VIDEO PREMIERE: Wilkes-Barre alt rock duo What Elephant? puts ‘Blast Shields Down!’ for lonely astronaut

With an alternative rock sound as vast and varied as the far reaches of outer space, only a daydreaming astronaut could traverse the wide-open world of What Elephant?
When the Wilkes-Barre-based duo – made up of singer/multi-instrumentalist David Uffner and drummer/producer Matt Simoncavage – wrote the song “Blast Shields Down!” for their new album “Water,” they imagined a cautionary science fiction story without the budgetary limitations of a Hollywood movie.
“‘Blast Shields Down!’ is from a dream about humanity leaving Earth after making it uninhabitable. It’s about not knowing what you have until it’s gone. And there’s a little twist where, upon our departure for Mars, a future interdimensional version of ourselves shows up in a spaceship and blows our ship to bits,” Uffner said.
Back on Earth, they enlisted the help of local filmmaker and fellow musician Sam O’Connell to help them create a music video that could realistically convey cosmic concepts like this.
“We were thinking about doing a video of an astronaut going around town doing mundane things for a different song called ‘Outer Space.’ Then Sam came to us with his own idea for a video involving an astronaut,” Simoncavage recalled.
“We combined these two ideas and it started to seem like a better fit for ‘Blast Shields’ – this person remembering a home now devoid of people,” Uffner continued.
They primarily filmed in Nanticoke, a tiny speck on the globe that ended up representing the small town that the fun-loving spaceman may have left behind well.
“One of the unique aspects of filming is that we filmed everything in 120 frames per second or slo-mo to enhance the space/zero gravity aesthetic. In the editing phase we made the choice to ‘invert’ all of the colors on the planet, changing the lush greens of Nanticoke into a deep purple. Space, man,” O’Connell explained.
“For all the space sequences, we filmed against a makeshift blue/green screen and leaned into some AI generative technology to build the space world. Since we’re all pals and collaborators, we filmed this with a $0 budget. One of the tricks of the trade is to overlay some distortion effects to blend the edges of what is shot practically and what is digitally created. This method is leveraged throughout the final video.”
The result, premiering today exclusively on NEPA Scene, is as impressive as the protagonist’s view from his ship. Uffner was mainly the one behind the helmet goofing off throughout the empty Luzerne County neighborhood, though Toothless vocalist Travis Antoniello also donned the orange jumpsuit to perform “that sick heel flip.”
“The man in the suit was intentionally vague – it could even be you,” O’Connell noted.
Describing themselves as an “alt music duo whose sound hops across genres and fuses textures, from hypnotic dance beats to melodic story songs,” What Elephant? is a new project breaking out of a previous one called The Human Beings.
“The Human Beings was a band made up of the two of us and pianist Josh Slosky. Years ago, David was living in Florida and doing a solo act called The Human Being. When he moved up here, we started the band together and added the ‘S.’ We played some gigs and then recorded an album called ‘In the Ten Worlds’ during the pandemic and had our album release show at Karl Hall [in Wilkes-Barre] in 2022,” Simoncavage summed up.
“Josh left the band, so we wanted to start fresh. We were already putting ‘Water’ together at that point and had gigs booked, so we just kind of kept going. We switched gears a bit and made our ‘[music for] Washing Dishes’ mixtape, which was our first real project as a duo. We knew we wanted to continue and change our name, but we had no idea yet what that would be.”
The musical transition from humans to elephants proved to be an easy one, building on what they already started.
“We plan on remaining a duo at the core but will continue to collaborate with others on and off the stage. There are a bunch of guests across all of our projects, and we definitely want to keep that going. For playing live, we’ve been getting comfortable utilizing live loops so that we can play our songs as close to the studio versions as possible, but with just the two of us and without having to rely on backing tracks,” Simoncavage said.
“We lean into being diverse. Kind of spacey, rocky, tells a story. But at the end of the day, there are guitars and drums and you can usually tap your foot to it,” Uffner emphasized.
The only difficult part was settling on a moniker that brought all of that together.
“We were banging our heads off the wall for months trying to come up with something that felt right. One night, David called the situation the ‘elephant in the room’ and we both just said, ‘That’s it!’ It ended up being taken by a lot of other bands, but we still wanted to do something with it or find another way to say it,” Simoncavage recounted.
“We saw a clip from an old Broadway musical where this character is trying to steal his elephant away from the circus, and he gets stopped by the police. And with the animal right behind him, he goes, ‘What elephant?’ We felt that kind of absurd denial of the elephant in the room, even after it’s been pointed out, spoke to a lot of things personally, socially, and artistically,” Uffner added.
Both “[music for] Washing Dishes” and an EP, “From the Ten Worlds,” were released in April, establishing all those things in two different recording formats. Now they’re ready to introduce everyone to their debut full-length album, “Water,” which just flooded all major streaming platforms on July 5.

“‘Water’ started as the next Human Beings album but was put on the shelf during ‘Washing Dishes.’ Once that was done, we just started attacking it. We did everything ourselves up in my spare bedroom-turned-studio. Our original goal was for me to roughly mix everything as ‘good-sounding demos’ that we could then maybe shop to studios. About halfway through, I realized this wasn’t a demo anymore and I got really into the whole process. A lot of trial and error but, through the experience, I learned how to mix music,” Simoncavage said.
“Making the album took a little over a year. I’d say it was pretty much equal parts easygoing and challenging. You can see how much fun we’re having in our ‘making of’ videos on YouTube. At the same time, we were trying to push ourselves as songwriters and musicians, and even producers.”
“The songs came about pretty organically,” Uffner concurred.
“Water itself kept coming up in the writing. Once that idea was at the center, some other songs that had been lying around for years started finishing themselves.”
They had help from many different contributors, leading to 10 pachyderm-sized tracks that trample over genre conventions.
“We have our good friend Rose Daniels on vocals on ‘The Rheostat’ and ‘Well Gone Dry.’ ‘Well Gone Dry’ is as much her song as it is ours. Sam and Anna [O’Connell] from the band Noxen are featured on ‘Not Sure How We Got Here.’ We actually got to perform that one live with them at their final show. There are also vocals from Francine Roussel and Theresa Uffner, David’s sister, throughout ‘What Happens If I Lose My Soul.’ We traveled to Philly to record with Jin Mitsui, an incredibly talented saxophonist, who is featured on ‘The Jane Hotel.’ The last song on the album has a sing-along at the end where all of these guests from throughout the album come back. That song also has Travis Antoniello on trumpet, our best bud Kevin Kaminski on some pots and pans, and my dog, Shadow, as well,” Simoncavage listed.
“Each of these talented people have been huge sources of joy in our lives. They just brought their inner voice with them and helped these songs shine,” Uffner enthused.
“As the album progresses, there is meant to be a flow from dark and complex to hopeful and more human. I think the central theme is who we become when the most fundamental, taken-for-granted aspects of life are suddenly brought into question.”
In addition to the “Blast Shields” video, What Elephant? has been developing their own visual style as well, as seen on the intriguing “Water” album cover and song visualizers.
“In the past, I think we’d throw a lot at the wall and, even if it didn’t stick, we’d pin it up there anyway. With What Elephant? and especially this album, we’ve wanted to be more straightforward and just get to the essence of the thing,” Uffner affirmed.
All that’s left is the live show. The duo is currently working on getting comfortable learning all their songs, along with some covers, in the aforementioned two-person looping format that will make them stand out in the Northeastern Pennsylvania music scene even more than they already do, living up to their name.
“We’re aiming to be ready to start playing out in the fall,” Uffner said.
“More release plans for this year. … We’ll hit ya’ll up on the Internet.”

by Rich Howells
Rich is an award-winning journalist, longtime blogger, photographer, and podcast host. He is the founder and editor of NEPA Scene.