Local band flies high off their newest music video for original song “Ice Cream”
Carlin Parkin // Contributor
Many bands can recall a distinct moment in which they finally felt like their dreams starting morphing into reality. Burnaby-based alternative rock band Derrival released a music video on Sept. 22 for their song “Ice Cream.” Currently, the video has raked in over 475,000 views on YouTube, posing the band with a question: after seven years of playing music together, has the momentum from this release given the band the sense that they’ve finally broke through the tough barrier into success?
“You know, it is something else for everybody, but it feels like progress… and that’s great,” said keyboardist and backing vocalist, Shane Stephenson.
This past summer Derrival participated in a CBC Musical Nooners concert, and also secured the opening act slot for Bif Naked at the Kaleidoscope Festival in Coquitlam. They hope to use the momentum from these live shows, along with the YouTube traction of their newest video, to book show dates for a tour to take place next year.
“We just love creating, and to see that every time we go to do another project, another EP, another single or whatever, that more and more people pick up, that’s fantastic.”
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In the meantime, the band is overjoyed with how the “Ice Cream” video turned out.
Originally, the group planned to hire a production company to shoot the video, but after other projects forced said production company to back out two weeks from the planned release date, “the band said ‘screw it, we’ll do it ourselves,” recalled Stephenson. Lead guitarist, Glen Jackson, a Capilano alumnus from the Arts & Entertainment Management program, served as the director and wrote the script using story input from the other band members. Adam Mah, the lead singer and rhythm guitar player, starred in the shoot alongside his high school friend, Aslan Voth, who assumed the role of the female lead. Mah’s sisters held important roles as well; Rachael Mah did makeup while Olivia Mah partook in odd jobs on set.
At the moment, Derrival has a full album in the works, more singles and an upcoming 2018 tour. According to Stephenson, in future music videos, the band would like to explore performing with their instruments on camera to showcase their “killer live show”. The experience of shooting the “Ice Cream” video also made the band realize that they need to streamline their communication process when writing a story. “For future videos that we’re already working on, we’re already able to create a workflow that doesn’t result in anybody saying ‘Oh, I thought we were doing this, or that’ and you’re losing time and getting in arguments and things like that,” said Stephenson.
“It was just kind of like a tight nit family group and everyone in the band did such a great job of contributing. We shot it, edited it real quick, and yeah, Glen killed it,” said Stephenson. He notes that the cost of the music video wound up being ‘pennies’ since the band used their own camera gear, that they ended up being prouder of the video than they would have been if they hired someone else to shoot it, “and to see it have half a million views already is pretty incredible.”