Posts tagged ‘interview’

Ian Penn spent most of his youth in the mountains of Pampanga and has nature rooted deep in his soul. Folk music of the acoustic guitar troubadour – story teller variety is the soundtrack to his early years. For the past 18 months, Penn has been writing his own life’s soundtrack as he pursues his dream of being a professional recording artist. Fresh from a four-month tour of the Philippines as the supporting act for Dragonfly Collector, Penn recently launched the music video for his latest EP’s title track, Wild Abandon.

A collage of travels and wanderings textured by a Super 8 film quality, the visual dream that is this video, is in constant motion. Images of the road speeding by, water flowing, ocean waves and waterfalls, are interspersed with shots of feet walking and Penn wandering through wilderness landscapes, guitar in hand. Like the song, Penn flows along, his peaceful, smiling figure in constant motion.

Lilystars Records captured the following brief conversation with Penn about the video, its making, and Penn’s vision and philosophy behind his music.

Where was all the video shot and by whom?
The were clips from our shoot at an old abandoned brickhouse in Tarlac, some from our hiking at Sagada, Mt. Province, clips from Mt. Pinatubo, Zambales, Mt. Arayat, etc! Gibsam [Salak] included his own road trip videos and beach clips. We included my live performance clip at Within the Walls [a special concert held last year in Intramuros, Manila]. It was done by Lycean Intramuros.

Who edited the video? Did you tell the editor how to make it look or was it entirely up to the editor to tell the story? There’s a lot of motion – driving down roads, flowing water, walking through forests and down roads…is motion and travel a major theme here? It seems to match with the rhythm of the song.
I blame Gibsam for this. He’s a buddy of mine even before I’ve released any record, he knew where I was coming from.

What inspired the theme for the visuals for this song?
I remember I said to Gibsam I just wanted the music video to be candid as much as possible, your typical on the road backseat view, on a handheld Super 8 film. Ha!

What is the most important message in the song that you wanted to get out there in the video?
Wild Abandon! It has to say so much with what I’ve been doing the past one and a half year of my life.

So the video officially launched on Feb 5th at SaGuijo. How was it received by the audience and what kind of feedback have you got so far? What other things do you really want to tell about the video?
They loved it! (I think). Most of the people at the music video launch were our friends. They knew I was on the road for so long, so this was sort of a description of what it was like and what I have been doing.

I have friends coming up to me saying its a Sunday morning song, some – a rebel song. I just like the idea of having different interpretations from different people. I mean, when I wrote the song, I didn’t see certain things the way I see them now. I’ve aged! The meaning of it changes. How great is that?

Listen to Wild Abandon EP HERE
Buy links: iTunes | Bandcamp
Official Site: http://ianpenn.ph