Behind The Scenes: Megaton Leviathan - Silver Tears (Official Video)

First of all, there were a lot of things going on in my personal life around the time that we dropped Silver Tears in January. My sibling and their family had just escaped a dire situation /living out of their car in LA. There was a New York Times article about people living out of their cars that they were featured in. This Article focused on cities all across the USA and they were of 2 families that had a positive outcome.

We had always talked about doing creative things together. They already had experience making low-budget music videos for Gangster rappers in Modesto CA, though it’s been quite some time. We came together on a simple concept and threw up the green screen. I had several small cameras and we set up the shots. Fiona’s (my sibling) partner Sage had a body cam for the panoramic shots. We used quite a bit of footage from that as well.

The guys, Tory, Alex, and myself came up with some fun ideas for alt takes. We did a bunch of run-throughs, none of which were perfect. We decided going into it that fun was the goal. Fiona had a pretty solid idea of how they wanted to edit it. So we leaned into the inconsistencies, such as leaving a mic stand in the shot - but no singer.

We also used this as an opportunity to figure out how to work with green screens etc. none of us had ever used them. The main concept was to have me everywhere, yes I’m a guitarist /vocalist but I also wrote/ played the synth line and the song which I also wrote, engineered, and produced- with some help with Tory and Alex on drums and bass. No I in team.

We did the background shots on a different day weeks later. We threw up as many cameras as possible. I would focus on a camera thinking that that was the shot however Fiona had other things in mind. I made sure to have as many different hats in the shots as possible, all of which I wear. It’s a bit on the nose, I do agree. Yes, it’s a statement. One of my cats, Mr. Derp insisted he be in the shot so we ran with it.

Editing took longer than expected, we were hoping for a week but it took a few months. My sibling took a bold move and started an electronics repair shop downtown Astoria Or, (the town in which I live). It took a lot of focus and it included me. So Fiona would get in the studio and edit /learn how to color key whenever there was time. So no tricky editing and leaned into a 90’s art house vibe. I at this point stepped back and let Fiona do their thing.

This was a fun video make and an awesome opportunity to make art with my family. Due to the gravity of everything we decided to make it more about fun and steer away from cerebral darkness or the heavy gloom our fans would expect from Megaton Leviathan. It was more about letting go and building a stronger connection with my bandmates and family.