The Dream Eaters have evolved from a dream pop band into a full-on video art project with an extensive catalogue of weird and darkly humorous music videos of their catchy pop songs. The duo started working together after vocalist Elizabeth LeBaron, originally from Calgary, started working at the same bar as singer/songwriter Jake Zavracky, originally from Boston, in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn.

“I AM BLEEDING INTERNALLY” is their take on synth-pop and country fusion. Their macabre sense of humor shines through, with Elizabeth citing this favourite lyric—”Now I’m crying on the floor of a Wamart store”—as “visceral and troublingly relatable.” Jake adds that “Most of our songs are about dealing with emotional problems and the lyrics are the sort of things you mutter under your breath when you’re walking around pissed off.”

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

For us, when a song is coming along very easily and it’s really starting to sound good when you haven’t really even started working the clay yet, that’s a good sign, and that’s exactly what happened here. Even by our standards the song is light and poppy, but the theme is quite dark. It also didn’t take long for us to find a vocal delivery that was working, which is also usually a good sign – if we’re really struggling to sing something then we know it might need to be re-thought.

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

This song and a lot of our music is pretty much dripping with irony – you have this almost silly sounding music that sounds like the soundtrack to Mario Kart or something juxtaposed against this very heavy theme of blood and injury. And so we tried to reflect that in the video – you’ve got Steve dancing in his pajamas which is obviously a bit of light fun but in the context of the rest of the video – the blown out reds, the flames, and mirroring that image of him, he looks almost demonic. So the whole thing mirrors the irony of the song very nicely.


3. What was the process of making this video?

Shooting it was very simple – it’s one continuous shot of Elizabeth and me singing the song, and then one continuous shot of Steve dancing. And then I just do closeups by zooming in in post. It gives the closeups a grainy look, a little cheap looking, which I like. I always shoot in 4k so there’s enough resolution there to do those close ups, but it still looks a little grainy. I like when things have a slightly cheap look to them, I think it matches well with the music, which is a little cheap sounding. Just a little bit grainy – very poppy but not too slick – that’s sort of our whole aesthetic. I definitely want everything to be approachable, to be a thing where anyone would easily be able to replicate it. A DIY thing.