.

Yeah, I mean everything about this

just has like a joyousness to it I think

because I wasn't as burnt out as I normally am.

(Violence by GRIMES playing)