Why we all need more air guitar in our lives

Everybody needs a little more air guitar in their lives.

On a sunny October day, Jeremy K David bounced around an Abbotsford forest, wailing on his unplugged electric guitar while his daughter filmed him.

Filming a music video for your band can be a little bit awkward when you’re playing loud music very quietly. It can also be a ton of fun.

Today, we talk to David about making a music video in the forest with his band Summer Eyes (and his daughter), watching grown-up kids take control of a video shoot, embracing our inner kids, and the joy of air guitar.

David’s band Summer Eyes has released its first full-length album and is playing it in its entirety Saturday at the Abbotsford Arts Centre’s community arts addition. We have two tickets to give away to our Insider members. Just fill out this form. We’ll choose a winner randomly Friday and email them around noon.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

The joy of air guitar

FVC: I want to ask about the video that just came out for Rewind. The song is sonically rich and kind of ethereal and your Instagram page has this fun behind-the-scenes outtake video, showing kind of how your instruments, as you would expect, aren’t plugged in. So how is playing a song for a music video different than playing in real life or during a performance?

David: I think it depends on who you're talking to. For me, it's dramatically different. I am actually trying to play the real chords or notes whenever I can, because people are always watching. There's always somebody who says, they're not really playing it so. So it's good to make it as authentic as possible.

But of course, the nature of a music video is you are playing along to yourself. So I think you saw in the video, there are some shenanigans and some laughing and it's a funny thing, right, to kind of pretend to do things.

We did another video a few years ago which was mostly in slow motion. And in order to do slow motion, it doesn't really matter what you're playing so much because it doesn't track the same way. So we literally just played a Weezer song because it just has a lot of good motion in it. And so that's the secret behind some of it.

Then as I said, it depends on who you're talking to. So Chris, for example, our lead singer, he has a drama background and he's very good at forgetting that there's cameras there and he can kind of get into a state. I don't know that it's that different than when he's actually performing the real song. He can get in that same space and, and kind of be taken somewhere else.

FVC: When you're playing guitar to yourself, is it kind of like you're playing air guitar to yourself?

David: Well, I am playing the real notes. But yeah, it feels a little bit like that. It does. It feels like when you're a kid and you're just playing air guitar to what's on the radio, 100%.

David also plays keyboards and synthesizers in the band—and in the unplugged music video.

FVC: Doing the keyboards too as well, because keyboards inherently require electricity, and if you're not plugged in, that feedback that you would have every day when you're playing keyboards is probably not there.

David: Exactly. Yeah, this video was filmed in the middle of a forest with no electricity. So yes, nothing was actually on. And yes, it is a little hard to track that. But I was trying as hard as possible to play the right things at the right time. But yeah, it's just a weird, but fun experience.

FVC: What’s most fun about it?

David: Something I said to everyone as we were filming, it was ‘I just feel like I'm 10 years old today, I just get to have fun, like it’s a play day.’ That's how that's how it feels. It just feels like you're a kid.

FVC: You're just kind of trying to perform for the camera in a way that’s un-self-conscious, I guess?

David: Exactly. You're trying to not get psyched out by the cameras, and just try to have fun with it. I think your example of air guitar is probably perfect. That feels about right for me.

FVC: Maybe as adults, we don't play enough air guitar in our lives.

David: That's true. I would agree with that. I think we need to embrace our kind of childlike self more often: go in the forest and just, you know, play make believe.

FVC: What kind of experience do you have with music videos? And as you have done more of them, how has your kind of feeling about them changed?

David: So I believe this would be our fourth live-action music video. We've done a few animated things, where we're not on camera.

You definitely get a little bit better every time you film something. We're not involving professional production companies so we really are just figuring this out as we go. You start to incorporate multiple cameras and, and kind of blocking up the shots and making sure everything's lining up. We've got as much help as we can. My daughter, Sarah [Klassen], who's a University of Washington design student, has a lot of experience with video production and she filmed this last video entirely. She brought a lot of vision to the table and really helped us out a lot. So that was huge.

FVC: What's it like, as a dad, having a kid who can kind of do that and seeing them take control in a certain way.

David: It really is the best. As a creative person, having raised kids that are not only creating their own things, but also collaborating with you on creative projects is kind of the dream.

FVC: More generally, tell me a little bit about your band and walk me through the challenges that come with trying to build an audience for a band in the Fraser Valley?

David: We're a duo at the moment [editor: during performances and the Rewind music video, they are joined by Chilliwack musician Jeff Herder]. That requires doing a lot of things ourselves and a lot of multitasking.

We’re both coming from pretty diverse musical backgrounds. Chris is coming from more of a singer-songwriter area, and I've played in lots of heavier rock bands over the years.

This band is mixing those two and adding a lot of electronic elements. I do a lot of programming in the songs, a lot of synthesizer and so there is a blending of electronic and organic sounds.

That's what's come out of this project as we've gotten together. I’m a longtime Abbotsford resident, and Chris and I have been longtime friends, but just more recent musical partners. And it's been a lot of fun doing this.

FVC: What are some of the challenges that I guess you or any musician faces in trying to build an audience?

David: One of the things about this area is there's not a lot of venues to play. If you're a singer-songwriter and you're playing by yourself with your guitar, there's a lot of coffee shops and breweries and places to perform. For very loud dynamic bands that take up a lot of space, it's not as easy, there's no nightclubs to play. So you’re kind of creating your own spaces and experiences. There's a lot of that happening in Abbotsford now, which there hasn't always been. It's just been really interesting to see, actually.

FVC: And can you tell me about your new album and the show you’re going to be playing on the weekend?

David: So the new album is called Bending Towards The Sun. It's our first full-length album, it’s 10 songs, and we're really excited about it.

All of the songs are quite different from each other but it all comes together in a really kind of beautiful way. There's lots of lows and highs. You've got soft tender moments and super electric loud moments. So just a combination of our experiences and we wrote a lot of it during COVID as most of the albums coming out now were—just getting together and putting our feelings and thoughts and energy into a song. Chris and I would get together every week during COVID, once a week, and sometimes it was productive and sometimes it was not.

I think the ritual of it brought out some really beautiful things. We're just really happy to share it, and are glad that it's getting really good reception so far,t's having some meaning for other people as well.

Bending Towards The Sun will be released Thursday, Nov. 2. Listeners can find the band’s music on its website and on Spotify and Apple Music.