PREMIERE: Watch TWICEYOUNG’S Haunting “Uncover” Video

Reflecting on bad decisions is an inescapable burden—especially when you’re young, wondering how they’ll effect your future. Nashville three-piece TWICEYOUNG take on that challenging mindset in their troubling video for “Uncover,” the band’s first single from their upcoming album Prefer You, out November 11.

In the Roland Bingaman-directed visual clip, a young girl gets caught up in a burglary with her bad boy companion. Their breaking-and-entering and reckless driving away is offset by dreamy facial close-ups in a way that brings to mind The Bling Ring and Spring Breakers—but unlike those films, TWICEYOUNG’s “Undercover” video doesn’t glamorize juvenile delinquency. The earnest and beautifully shot video is more haunting like a menacing, PG-13 version of modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.

We caught up with the band’s singer Tyler Laspopooulos to talk about how the video came together, shooting for 21 straight hours, and running across rooftops in Philly.

How do the song lyrics relate to the video plot?
Tyler: The lyrics to ‘Uncover’ are written from a place of reflection over some really tough decisions, and whether the right call had been made. As well as feeling haunted by those choices. The video is putting that frantic decision making into physical motion. Ultimately, that question in both the song and video is, “Was it worth it?”

There’s a lot of running going on in the video. Didn’t everyone get pretty worn out?
We were all incredibly exhausted by the end of shooting. We moved from location to location shooting for 21 straight hours.

Can you talk about the female character’s breakdown?
The idea was to create a whole story then only tell this one small piece of it. She’s kind of this frustrated and somewhat bored Bonnie Parker [from Bonnie and Clyde] type anti-hero.

What made you want to incorporate a love story?
We definitely didn’t initially set out to incorporate a love story at all. As we developed the characters and plot it seemed like a natural direction for these two individuals. From what we see in the video, these two people were never really on the same page. Just caught in a vortex.

Photo by Star Splitter Media

You guys are known to give out your music for free. Do you think more bands should be doing this?
Yes, it proved incredibly helpful for our last EP release. Just straight out the gate, “Here’s our debut EP for free, spread it around.” I think it helped gain a fan base that can trust that we do this for the music.

It seems like you don’t particularly like starring in your own music videos. What’s the reasoning behind this?
We really love creating concepts for artwork and videos, but being in front of the camera just hasn’t been necessary yet. It’s something that will inevitably happen, but for now it’s just more fun bringing in actors we trust.

Where does the band’s name come from?
Before this band existed, I spent the final six months of my grandmother’s life by her side listening to her reflect on her crazy twenties. Traveling, old flames, racing cars, music she enjoyed, etc. She was way cooler than me. For a while I became obsessed with the idea of youth and losing time. In both a depressing way and in an inspiring way. This feeling of nostalgia toward a past that wasn’t even mine lead to ton of new songs and the name “TWICEYOUNG.”

What’s your favorite scene from the video?
Running across the rooftops in East Philly. Those shots turned out perfect. No one would let us use their roof so we ended up sneaking around all night, climbing random fire escapes.

Mathias Rosenzweig is a writer living in NYC. He’s on Twitter – @lil_nervous.