WITH PASSION Releases Video For 'Pale Horses Ride'

WITH PASSION's video for the track "Pale Horses Ride" has been posted online at Earache.com and YouTube.

Commented bassist Michael Nordeen: "We shot the live band shots in a parking garage in downtown Sacramento. The girl with the axe and TV scenes were shot on the Sacramento river about a week later. We did about 20 takes on the live shots, starting at about 7:00 p.m. and ending at about 1:00 a.m. We spent about three hours setting up and waiting for the sun to set prior to starting. Scott [Cramer, director] had multiple camera angles on rollers and hand shots. He also had about three photographers throughout the video shoot taking live stills. He was a great director to work with and was very easy going as well as open to our ideas. He made the video shoot fun. It turned out better than expected, with the effects and movement that he explained to us before shooting. He spent about two weeks editing it. He took the time to make a MySpace version of the song which looks great. We were definitely happy with the final product, especially after those long hours. Video shoots are long, and hard. I guess the best way to say it is, its harder work to fake playing your own music for hours than it really is to actually play the songs. All in all, it was a great experience!"

Director Scott Cramer explains how the video came about: "The story goes like this: I get a call somewhere mid-February from a producer from iLine Entertainment, a company that executive-produced a couple of music videos for me last year. He tells me that a record label in the U.K. is looking for me to do a music video and forwards me an e-mail from Ali at Earache. I guess he found me on some film festival website looking for local music video directors. I think he recognized some work I did with THE ABOMINABLE IRON SLOTH and WILLHAVEN music videos.

"Anyway, I made up a concept based on some imagery floating around in my head when I was listening to the song that was given to me. I really wanted to do this slimy organic TV device that is growing out of the ground. It has these gas mask-like tentacles that has some kind of toxic smoke and is sending out propaganda. This thing wakes up this girl out of the water. Never establish if she's dead or alive. It's unknown. She finds it in the woods and gets seduced by it and entranced with what the device is transmitting. She ends up rejecting it, sees the evil in it, destroys it with an axe and returns to the river. All edited together with the band.

"Making the video was fun. The band is really a bunch of cool guys. They were really into it and trusted me with making something they would approve of. I told them that the last video I did, the band did 46 takes. For real. I shoot alot of takes. My experience with making band scenes is like trying to drive a car across country when you know it's gonna die on the way. I'll keep shooting and eventually the band or something is gonna stop it.

"We shot the band scene in a parking garage in downtown Sacramento. We got delayed about an hour when a security guard was not informed from the owners of the property about us shooting and dialed 911. The cops came. I explained the situation. Showed them my permits and insurance and that we were not gonna blow up the building. They left. The sun came down and it was on. We shot 'till almost 4 a.m. As we were wrapping up, the cops showed up again. This time with a disturbance call. But it was too late for the bastards. We were done and got away with it.

"Shooting the story stuff was really hard. All day I chased the sun. Ashlyn Kei Miyasaki is the living/dead girl in the video. She's a local actress here in Sacramento and I put her through hell. The Sacramento river is really cold right now. She freezed her ass off in that river. And then I had to pour water on her the whole shoot to keep the wet look. I felt so bad for her. The shit we do for art, huh?

"Anyway, got the video done in about four weeks. We shot it in HD and had a lot of post work with rotoscoping the footage into the TV and stuff. I gotta thank my crew for working for food. Without them it would of been a disaster. I'm really glad to have it done. No one died or got pregnant in the process. Good times. I hope to work with Earache again. They got some really cool music."

WITH PASSION will release its sophomore Earache CD, "What We See When We Shut Our Eyes", on May 8. The album contains 10 blistering, technically inclined pieces that have been regarded as producing an "otherworldly atmosphere" by TheApparatus.com.