Michigan-bred folk-rockers Frontier Ruckus have spent most of 2014 touring behind their dark (and excellent) fourth album, Sitcom Afterlife, but they’re ending the year on such a positive note, it borders on psychotic. Their video for “Bathroom Stall Hypnosis” is easily the weirdest Christmas-themed clip we’ve seen in a while, thanks to one candy-obsessed little girl. Flavorwire is proud to premiere the home video sugar coma in all its glory.
“This video is probably the most insane visual interpretation of our music that we’ve endorsed,” frontman Matthew Milia tells Flavorwire. “It’s simultaneously shocking and funny and yet festively allegorical. We were turned onto the video directors Weston Getto Allen and Dorian Electra by our buddy Paul Cherry. We were really into how weird they were but also impressed with how resourcefully they were able to make complex music videos on VHS. We gave them artistic carte blanche and were braced for something horrifying. We loved it. It kind of feels like a holiday mix of The Ring with The Santa Clause, minus Tim Allen. It has a completely separate, or perhaps parallel, narrative to the young-adult hedonism that occurs in the song, but I like the unsettling effect that the combination produces.”
After the holidays, Frontier Ruckus will begin recording their fifth album early next year, amidst an ambitious tour schedule that takes them to Europe and beyond. “It’s a bit more of a return to simpler instrumentation and a more sparse sound,” Milia says of the album. “A lot of the songs have a sort of sweet sadness to them, I’ve been told.”