MUSIC VIDEO: A fun-loving skeleton dances around Wilkes-Barre in A Fire With Friends’ ‘Pocket Leaves’
Earlier this month, NEPA Scene premiered the lyric video for “Cat Sitting, LA,” the first single from Scranton indie rock band A Fire With Friends’ upcoming album, “Polaroids.” They have since followed up with a music video for another song, “Pocket Leaves,” that embraces the strange fun of the Halloween season.
Uploaded on Friday the 13th, the video directed by David Brandt and produced by Keep It Films follows a skeleton (or, rather, someone in a skeleton bodysuit) playfully dancing, jumping, and running around Wilkes-Barre – locals can probably pick out many of the shooting locations, including the Market Street Bridge (where another local music video was shot earlier this year) and the River Common by the Susquehanna River.
It’s hard not to smile as this fun-loving boney guy cavorts around town, though he seems a bit lonely as well. “October ’round us / The sound of spilled guts and smashed pumpkins / The scenery speaks / To ‘turn and leaf’ from where we are,” vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist Daniel Rosler sings.
“Stay weird. Be who you are, bones and all,” the band wrote on Facebook.
Recorded at JL Studios in Olyphant over the past two years, “Polaroids” features 11 tracks and is set for release next Friday, Oct. 27. With six members also playing in various local bands like Esta Coda, Pity Party, Permanence, and University Drive, this was project was no easy task.
“This was the most conventionally recorded A Fire With Friends release. Aside from a short track that I recorded on some shitty free multi-track recorder on my phone and a lecture I taped, we tracked it at JL Studios. It’s taken about two years, but a lot of that time was spent throwing ideas around, experimenting in the studio, and trying to work with everyone’s off-the-wall schedules. We have at least five more songs we started that we haven’t finished for this release. It was fun just taking our time and writing,” Rosler told NEPA Scene.
“To me, [the new album] makes sonic sense in relation to the rest of the A Fire With Friends canon, but some friends who have taken an early listen think it sounds drastically different, so I’m not really sure how it compares. It’s my favorite, for sure.”
With the band turning 10 years old next year, its founder still feels that A Fire With Friends has more to say – and hopefully more great videos to make. Following the physical and digital releases of “Polaroids,” a release show is being planned for November.
“I guess there’s just something about the band that brings us back. It’s my baby, so I know why I’m still around. I don’t know why the others continue to put up with me, but I’m extremely grateful,” Rosler said.
“This feels like a warm loving home to retreat back to after branching out to explore other musical avenues. This band has been a constant for me, back when the band was a motley crew practicing in parking lots, up until now, when I’m raising a daughter with my girlfriend. There’s something really special about that to me.”
“Pocket Leaves” is also streaming below:
