Punk and emo have long been genres fueled by nostalgia, though this fondness for the past is generally specific to an angsty teenhood, or something considerably more niche like the year 1959 or the Civil War. Fire in the Radio, on the other hand, employ it on their new record Monuments in a way that fondly recalls the distant past, using the inspiration of dated images to direct their sound.
“When we were writing these songs, one of our band members sent around a photograph taken on the Fourth of July,” they share. “The faded fireworks and resulting haze were reminiscent of historic monuments and rituals that had lost their significance in recent times. We separately liked the concept that songs can inspire and serve as monuments to a time and place of new beginnings. The juxtaposition of these competing ideas became a central theme of the new record.”
With this idea in mind, the band is sharing the record’s single, “Tulare,” with a video of the band playing the track as a series of old images is projected behind them, bolstering the sense of longing the single embodies.
“With ‘Tulare’ we decided to take an abstract approach to visually express reflecting on a life lost,” director Adam Peditto shares. “We combed through dozens of hours of 1950s and 1960s home movies from various sources, then projected them onto our characters. These relics were used to represent the final thoughts of a dying man. The viewer won’t recognize the faces or scenes shown in the projections, but we hoped the familiarity of these seemingly random events would invoke a sense of distant nostalgia to those watching. No one takes home movies anymore. We wanted to pay homage to the importance of the lost art.”
Monuments is out April 3—you can pre-order it here.
