Even if you don’t know The Rentals by name, you’re surely familiar with several of the names involved with the project, whether it’s the supergroup’s band members or their artistic collaborators. Fronted by founding Weezer bassist Matt Sharp, the group is rounded out by Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner and The Killers drummer Ronnie Vannucci, with longtime Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann stepping in on their long awaited follow-up to the 2014 Polyvinyl-released Lost in Alphaville, the self-released Q36.
If that isn’t enough to pique your interest, their epic new space-rock single “Teen Beat Cosmonaut” arrives today with a lyric video inspired by the group’s past collaborations with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s online creative community HITRECORD, and was illustrated by animator (and Lucius guitarist!) Pete Lalish. Additionally, the roll-out comes complete with a new “Cosmonaut”-inspired t-shirt designed by Ivan Minsloff, who’s illustrated for a handful of rock bands including Arctic Monkeys, Foo Fighters, and Primus.
“My recent work with Joe’s community has been a huge inspiration for the way The Rentals are finding new ways to collaborate with amazing artists like Pete and others artists like Ivan Minsloff,” Sharp says of HITRECORD’s influence on the band, as well as Minsloff’s creative contributions. “Ivan is one of my favorite designers and is someone that I’ve been a huge fan of for quite some time. Before we started releasing music from Q36, I reached out to him to see if he would be interested in making a unique design for each individual track.”
Explaining their process together, Sharp continues: “I gave him the lyrics to use as a ‘diving board’ or a ‘launch point’ and told him he could create, essentially, whatever he was interested in and that it could be as literal or as abstract as he desired. The only limit we put on this creative challenge is that he use only design per song and that we only make it available for a two week window and I believe that challenge and those limitations, just like this lyric video with Pete, led us to create something that’s not too precious and has a greater sense of urgency than we might have otherwise, if we stopped to think about it. Yesterday, we had nothing but a song and now, less than twelve hours later, we have the best video we’ve made since “Friends of P.” and all we had was a pen, paper, and Post-It notes.”
Watch the video below. Q36 is out June 2—you can pre-order it, and grab some original Ivan Minsloff gear, here.
