North Carolina indie rock band Flagship recently released their self-titled debut LP — and with it, a bevy of singles and videos. We premiered their video for “Break The Sky” back in the early part of October, and now we get to have a look behind the scenes of that shoot. Between singer Drake Margolnick’s intensely expressive vocals and the sustained pastoral landscape that the band creates and inhabits, Flagship find themselves at a crossroads between the bucolic pomp of bands like Arcade Fire and Fleet Foxes and the rustic mentality of My Morning Jacket. There is also a seemingly fraternal relationship within the band that fuels their lush sounds and rhythms. This is evidenced in the casual backstage banter and almost familial ease that they display with each other in their downtime between takes.
The video also breaks down the various aspects of filming and how each composite piece fits together – from the band’s performance, to location shooting and lights, and the development of the video’s concept. “Shooting in the old abandoned PTL hotel was very cool. It was huge, felt like a haunted house. This is one of the first songs we wrote as Flagship, which made this video special,” says Margolnick about the video and shoot.
Bassist Chris Comfort has own recollections: “Shooting and tracking “Break The Sky” was an experience. “Break the Sky” is the only song on the album tracked three different times on separate occasions and the most exhaustive video the band has done to date. From the first time we tracked it to it finally being the way we wanted it, it was about 4 months. Technically the second time out we tracked it, we were pretty happy, but a mild dance party in conjunction with a coffee mug broke the hard drive we were tracking to, so that was that. The journey to getting BTS as a song and video was a long one, but a fun one. The video shoot was pretty relaxed. The video was shot in the run down, burnt out Carolina Theater in Charlotte. It felt a bit like an underworld, and once you walk out the doors, it’s Tryon Street in uptown Charlotte, so somewhat of a paradox for my mind that day. It could be that Charlotte is a dark financial underworld with finance Sith Lords, but that has nothing to do with BTS.”
Beats Per Minute is pleased to premiere the behind-the-scenes video for Flagship’s “Break The Sky.”
