Jean Caffeine is “the most famous person you’ve never heard of.” Her latest single, “I Don’t Want to Kill You Anymore,” presents a nice tension between the almost punky vocal delivery and sentiment, and the hooky, more sugary retro-pop sound. Co-written with John Kovach (The Eggmen), with Zack Humphrey (Megafauna) on drums and Jon Notarthomas (Faces’ Ian McLagan) on guitar, Poprock Record describes “I Don’t Want to Kill You Anymore” as “hilarious and earworm infectious. Disguised as an homage to early 1960s girl group twee pop…This is one perfect feminist rock and roll statement, both hard-hitting and hooky…Caffeine has produced a 3 and half minute masterpiece.”

It’s accompanied by a brand new music video, featuring a mash-up of footage and stills from a lo-fi band rehearsal in her living room, a gig at Buckminster’s Cat Cafe in Buffalo, silly animal hats worn alongside bassist Angela Tran, and a cemetery in Tlaplan, Mexico City where she took part in a visual arts residency. As a mixed media artist and art educator, Jean Caffeine teaches collage and works with layers, incorporating her artwork into videos where possible.

1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically? 

This isn’t really my story. I got inspired by something a friend said. But it was so relatable it clicked. Sometime the sky almost seems to gift you and rains down almost a whole song at the point of creation. It was like that with this one. I was working to learn a certain chord progression at the time and everything just fell into place. My friend and sometimes collaborator, John Kovach was helping me learn that chord progression and he is a co-writer on this song. He wrote a verse.

2. What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?

My friend Katie O’Neill (singer of Star Material) shot some great footage at one of my rehearsals so that was the starting point and she sets the tone. There isn’t much of a story line. I make (and teach) mixed media and collage so I have the practice of putting a lot of disparate pieces together in my 2D work and repurposing things so I applied that principle to this and other videos I’ve put together in iMovie. It’s a kind of “stone soup” process: A bit of this, a bit of that. Although I wish it could do a bit more, I love making videos in iMovie. It’s so user friendly and fun. I’ve enjoyed making hodge-podge style videos for my songs and sneaking my artwork into them.  Here’s another one I made for an older song about older days.

It includes drawings that I made. Winterland Talking Blues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciSUZlRRdBY

3.What was the process of making this video?

First I worked to match Katy’s rehearsal footage with the recording. Then repurposed some live footage that showed me playing with Angela, my bass player on the track because she wasn’t at that rehearsal Katy filmed. This fall, I performed at my cousin in the Catio of my cousin- in-laws’ Cat Cafe. There was a separate “Cat Zone” where you could play with the cats. I asked my pal Mike Trebilcock to film me in the “Cat Zone”. I looked ridiculous pretty ridiculous, so I only used a bit of it. 

This winter I went to an art residency in Mexico City. In addition to working on printmaking and collage, and cartooning there, I worked to finish the video. Even though the song is intentionally irreverent, in this time of terrible wars, division, and death I was really reluctant to put out a video that had the words “Kill You” in it. So I’d been procrastinating.  When I played around with drawing and layering to bring in simple symbols that were pro-peace and love, I felt better about the messaging. I also took a walk to the local cemetery filmed there. That helped tie things up at the end. And lo and behold, more cats. (only one cat made the edit). I have four cats at home, so they are also a recurring theme.

Jean started out as a scenester, zinester and drummer on San Francisco’s first wave punk scene in the late ’70s. In 1980, she migrated to New York, where she worked at Danceteria where she DJ-ed. While playing in a Velvet Underground cover band at Club 57, she was recruited by Ann Magnuson to drum for Pulsallama, a theatrical percussive buzz band who opened shows for The Clash. When Pulsallama disbanded, Jean joined Clambake featuring Grammy nominee Holly George-Warren. Following a move to Austin, she fronted an alternative country band, Jean Caffeine‘s All-Nite Truckstop.